Beyond the Reach of the Sun by Anciients (Season of Mist)

Anciients
Beyond the Reach of the Sun
Season of Mist

After eight years, Anciients returns like an Odyssey of progressive rock and metal. From the intricacies of cover art construction to the delicacies of epic songwriting, Anciients latest album boasts an internal journey that’s easily an adventure of grandeur that passes new peaks and intense valleys.

Going beyond the landscape of extreme metal, Anciients resurface through songwriting that boasts strength in the band as if the rift in time never existed despite the departure of guitarist/co-vocalist/co-founding member, Chris Dyck. Kicking off with a post-eight-minute intro into the album shows bravery among award-winning metal. It’s as if the band is walking into the unknown and letting creativity churn out because of it.

As sole lyricist for Beyond the Reach of the Sun, inner turmoil, fear and isolation have been word clouds bubbling up in Kenny Cook’s life. He embraced it and used this album to battle the negatives of human nature’s infliction only to come out of it stronger. And with that, an amazing artistic creation ensued.

“The Torch” brings back some of that extreme metal angst that fueled the early years of the band through some powerful muscle. “Beyond Our Minds” is a swirling apex of time signatures and chord progressions to accentuate the philosophical manner of life. The crashing waves of guitar to the pulse of this song is one of the great metal compositions of our time.

“I had a good friend of mine from when I was younger pass away from cancer,” says Cook. “His mother was super religious, and there were ideas taken from her questioning how something like that could happen to her when she had such a strong faith.”

I cannot take you on this journey nor can I go on it with you — only the band can. But what I can do as a simple guide is open the door and recommend that you enter their realm. You won’t regret it.