A while ago, I was really into progressive rock as a genre and musical style. I enjoyed the subversive complexity and elaborate motifs which kept the music interesting, engaging and unpredictable. It didn’t take long for me to tire of it, though, because the more I listened to progressive music, the more I realised it had become a conventional sound in and of itself, and so-called “prog” bands were merely writing incredibly long and elaborate songs for their own sake, at the expense of the music. It became progression for progression’s sake. The convention is to create music with irregular time signatures, absurd song lengths which constantly shift and change tone, and supposedly push the boundaries of what has been done before. The problem, however, is that these “prog” bands write songs for the sole purpose of being complicated and elaborate, and the music suffers for it. Regardless of your perspective on musicality, we’re talking about aural aesthetics, and bands which try to write the most elaborate, complex, and unconventional songs without giving thought to the actual sound of the music are no longer writing music, instead merely showing off how clever they are. I like complexity, but much of the “prog” rock scene is little more than pretentious bands showing off how amazingly clever they are, while giving no thought to the aural aesthetics of what they create. Technically impressive, but musically lacking.
Essentially, that is the crux of my issue with progressive rock. As a counter-example, I’d like to cite Tool as a band who does so-called progressive music well. Despite their very complex songwriting techniques, anyone can tell that for them, the music comes first, because the music fits together in a way which sounds natural, organic and balanced, and the songs evolve and shift the same motifs to create a sense of unity and consistency within one song, rather than sounding like several different songs stitched together. Even Schism - with it’s 40-odd time signature changes - flows naturally from one segment to the next, rendering the odd timings barely noticeable. It feels like we’re at the other end of the spectrum with Karnivool, with their latest album Asymmetry sounding very disjointed and inconsistent at times.
Karnivool are an alternative-metal-progressive-rock band hailing from Perth, Australia. They are fronted by Ian Kenny, also the lead singer of Birds of Tokyo, a band who released two good albums before disappearing into mediocrity. Karnivool’s last album, Sound Awake, was an interesting and eerily atmospheric rock album with progressive and heavy metal influences. It’s a good album, full of original ideas synthesized well, and carrying a unique, thick, bass-heavy sound. Asymmetry, while still consisting of a lot of interesting and decent musical ideas, feels very inconsistent and as though the band struggled with putting their ideas together in a coherent fashion. In traditional “prog rock” fashion, the songs lack a predictable structure, and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, in this particular instance it is the cause of the album’s inconsistent feel. Songs tonally and rhythmically jump all over the place, and each sounds like it could make two or three good songs out of it.
It seems like Karnivool are trying to do too much, and in trying too hard to be complex they ended up doing so at the expense of the music, producing an album more convoluted than complex. There’s not a whole lot of breathing room for the music to really breathe, grow, develop, and manifest itself, as the band try to cram as much as they can into each song. Just as you start to get into a song, it changes into something drastically different, and the contrast is more jarring than intriguing. It would be better if the songs changed more subtly, while retaining a consistent tone and motif, rather than abruptly change into a completely different song two minutes in. It would even work better if the songs were longer, allowing each section of each song to develop some momentum before switching. The result, however, is difficult to keep track of, and gets ahead of itself too often that it becomes difficult to listen to.
In the interest of complexity and innovation, Asymmetry includes a lot of polyrhythms and switching to and from unconventional time signatures. This sounds good in theory, and when done well it can be incredible, but it falls flat in Asymmetry because such syncopated rhythms sound very unnatural, stifled and inorganic. I can’t put my finger on exactly why it is, but in songs like We Are (which switches between 7/8 and 5/8 per bar at the start) the way the rhythmic irregularities grate together stand out very conspicuously, and it becomes borderline irritating to listen to. A.M.War is in 11/8, and unless you can figure that out, the song is little more than an annoying sound.
Having said that, it is very satisfying to decipher the time signatures, and Asymmetry becomes more enjoyable to listen to once you do. But remember that all this is at the expense of musicality. If the music is annoying to listen to because you’re trying to figure out the rhythms, we’re no longer listening to, or feeling, the music, because we’re trying too hard to analyse the arithmetic of the song, and in doing so we overlook the most important aspect of music: aural aesthetics. It might be technically brilliant, but if it’s musically average there was no point bothering with the complex techniques in the first place. Techniques are a means to an end when it comes to writing music, and not an end in itself. The syncopated rhythms and polyrhythms, the unpredictable song structures and long, evolving songs are techniques to be used as tools to assist in making great music, and should never be used for their own sake. This is the exact same reason I refuse to be impressed by guitar solos, unless they contribute constructively to the tone of the music. Because if you’re only using guitar solos or unconventional time signatures just for the sake of it, you’ve ceased writing music, and at that stage you’re merely showing off.
When Asymmetry abandons its pretentiousness, the resulting music is actually fairly unexciting. Eidolon is all that needs to be heard for this point to be made. It’s little more than a bland, boring, simple pop-rock song, uninspired and uninspiring. Despite this, I enjoyed Asymmetry mildly. Even if the music is lacking, there are enough good ideas to keep one interested for a while, and the songs are impressively composed. It’s a hollow effort, though, unless it contributes to the actual music, and this is something Karnivool seemed to struggle with. It is as I mentioned earlier: technically impressive, but musically lacking. And this is why progressive rock earns the pretentious label, because it often puts the compositional techniques higher than the actual music.
I think Asymmetry’s main issue was having to live in the shadow of Sound Awake, which was quite excellent. There is one more issue which must be raised, incidentally relevant to both albums, which is that both are far too clean. Ian Kenny’s voice is very clean and refined, and the guitars and bass are smooth and polished, which I personally find off-putting and insincere, as the finished product feels filtered through studio production, resulting in a diluted sound. The Refusal shows them taking cues from the metalcore scene, complete with screaming and everything, but this sounds more like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of metalcore than legitimately expanding into other directions. But this is a minor issue which can be overlooked. Overall, Asymmetry is fairly enjoyable.
There was a lot of potential on this album. Simplicity in music is far overvalued in modern music, and Asymmetry is definitely miles ahead of the garbage that passes for music these days. But I feel Karnivool tried to do too much, and the result subsequently collapsed under its own weight. What’s worse, is that everything they tried to do has already been done better - both by themselves previously, and by other bands. There are a lot of really interesting things going on here, but they aren’t implemented effectively enough for them to manifest into well-rounded songs, and the album sounds like all the good ideas where shaken up in a box and delivered as the final product. I like Karnivool as a band, but this album is a disappointment. I have to concede it’s still fairly good, and worth a listen, but it’s far from amazing and has a lot of issues.
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