Angertea – Snakes In Blossom

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18th March 2016 Liam Savage Album Reviews 0

One might mistake this band’s name for a hateful boiling beverage at first glance, but once you delve into Angertea’s current album, the listener soon realizes they have a very expansive, mood-based sound that’s rooted in a beautiful prog backdrop.

To label this release as solely metal wouldn’t be totally accurate as the band incorporate many sounds into their arsenal, and the beautiful part about progressive music is that contrary to popular belief, there shouldn’t be limitations to the music. This is very apparent when listening to their bass-driven approach (played masterfully by Miguel Peralta). Guitarist Gergely Mihály serves to accent and create atmosphere with his instrument, and his vocals range from subtle and gentle to explosive and raging, while drummer László Bárkai delivers patient and skillful arrangements to round out the overall sound.

This Hungarian power-trio does their best to create a sound that shows off diversity in their approach, which is evident in the album opener “Snakes” which has a forceful delivery and hits the listener with a sonic punch with vocals that go from clean and elevated to harsh screaming. Other standout tracks like “Sinking In Strain” and “Seeds Of Hell” highlight a bit of a throwback sound which evokes memories of Tool and Alice In Chains respectively. “Aquarium” slows down the pace with it’s melancholic violin and female vocals (Flóra Sarusi-Kis) in beautiful ballad form. “Orange Machine” with it’s sharp guitar riffs brings a lumbering, heavy rumble to the eardrums and keeps the energy and flow current, while the second half of the album peppers inthe heavy sound with atmospheric, spacey arrangements to keep things interesting.

What’s exciting about this release is you don’t know where the band will go next. I don’t mean that in the sense that they are switching styles all the time, but more in meaning that they have no problem seamlessly incorporating many different layers into the overall delivery. One moment they can be very focused in a heavy manner, and in another moment they can sound very astral and atmospheric with tribal layers strewn throughout the mix.

While wearing their influences on their sleeves to some degree, the band gives their own brand of originality to a progressive realm that shows that not all bands in the genre need to give in to overly technical situations and time-signature expectancy, but can just let things develop and expand without limitations.

Tracklist

1. Snakes
2. Sinking in Strain
3. Seeds of Hell
4. Aquarium
5. Orange Machine
6. St. Andrew’s Storm
7. The Song for Vengeance
8. Instancy
9. The Moon Encounter
10. Tisza

Playing time: 48:55

Release date: 15 March, 2016

Label: Inverse Records

Website: http://angertea.com

About Liam Savage 49 Articles

I've always enjoyed metal music, but only had that real breakthrough moment while watching music videos on TV, and Pantera's "Mouth For War" and Sepultura's "Arise" came on back-to-back. This started a love affair and passion for metal that has happened since the early 90's. Since then, I've amassed quite a large CD collection, have written for Unrestrained! magazine in the early 2000's, and after taking about a ten year break from writing, joined "Power Of Metal" in 2016. My favourite sub-genres in metal are Progressive, Technical, Death, Power, Folk, Experimental and more.