The Alchemist

From the underground roots of the Floridian metal scene stands Skyliner, a group of lone purveyors of a rather unique melding of progressive, power and heavy metal. Not more than 2 years ago they revamped their sound into a rather auspicious blend of German speed and fury with an attitude based vocal growl to match, calling in comparisons to the likes of Running Wild and Grave Digger. But there is also this continual sense of virtuosity about the band that is atypical for this style, almost as if a Dream Theater cover band decided to fire their James LaBrie sound-alike and replace him with someone capable of putting some gusto to go along with the expected clean tenor vocals.

Skyliner’s latest offering, a 2 song EP named “The Alchemist”, reiterates the same general point, but with a much stronger production quality. The drum and bass presence has become notably larger sounding, to the point of rivaling the values heard on “Rogues En Vogue”, while the guitar sound has gotten quite a bit thicker and chunkier. But the real treats to be found on here is a rather unique mixture of orthodox 80s influences packed in with some 70s progressive rock detailing into 2 epic packages. The songs are definitely catchy, with well defined chorus sections that rely more on a singular hook than a choir of backup voices, but they also wander around a bit, keeping the listener guessing.

Probably the strongest attribute of this album is the original take on soloing that traces out the borders of this already elaborate whole. Rather than the usual back and forth of keyboard leads having it out with a shredding neo-classical/jazz influence guitar medley, the bass matches wits with the typical six-string leader. The bass work on here actually outdoes the guitars in terms of filling up the solo section with fast notes, and almost listens like an improvised free jazz bass session going on over top of an 80s NWOBHM inspired riff set. The guitars are actually more rock influenced when soloing, sort of like an orthodox restatement of 70s Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth tendencies where blues influences had as much of an impact as the classical ones that Yngwie would later popularize.

What this band needs is a record deal, or at the very least, the resources and time necessary to put out more material. This is the sort of music that is actually so evenly split between its two principle styles that it can cross the fence and rope in both traditional 80s fans and Prog heads alike. The only thing that this band falls short on apart from maybe putting a few too many good ideas together, is that they can’t seem to hold on to a regular bass player to save their own lives, to the point of emulating the same problem that Jeff Loomis has keeping an axe mate in Nevermore on a permanent basis. But neither one of these should dissuade anyone from checking these guys out, so get to it already.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on July 22, 2011.