Future Now - Utopia Awaits
Band: Future Now
Album: Utopia Awaits
Release Date: June 24th, 2019
Record Label: Self released
Genre: Progressive Metal
From: Cambridge UK
Future Now is the project of guitarist Jaz Hunter and drummer Charlie Mckenzie Stewart, where they invited vocalist Riko Burrows for the first studio album. The project has no been turned into a band with a touring lineup, featuring Richard Nejjy Nejman on keys and synthesizers, Joe Feighan on vocals and Tom Drake on bass guitar.
The music is melody focused with emphasis on both vocal and guitar melodies. They would do well both with audiences that favour AOR, progressive rock or melodic metal. Most songs visit several themes or convey different moods in different parts of the song, which makes for great storytelling on the album.
The band seems to be inspired by a lot of 80s prog metal bands like Queensryche, Savatage and Saracen, as well as more modern bands like Symohony X, Circus Maximus and Ayreon. There is also some Iron Maiden inspiration as well.
In addition there are many riffs inspired by power metal bands like Black Majesty and Stratovarius. On the prog rock side, I would say they are closest to the neo-prog bands of the British scene.
The album is quite guitar-driven, with a lot of great melodies and heavy metal riffs and great solos following in a technical, melodic metal tradition.
Composition-wise I find the album at its best when there is made room for separate melodies at the same time on guitar, keyboard and vocals.
The album features ambitious vocal arrangements with several vocal melodies at the same time. Only issue is the vocal intro on the 2nd song. It might be a simple issue of it being too loud in the mix, but it really annoys me. The rest of the song is fine though.
Several vocal melodies remind me of Savatage, particularly the vocals on Dying Universe. The vocals themselves remind a lot of Peter Nichols of the prog band IQ, particularly on the slower parts of the songs.
This album has great, powerful drumming that is placed well in the mix so one hear all the technical stuff the drummer does. I like the rhythmic variation in the songs, with many different parts as well as complex drum patterns and rhythm and tempo changes.
I like that the album includes many melodic keyboard parts instead of using keyboards only as background ambience. They are however not consistent for the whole album, often missing for parts of a song or a whole song. It’s understandable to use them as a mood setting effect for aF largely guitar driven band, but I would suggest, now that the band has a keyboard player, to provide more space for the keyboard melodies on the next album.
One thing that I want to emphasis on this album are the arrangements. While the musicians are quite accomplished in their own right, what really makes this album interesting is the fusion of all the elements together, where the music becomes complex and worth to listen to many times instead of just being a sequence of cool riffs.
For now the album is only available digitally, however the band is also looking at possibilities for a cd release.
Support the band by buying their music and following them on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurenowband/
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