Using completely different sounds, styles, techniques and even multiple feature artists across a range of music genres, the Texas Prog Rock group have surely gone above and beyond with Remember That You Will Die.
The album opens with ‘Genisis (Ft. Brasstracks)’ beginning with the signature Polyphia sound that we all know to get us into the swing of things. Later in the track we are greeted by an array of brass instruments that slowly but surely make their own spotlight. While they don’t ultimately shine in the mix as we would’ve wished it would have done. Brasstracks sure does justice at the amount of talent and skill that you can hear. The first single from the album ‘Playing God’ comes up next. Guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage decided to embrace the future of guitar by using their custom Acoustic/Electric hybrid guitars. As a way to add a new element into their already powerful sound.
‘The Audacity (Ft. Anomalie)’ remains as a standard Polyphia song as would usually hear them but that is not a complaint seeing as the rest of the album shows different styles along the way. On this song we see the band working with the Montreal based keyboardist doing his superb work at adding his synth prog style sound into the song. Unlike the opener, ‘Genisis’, Anomalie’s work seemed to have shined a lot more well in the mix. We then have ‘Reverie’ which is almost a continuation from the last song although this time there are no feature artists.
Songs like ‘ABC’, ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Fuck Around and Find Out’ is when the album starts to get interesting. Each song experiments into completely new styles which was an exciting listen. All three songs met the expectations of when a Prog Rock band decides to step outside of the norm. Their choice in feature artists were also exceptional choices, the voices of each artist made the songs sound like a collaboration that would make it huge amongst the masses.
This could also work out for the songs ‘Chimera’, ‘Bloodbath’ and ‘Ego Death’. ‘All Falls Apart’ being their interlude track is over a minute of solos from Guitars and Electronics, that is all. ‘Neurotica’ dives into sound that can be best described as a song that you would hear in a video game. It’s an incredibly different sound and reminds you of classic arcade games but the more you listen to it, the more you start to understand the meaning behind the song.
Polyphia has never been a stranger to making simple sounds incredibly complicated. This album proves that they can diversify themselves more as a band and as musicians. Despite the short song lengths, each one is very strong in its own way. They have used the “keep it simple stupid” technique and used it very effectively throughout the album. Even when the instrumentation sounds difficult, they executed it in such a form that you can enjoy it, even without seeming like there is too much going on.