Unbeing - Unbeing (2011) - Diversified instrumentals with a soul of sadness - 93% (08/12/11)

Unbeing are a quite unknown completely instrumental progressive metal band from Montreal. I discovered their debut record by pure coincidence. It was sold by a lable during a black metal show. Let's note that this music has nothing at all to do with extreme metal music. When I asked the guy from the label about the band about the discs he was selling he told me about this one: "Forget this one. This is weird progressive music." He gave me the advice to buy a depressive black metal record or a blackened folk release but I was strangely intrigued by the record of Unbeing. I wanted to know more about it and he told me: "It's progressive and somewhat in the key of UneXpect." As I like UneXpect I tried to take a chance and bought this release for ten bucks. When a friend of mine and I tried this album out at home, my friend was upset. "I should have bought this. That's incredible!" I had pretty much the same reaction and was positively surprised.

Now what can you expect from this album. It has nothing to do with UneXpect in my opinion. The changes of style on this album are very coherent and always fit. There are no discordant guitar riffs, bleak piano melodies or strange industrial noises on this record. It has no gothic touch. This simply is very epic diversified progressive metal with some small Asian folk influences. The album has a slightly hypnotizing and dark undertone that is difficult to describe. This is an album with a sad soul but with a lot of freewill and experimentation. It has just the right length for an instrumental record. This album never gets boring and finishes on a high note. Long tracks and short but nevertheless great interludes can be found on this technically very professional release.

Every instrument gets its moment to shine. The drumming is incredibly diversified and varies from fast beats to passages dominated by hi-hats or smooth interludes. The riffs of the guitars are heavy but not yet thrash influenced and have also some melodic parts. The bass guitar player proves his talent in short parts of the record but doesn't dominate too much on this record, a little bit like John Myung does on the records of Dream Theater. The keyboards create a lot of dreamy, weird and slightly despaired atmosphere. This is a great soundtrack for grey autumn or winter nights.

It’s useless to point out any track, this album works as a whole and the strange song titles won’t reveal too much anyway. If I had to pick up a personal favourite, I would take the opener “Octo8” because this song represents the diversity of the album very well and it immediately made me fall in love with this release. If you like this song or also the original homage to “Chuck Norris” which you can find on several places on the internet, you will also like the rest.

If you like instrumental progressive metal with a lot of atmosphere and some avantgarde elements, this record should be put on the top of your list of priority right now. You won't be disappointed by this spacey release and you should help and spread the name of this promising but rather unknown band.