The Dystopian Project’s Paradigm EP is no short listen, with its four tracks weighing in at well over 35 minutes. The opening track, Ashes of Time, is an uplifting waltz with soaring falsetto vocals and layered harmonies and homophonic guitar bedding akin to TesseracT, but with more focus lent to other instrumentation such as piano and synthesisers to round out and thicken the texture wonderfully. Dual layered guitar solos appear to bring us to the end, but then it forges ahead further with multiple near-finales.
BGN begins much calmer in contrast building into another pounder. A good track, but formulaic in comparison to the rest of the EP and noticeably shorter weighing in at five minutes. You get the impression that their craft really is well seated in the longer journeys.
Death Leaves An Echo begins with soft chorused guitar before introducing a thick syncopated guitar chord pattern (which is leant from the chorus, interestingly a structural technique found in a lot of pop music) setting the scene into the bands trademark harmonies which instead of leading to an expected chorus push forward to an extended pre-chorus which pushes up even further when the chorus hits. It’s this skillmanship in their writing that really jumps out at me as something I’d listen to over and over again and still find additional interest.
Finally the nineteen minute epic of the Utopian Suite begins with another waltz piece on guitar and piano before light percussion and toms join in washed in reverb. With a track of this nature it’s all about setting the scene, so they have no need to punch in at the four bar mark. Ah, but when they do, it’s all guns blazing with full on guitar solos whining across the spectrum before a Celtic influenced melody and split rhythm leads a verse into another trademark chorus.
Ascension leads through to part 2, entitled Acceptance which is much more frantic and has a wonderfully disjointed rhythmic effect across the whole of the backing instruments as the vocal retains its melody lending to the idea of transition that the lyrics portray.
The final section, Decline, pushes forward with gusto and pounds out the original choruses with much more urgency before breaking down to piano and glockenspiel.
This is an excellent offering from The Dystopian Project, but to do it justice you really need to sit down and absorb it uninterrupted. Lock your doors, turn off your phone and immerse yourself.
7.5/10
Review by Richard M