Violate Consensus Reality
Violate Consensus Reality gives Psychonaut's progressive metal a sharper attack. Heavy riffs and forceful singing arrive quickly, but the Belgian trio leave room for patient builds and quieter melodies. The detail comes from the relationship between those extremes. The songs can be complex without making that complexity their only attraction.
A Storm Approaching opens with restless guitar work and active drums. Clean and harsh voices move around one another, giving the performance more range than its initial force suggests. It sets out the album's energy effectively, although its shape is less memorable than the strongest material that follows.
All Your Gods Have Gone makes a more immediate impression through its weight and tightly arranged guitar patterns. Age of Separation allows more space around the verses before returning to a harder attack. The changes feel substantial, with the quieter passages contributing to the songs rather than simply delaying the next heavy section.
The title track develops more patiently. Guest voices from Stefanie Mannaerts and Colin H. van Eeckhout add contrasting characters to a performance that moves from a gentler setting towards an intense climax. Its length gives the band space to increase the pressure in stages. The result is one of the album's clearest examples of controlled scale.
Hope supplies a lighter opening to the second half. Its warmer mood provides a useful pause without stopping the movement of the record. Interbeing then uses a repeating guitar idea and firm rhythmic accents to draw the tension back in, with the two vocal approaches becoming part of the eventual release.
A Pacifist's Guide to Violence brings a shorter, more urgent response through fast guitars and snapping drums. Towards the Edge expands in the opposite direction, combining atmosphere, technical passages and more direct connections between them. The singing helps the long closer remain expressive as the arrangement changes.
The opening song is a slight weakness beside these stronger pieces, and the frequent harsh vocals make this a demanding introduction. Yet the melodic detail gives the intensity a clear purpose. Violate Consensus Reality is an ambitious heavy record whose strongest moments connect intricate playing with a convincing sense of movement.
