Prog is often the butt of many a music joke, but it brings it on itself. Eighteen minute bore-athons about God knows what and passages of grade A guitar wanking simply don’t cut it in an age when people want what they want as quick as possible. That’s why Coheed & Cambria are so popular, combining a jagged, proggier influence with overt pop sensibilities.
With a bit of luck, Canada’s Diatessaron could be the next Coheed & Cambria – they extrapolate both the pop and prog ends of the sound, as well as chucking in a whole load of everything else for good measure. The result of such an ambitious cocktail of sounds is new album ‘Sunshine’, an enormously eclectic and baffling listen.
When they fully embrace the poppier side of things is when Diatessaron shine brightest. Opener ‘All The Way’ makes use of some truly glorious vocal harmonies, while ‘Sky Blue’ is just a great, straightforward rock track. Vocalist Simon TJ has some really lovely moments as well, and while his style is directly comparable to Claudio Sanchez, it works really well.
Unfortunately, much of ‘Sunshine’ gets bogged down in its kitchen sink approach to writing. The fiddly plod of ‘In The End’ barely pulls itself out of second gear, and ‘The Place Where The Sun Never Sets’ sounds bizarrely cod-calypso. The album’s main feature piece – the three-track ‘Sunshine’ saga – suffers from the same problem, throwing together polar opposite sounds for something truly exhausting.
That’s why it’s hard to really love ‘Sunshine’ – for every moment of brilliance, there’s at least another that prevents it from truly soaring. Given time to iron out the creases then Diatessaron could definitely be onto something in the future, but for now, it’s all a bit directionless.
2.5/5
‘Sunshine’ by Diatessaron is released on 11th September.
Diatessaron links: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Words by Luke Nuttall(@nuttall_luke)
