Another Thursday, another dose of nerdy progressive metal and rock! This Thursday we'll be leaning much more toward the latter and taking a look at one of my favorite records of all time, and hopefully one of yours after listening, Bloom And Breathe by Gates. The album came out in 2014, and since then Gates has released another great album, titled Parallel Lives, but Bloom And Breathe is just so well written and still blows me away three years later that I'm basically forced to show it to you all at this point.
Bloom And Breathe is heavily steeped in the writing style of Rush, in that it's ridiculously technical when you really start to pick it apart, but on the surface it's catchy enough for pretty much anyone to get into without any hesitation. A prime example of this is "Not My Blood," whose chorus will undoubtedly be stuck in your head for the rest of the week, but what if we ignore that and look at the writing for just one second? The main theme plays with 6/8 and 3/4 feels, with the first three bars of the theme being the former and the final bar turning everything around with the latter. Then the post-chorus alternates between 6/4 and 5/4, and then the chorus reverts back to a variation of playing with 6/8 and 3/4 again… so on and so forth with little progressive-minded writing elements like that for the rest of the album.
All that being said, Bloom And Breathe isn't just a study of how to write technical music that's unfairly catchy. The lyrical content of Bloom And Breathe is uplifting, crushing at times, and incredibly honest, and vocalist and guitarist Kevin Dye's delivery of these lyrics makes it all come to life. Dye's vocals have just the right amount of grit to round out Gates' sound and make the whole ensemble come together, but he's sure as hell capable of more. From the softer croons on "Nothing You'll Miss" and "Marrow," to the buried screams of "Bloom," it's safe to say that Dye really does put Gates over the top into a category all its own, maybe even solidifying the band as a criminally underrated instant classic.
When it comes down to it, Bloom And Breathe is a progressive masterpiece. Whether that's recognized today or 10 years from now is irrelevant, because this is an album and should, and will, be remembered as a perfect effort by a band that can seemingly do no wrong.
