RED ELM „Arena”

Blood Fire Death Promotion, 2022

Music: Progressive Metal
Website:
https://www.redelmband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/redelmband
Duration: 38:00 (8 tracks)
Country: Spain

The Barcelona duo have more than 12 years of playing together and the album “ZERØ” from 2017. This year, the men recorded and produced the second album with the spatial title “Arena”…

Even though the music is described as Progressive Heavy Metal, I think it is too the simplistic qualification and it does not fully reflect what the band is playing. Progressive Heavy Metal is usually fast paced and extensive, virtuoso solo guitar parts, often in a neo-classical style.

On the other hand, the musicians of RED ELM focus more on the atmosphere and mood as well as the transfer of emotions through their music. Of course, the structure of the arrangement is as progressive as possible, i.e. the compositions are developmental, multi-themed, with spatial guitar phrases as well as extensive passages and percussion rhythms.

However, for Heavy Metal, I miss here this characteristic guitar’s chase in this music. But here are heavy and massive guitar licks, often in a Stoner Metal style, as well as dynamic, lively Nu Metal guitar themes along with accenting climatic guitar sounds and electronic samples. And with extensive and clear bass parts together with specific guitar passages, the music sometimes evokes associations with TOOL and SYSTEM OF A DAWN. However, these are only temporary associations.

The vocals (Spanish-speaking) are most often clean, sung, saturated with emotions, with emotional agitation in the style of harsher singing or screaming. The polyphonic vocal parts strongly emphasize the emotional mood of the music, which is most often melancholic and a bit dark.

“Arena” also has ballad elements and accents of non-Metal music, such as the atmospheric and spatial themes of Progressive Rock and Post Rock (with romantic singing, keyboards and passages of clean guitars or sensual solos), as well as touches of Folk music with a climate similar to Arab musical scales.

The album “Arena”, as the name suggests, it is spatial and shows a musical spectacle during which there are both very dynamic twists and situations full of emotions, characterized by aggression or anger as well as sadness. The dynamic elements of the album are very motorized and stimulating. In turn, these calmer topics affect the emotions of the listener, they calm down, sometimes they depress, sometimes they bring some hope.