Last Chance To Reason is essentially a dead band and Level 3 (Prosthetic Records) represents their final fling. For those new to the band this is the third interactive album that matches to a video game (which I haven’t played) and there’s plenty of game noises thrown in here and there to make sure you don’t forget. It’s progressive technical metal full of bass grooves and chugging, arpeggios and riffs from guitar, driving drums and rather quiet and highly-processed clean vocals sharing with a bit of harsh. There’s a large measure if synth building depth that contrasts with sparse moments and even some well-placed silence.

Rhythms are diverse and at times a bit off centre but nothing that will hurt your brain, with some clever counterpoint in closing track ‘Transendence’ between spasmodic arpeggios that climb quickly up and down the scale against monotone vocals before the instruments pull back and allow voice to explore a wandering melody. Not the most in-you-face track on the album it does show the skill and instinct for creating atmosphere and emotion often lacking from technical metal that gets too mathcore, and it ends well which is the weak point for so many songwriters.

The quiet and manipulated clean vocals will bother some, but the way they melt into the synth and into the video game concept really does work, like in ‘A Glimpse Of Omniscience’ with it’s collapse from towering riffs and chugging bass to post-orgasmic self-reflection and, once again, a skilfully structured ending. I can’t overstate the difference knowing how to end a song makes from 90% of what you will hear out there, which makes the lazy and ineffective fade-out of ‘Adrift II: A Vision Ends’, a disappointment.

This is a record that continues to improve with each listen as you discover a bar of interesting drum beat here, an intriguing open bass chord there, the out-of alignment hammering that starts around the 20 second mark of ‘The Artist’, a burst of flourishing fairground organ for a few bars here and there, and occasionally that confident silence. There are transitions within songs and between them, such as from the peace and tranquillity of  ‘The Escapist’ to the frenetic cacophony of ‘The Dictator’, so there are times through the record you aren’t sure if the change in mood is a new song or the breakdown within a song.

Level 3 demonstrates the strength of great progressive music that holds back on vocals, and it’s a crying shame it may be the last we see of this band.

8/10

Gilbert Potts

Last Chance To Reason – Facebook