I don’t know this band, but the way they’re being written about I feel that I should. How does a band return for its debut album? This lot from California apparently have. I can’t say I’d heard of the bands they came from – Rings of Saturn and Vampire Squid being two of them. The bit that did interest me was the style: melodic progressive metalcore. “Endless layers of transcendent sound” is how they have it. Let’s leave aside the hype and listen, shall we?
“Pathkeeper” is the opening song. It was more lightweight than I expected, at least at first, but it’s certainly melodic and metalcore. The riff is fast and hard. The song bounces along like something from one of those Finnish melodic metal bands. Clean and harsh vocals feature, the chorus is catchy and there are flamboyant guitar solos. It all borders on cheesy jollity but escapes that and is a nice song. I rationalised my thinking a little bit when I listened to “Bound to Fall”. It just sounds too nice for nasty stuff like metalcore. The progressive melody stands in direct contrast to the odd bit of aggression. The patterns are good but it’s like listening to soft Soilwork. The catchy emo chorus is ok but waters down any semblance of aggression. I feel more soothed than angry. Interloper do know how to create a sophisticated and energetic song, and once again “Moonlight” floats through different light and dark iterations, but for something so melodic I strangely didn’t get hooked into it. I’d been thinking that if this album was going to focus on the softer end of the metal spectrum, then dreaminess would be the place to go. The title “Dreamlands” appropriately enough comes along, but challenges rather than indulges us by combining emotion, aggression and complexity. There’s something here but it was escaping me. I liked the technical metal beginning of “Drift” but whilst appreciating its vigour, the multitude of ingredients and elements made it seem as if it was overthought. Yet it always retains a fresh melody, most definitely a highlight of this mixed bag of an album.
Another highlight for me was the title song. Unlike what went before, it’s not trying to be everything at once but combines acoustic and Opeth style guitar work to make a riveting listen. The clean vocals have harmony and emotion in them, going nicely with the vibrant rhythm of the song. From this we go to the fast, technical and melodeath “The Wishing Well”. We’ve gone from Opeth to Soilwork. “Search Party” and “The Wishing Well” is like listening to two different bands. They’re both good songs but personally I’d have preferred some continuity. The thundering back wall and momentary exotic background saved “Idle Years” from being bland. Again, it’s a lighter Soilwork clone. Now as soon as I saw the song titles, I was intrigued to see one called “Cheshire”. Surely they haven’t done a song about Crewe? Sadly, there was no information indicating the origin of this song but I’ll tell you what, it’s a most interesting shadowy and sophisticated metal song. This is the “layers of transcendent sound” that they’re talking about. “Cheshire” the song has an exotic feel. There’s even a subtle layer of djent in it. Again, it proved to me that Interloper are better off developing a single mood and mixing it all up. I suppose it was inevitable that my nice dream would be interrupted by a harsh metalcore battery. Such is “Baring Teeth”. Again, it’s a flamboyant bouncy song with melodic technical elements, growls and an innocuous vocal line. They’re all good individually but instead of the parts making a greater whole, well they just don’t. That would be it but there’s an added cover of Duran Duran’s “Rio”. It’s not my thing really but I did appreciate that Interloper deal with it creatively.
Stylistically I found this album conflicting and overlapping. It’s always a challenge to blend styles but I’m not sure this band has found their place yet. Hopefully when Interloper return for their second album they’ll have sorted out what they want to be. Yet “Search Party” has energy, melody, great instrumental work and invigorating songs. So, it has many good qualities to enjoy while that search is still on.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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