POLARS (E)

Textures are a new and young band from the southern part of the Netherlands. They have released a self-produced album called Polars with eight original compositions in the techical thrash genre. The musicians are former members of Lost Sacrament and Ground Control. The album contains massive walls of guitar riffs by Jochem Jacobs and Bart Hennephof, of whom the latter is also responsible for the artwork. The music is very complex in spite of the ruthless hammering on the drums by Stef Broks and a somewhat monotone but fierce grunting and crying by Pieter Verpaalen. Well, I really wonder how long he will be able to produce these vocal sounds. Since I’m not a fan at all of neither thrash nor this kind of ‘singing’, it’s very difficult for me to be an objective reviewer. Considering the fact that Polars is a private release, Textures being a very young band with an average age of 24, there’s no doubt in my mind that they have a huge potential. Furthermore this album has been very well produced by the band as well. The sound, varying from death metal to ambient, is very original indeed and the music -like it or not- has been played by talented musicians, who have had the guts to come up with something different. A few names that come into mind as possible sources of inspiration are Meshuggah and Devin Townshend for the raw and aggressive pieces, and Rush and Pain Of Salvation for the more melodic parts. The synthesizers played by Richard Rietdijk are only predominant in the ambient soundscapes like parts of Young Man, Polars, Effluent and entirely in the seventeen-minute track Heave. The other songs are high tech thrash with constantly changing rhythms - hats off for Stef Broks - and abrupt, unexpected melodic to even symphonic interludes. If Textures is able to play this album live on stage, it would be even more astonishing and impressive.