Shepherds Of Cassini - Shepherds of Cassini Album Review
I first came across the Shepherds of Cassini earlier this year when I heard a demo of their track Eyelid on Soundcloud. It was an interesting track, epic in length and full of prog-rock goodness. I liked it, actually, I liked it a lot, and I was interested to see what they would do next.
The answer is their debut self-titled album, released in August. If Eyelid, which features as track two, was the entrée, then the album is the main and desert rolled into one. It’s a pretty massive album, essentially seven tracks that merge and blend into one long journey through some interesting places. Mostly instrumental, the album never feels like it misses vocals, and where voices are used, like in the final two tracks of the album, it’s as another texture to the music, rather than something that takes centre place in the sound.
The four piece manages to combine a pretty wide range of influences to create their own sound – there’s a bits and pieces of different prog-rock bands of the last few decades in there, a bit of middle-Eastern sound (perhaps courtesy of An Emerald City’s Felix Lun, a band that was no stranger to prog-rock and the music and sounds of the middle-East), and some moments that are definitely Tool-like (although you could argue that Tool are just prog-metal…); the album journeys between soft, melodic moments to some pretty heavy and driving riffs, sometimes in the space of a few seconds.
This is really an album that deserves to be listened to from start to finish, rather than picking out individual tracks (although my favourite The Silent Cartographer, would stand pretty well on its own I think); it’s the experience of the whole that matters here, and while there were a few moments that seemed to drag on a bit in repetition, they were few and far between and easily dismissed when given the broader impact of the music. For a band that’s only been around a couple of years this is a well-produced and mature debut.
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About Shepherds Of Cassini
Shepherds Of Cassini are a post-metal/progressive-rock band from Auckland. Formed in 2012, the group’s line-up consists of Omar Al-Hashimi on drums (from Pilgrim's Pyre), Vitesh Bava on bass (from Pilgrim's Pyre), Felix Lun on electric violin (from An Emerald City) and Brendan Zwaan on guitar and vocals (from Flood).
The band combine progressive rock with post-metal influences, along with psychedelic sound experimentation. Their scope consists of lengthy songs involving dynamic compositions, middle-eastern influenced melody, percussive tribal breakdowns, hypnotic constructions of rhythmic ideas and complex arrangements. Themes explored range from metal influenced riffing, post rock influenced soundscapes through to exotic, surreal passages of gentle melody.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Shepherds Of Cassini
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