CD: “Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos” by Skyharbor

Hailing from New Deli, India, Skyharbour is the brain child of guitarist Keshav Dhar. A three piece outfit which also has: Anup Sastry on drums and Nikhil Rufus on bass. By all accounts they are rapidly gaining a reputation as one of India’s hottest up and coming Metal acts and having been signed up by Britainís own Basic Records are looking to make waves over here as well.

Blinding White Noise is split into two discs, Illusion & Chaos. Disc one: Illusion is the superior one in this reviewer’s opinion. Multi-layered guitarscapes bursting with hooks, riffs and melodies. Leaning very much to the progressive side of metal, with a nod to Djent, Illusion delivers seven tracks of quality driven music. One of the special guests on the album is ex-TesseracT vocalist Dan Tompkins whose vocals are evident on a multitude of tracks. Album opener Dots sets up Illusion beautifully and drags the listener in, making you want to hear more of the same. Tracks Catharsis and Celestial don’t disappoint you and are straight up classic songs, destined to find a home on my ipod playlists and not just because ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman plays a blinder on the latter. The Illusion part of the album closes with Maeva, one of those pieces of music that beg repeated listens to and one that I know I will never tire of.

The three tracks that make up Chaos are the band letting go of any aggression that three years of recording and one year of production may have built up. Full on pounding rhythms and roaring vocals make up Trayus & Aphasia and hats off to Insurrection, with its rampaging polyrhythmic heaviness flattening everything gone before. It is because of driving harshness of Chaos that I immediately felt that I had to return to the Illusion album to be uplifted once more by the music contained there.

All in all an outstanding debut!

DISC ONE Illusion (Running Time: 34m 20s)
1. Illusion: Dots
2. Illusion: Order 66
3. Illusion: Catharsis
4. Illusion: Night
5. Illusion: Aurora
6. Illusion: Celestial
7. Illusion: Maeva

DISC TWO (Running Time: 13m 38s)
8. Chaos: Trayus
9. Chaos: Aphasia
10. Chaos: Insurrection

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