Projections from the Past

"Projections from the Past" is the debut album by Opoczno-based band Subterfuge. Looking at the tracklist you can immediately guess what you will hear when you put it in the player - two discs, long titles, duration of the numbers around 6 minutes: yeah, it will be prog-metal. The physical version makes a very good impression: the classic artwork (painted, not created in PhotoShop) looks very nice and, after unfolding the digipak, we get access to an atmospheric, permanently glued booklet with lyrics and drawings, referring to the individual compositions. Both the band and the publisher, in the form of Chameleon Records, have taken the subject matter seriously, making "Projections from the Past" truly pleasing to the eye.

Subterfuge's debut is a sizable concept-album telling the story of a man who, disillusioned by the reality around him, decides to take part in a scientific experiment - he is put into hibernation to wake up in a "brave new world". When he opens his eyes, however, he is not greeted by crowds of journalists, scientists with congratulations and champagne. What he finds is a world ruined by nuclear war, ruled by mutated animals. Wandering through the wastelands, he reminisces about his former life and finally arrives at "The Place" - the last bastion of humanity. An oasis in the desert? Not necessarily, as the city turns out to be ruled by a "saviour or tyrant", and the finale of the attempt to overthrow him proves to be rather unobvious and... bitter. This interesting story, however, will not find its final conclusion on the album - "Projections from the Past" is intended as the beginning of a trilogy, so we have to be prepared for the fact that not all themes will be properly developed or explained here.

The lyrics on the album are sung by Mateusz Drzewicz and Kinga Lis. The vocalist known from Hellhaim or Divine Weep, who plays the main character, obviously has the most to say here. He tries to use the full range of his voice: when necessary, he reaches almost "halford-like" registers ("Vicious Machine"), at other times he sings surprisingly softly ("Dead Demons"), only to attack with furious growls and screams ("Like a Ghost", "Sinful Dreams", "Mountain of Doom"). Kinga doesn't lag behind either, although she obviously got less airtime due to the story. At times she sings longer passages of lyrics (e.g. "Sinful Dreams", "The Place", "World in Red"), in places she does the chorus, and in some compositions her parts intertwine nicely with those of Matthew (the surprisingly aggressively sung "Puppets of the Creator"). Vocally, there is a lot going on on this album, but at times you can hear the duo struggling to maintain melodicity - I get the impression that there are simply too many words in some of the lyrics. So I'm hoping that the main composer, i.e. Tiberiusz Słodkiewicz, will find that balance between form and content in the second part.

Musically, there is also a lot going on on Subterfuge's debut album. The disc contains more than 80 minutes of sounds, confined, admittedly, to the progressive metal cabinet, but also not afraid to draw inspiration from other, less noisy musical genres. We get heavy metal fragments (e.g. "Nuclear Cage" or "Vicious Machine"), broken rhythms and numerous tempo changes ("Like a Ghost", "Now It's Clear"), almost death-like playing ("Mountain of Doom") and... violin parts ("World in Red"), saxophone playing ("Like a Ghost", "Sinful Dreams") or wonderfully "eighties-styled" keyboards in "Projections from the Past". Each composition tries to be different and stand out in some way. You can't complain about boredom, especially that the musicians do their best: the solos are interesting and well-thought-out ("Vicious Machine"!) and the rhythm section runs like clockwork (applause for Bartek Grochulski for his work in "Darkness" or "40 Silver Coins"). Next time, however, the mastering needs to be worked on longer, as it all sounds rather raw in places - there is a lack of space, breath, and some instrument parts get lost under the pressure of overly loud vocals and guitars (the bass in particular).

"Projections from the Past", despite some minor flaws, is nevertheless an interesting proposition for fans of more ambitious forms of metal. This post-apocalyptic tale manages to draw in and surprise the listener with unobvious parts or musical twists. And even though the overall sound leaves a lot to be desired, and the rhythmic and melodic quality of the lyrics could still be improved, this can be forgiven, as it is the band's debut - it is clear that things cannot be perfect. I am very curious what I will hear on the group's next album: the second part of the trilogy entitled "Prometheus". I encourage you to get acquainted with "Projections from the Past", especially in the form of a nice digipak from Kameleon Records.

Originally written for www.metalside.pl