US proggers’ long-gestating but striking second album.
This Boston trio put out an eclectic but scruffily promising debut album Plethora in 2013 under the name Ryan Jackson Troika, but their sound has matured considerably in the decade since.
Where 10 years ago they could be found juxtaposing jerky-quirky alt-rock with funky grooves and metallically inclined moments, Megalomania aspires to a more emotionally resonant, widescreen sound. Foundation employs ghostly falsetto-laced vocal harmonies set to a slow-building synth-rock pulse, before the foreboding riff of Greasy Man sets up a dreamily melodic chorus. Further into the album, though, there are more complex instrumental passages, as on the stuttering time signature, meandering instrumental meditations and increasingly majestic synth figures that light up The Road and the choppy, riff-punctuated path through more epic prog-metallic territory…
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 142