The Apostle Fractal’s hybrid rock is rich with components of pop, Celtic, Gothic, and global metal. Only after a couple of dose of the group’s album Ichabod Suite, the progressive-metal aficionado would find ease in tracing those elements to the music of the likes of Cruachan, Evanescence, and Nightwish.
The seven-track concept album is a musical journey to a tumultuous, historical past expressed in a dramatic blend of primarily folk and metal. Ichabod Suite opens with “Jeremiah’s Waltz,” which conjures an image of a traveler trekking through a valley, aiming for a distant mountain. Arpeggiated guitar lines and tribal tom-based drumbeats with a hint of jazz reinforce this imagery. This short instrumental fades into the slow-tempo ballad “Hue and Cry,” led by dark piano melodies and cold-sounding guitar lines, with lyrics of loss, yearning, and reflection, sung by a female voice that resonates Amy Lee of Evanescence and Anette Olzon of Nightwish.
“If I Forget” starts with a Biblically-inspired narrative, highlighting that the album carries a retrospective theme. It builds up into a multi-layered texture of various sounds coming from a diversity of instruments. The subtle and steely “Ichabod” serves as the album’s male-vocal vehicle, an apt gender counterpart of the previous track. “Mediums and Excursions” is when the traveler seems close to the foot of the mountain that he was aiming for; the music seamlessly complements this visual image. “Too in a Chord” is definitely global/folk metal. It features a reprise of the spoken-word drama, less-than-simple arrangement, and instrumentation that is led by a rustic flute sound (reminiscent of Cruachan, particularly songs from this Irish band’s third studio album, Folk-Lore, 2002).
The album closes with “Ichabod” (Short Version) which is, oddly, lengthier than its predecessor. This is a strange but welcome play on the senses of the keen listener, perhaps a part of the quirkiness of progressive types of music.
The seven-track concept album is a musical journey to a tumultuous, historical past expressed in a dramatic blend of primarily folk and metal. Ichabod Suite opens with “Jeremiah’s Waltz,” which conjures an image of a traveler trekking through a valley, aiming for a distant mountain. Arpeggiated guitar lines and tribal tom-based drumbeats with a hint of jazz reinforce this imagery. This short instrumental fades into the slow-tempo ballad “Hue and Cry,” led by dark piano melodies and cold-sounding guitar lines, with lyrics of loss, yearning, and reflection, sung by a female voice that resonates Amy Lee of Evanescence and Anette Olzon of Nightwish.
“If I Forget” starts with a Biblically-inspired narrative, highlighting that the album carries a retrospective theme. It builds up into a multi-layered texture of various sounds coming from a diversity of instruments. The subtle and steely “Ichabod” serves as the album’s male-vocal vehicle, an apt gender counterpart of the previous track. “Mediums and Excursions” is when the traveler seems close to the foot of the mountain that he was aiming for; the music seamlessly complements this visual image. “Too in a Chord” is definitely global/folk metal. It features a reprise of the spoken-word drama, less-than-simple arrangement, and instrumentation that is led by a rustic flute sound (reminiscent of Cruachan, particularly songs from this Irish band’s third studio album, Folk-Lore, 2002).
The album closes with “Ichabod” (Short Version) which is, oddly, lengthier than its predecessor. This is a strange but welcome play on the senses of the keen listener, perhaps a part of the quirkiness of progressive types of music.
