Review of The Room Colored Charlatan - "The Veil That Conceals"
TAKING UP THE MANTLE
By: Geoff Teach
To be frank, I was severely disappointed when Indianapolis-based The Contortionist released Language in 2014. After previously issuing two mind-blowing albums in Exoplanet and Intrinsic, my expectations for Language were sky high. But the music that was once a harmonious blend of progressive and atmospheric ambiance mixed with aggressive, technical death metal had become unbalanced. In short, nearly all of the heaviness was gone, and while some of the music on Language was – erm, pretty? – it had also completely lost its edginess. The music had changed, and while change can be good sometimes for some bands, in my view, this was not one of those times.
Thankfully though, there is another act from Indianapolis, Indiana, that apparently has taken up their mantle. The Room Colored Charlatan have returned with their third full-length, The Veil That Conceals (Subliminal Groove, due out 4/15/16), and in all honesty, this album is what Contortionist could sound like today, if they hadn’t decided to cast off most of their metal roots. The Veil That Conceals is gorgeous, melodic, and absolutely heavy as all hell and damnation. Swinging seamlessly between flowing, ethereal atmosphere and brutal, dynamic gain, The Room Colored Charlatan have crafted an album that is on the same level of excellence that their hometown heroes in T.C. achieved on Exoplanet and Intrinsic, but have also added a Fallujah-like twist to their music that makes The Room Colored Charlatan stand out among the progressive metal acts of today.
Contemplative, evocative, and monstrous, The Veil That Conceals is atmospheric prog-death at its absolute finest. Featuring eight tracks, this album is as resplendent as it is cacophonous. Tracks such as “Exist in Abstraction”, “Perception II: The Silent Mind”, and “Perception III: The Veil That Conceals” are all chill-inducing, hair-raising thrill-rides of dynamics, helped by the guest vocal appearances of Destiny Potato’s Aleksandra Djelmas (on “Abstraction”) and former Destiny Potato vocalist Aleksandra Radosavljevic (on “II” and “III”), who’s beautiful voices provide an air of mystery and celestial balance to each song that they grace with their performances. Also, the track “A Polarity” contains another vocal cameo, this time by none other than the same vocalist of the first two Contortionist albums, Jonathan Carpenter, lending his obscenely colossal pipes to the heaviest track on the effort. In sum, The Room Colored Charlatan’s The Veil That Conceals is fantastic, and although one of the bands from their hometown that certainly influenced them may have moved on from heavier composing, T.R.C.C. has emphatically not chosen the same path – and thank the metal gods for that.
Check out “A Polarity” (and more as of 4/15/16) by pressing play below!
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