No name checking required.
Textures is an appropriate name for this band, “Silhouettes”, their new and third full length is packed with variety; not content to plough the direct path, they pack in tons of ideas and styles to make something very distinctive and very interesting.
From track one the album explodes with layers of noise; ‘Old Days Born Anew’ sets the dark and heavy tone of the record with thrash style drums, deep and low riffs and plenty of vocal aggression. Throughout this opener, they also weave moments of melody and intersperse the more straightforward heavy assault with sections of broken, awkward rhythm. The constant changes of pace have you wrong-footed many times but always in a good way. Their approach is sometimes reminiscent of Killswitch Engage, especially the vocal style, which is gruff screams one moment and powerful and melodic the next.
A comparison to Killswitch is a little simplistic however - in theory it gives an idea of how heavy and intense Textures are - but it does the band a disservice, because overall their approach is more experimental and eclectic, and at times, like on closing track ‘To Erase A Lifetime’ they are far heavier than Killswitch could ever hope to be. So you’d think that perhaps throwing in comparisons to *Shels, Dilinger Escape Plan and Cave In might help pin them down but it really doesn’t.
However many names get checked, Textures successfully fail to ever really sound like anyone else; their riffs and hooks are defiantly not derivative and remain distinctive throughout. The facts speak for themselves - this is a band that are progressive at their core, not afraid to mix things up between super heavy sludge and spacey meandering and their solid base of melody means they always manage to keep the listener engaged. It’s an easy record to recommend, a satisfying listening experience; intense, very heavy and full of melodic sections that never compromise the darkness.