It’s always reassuring when a progressive metal band display genuine signs of progress. Klone released their debut album Duplicate just over 20 years ago. Mired in churning riffs and tricky time signatures, it had much in common with the French band’s homegrown contemporaries Gojira and Hacride, but gave occasional glimpses of a less frantic and more melodic future direction.
Klone’s obvious potential has been fulfilled many times over in the decades that followed, and their sound has undergone a complete transformation. Continuing the melodic explorations that began in earnest on 2019’s Le Grand Voyage, The Unseen is a beautiful and sophisticated piece of work.
They stopped making a furious racket a long time ago, but they have never sounded as elegant or assured as they do here. Interlaced is a serene, spaced-out opener, with spectral shades of Jeff Buckley, a flurry of sublime saxophone solos and soulful, angelic vocals from frontman Yann Ligner. Perfectly paced and quietly imperious, it sets the tone for an album full of calming, graceful moments.
The title track reinforces the point that Klone are now working purely on instinct. A shimmering squall of post-hardcore riffs and distorted crescendos, it’s a rare nod towards the band’s rowdy past – but delivered with all of the sextet’s customary finesse. In contrast, Magnet is simply a very fine left-field rock song, and one of their most succinct and direct creations to date.
They’ve never sounded more confident or idiosyncratic… this is smart, soulful and spontaneous modern prog
The Unseen truly blossoms during its second half. After The Sun is a dubby, post-rock fever dream with a big vocal melody and an underlying sense of simmering tension; Desire Line is the album’s only significant curveball, with its stealthy, blues-tinged undercurrents, ghostly vocal harmonies and scratchy, alt-rock overtones; and the reverb-sodden Slow Down drifts in on waves of melancholy, blending artful chord changes with meandering, cosmic rock momentum.
Most striking of the lot is Spring: a subtly psychedelic encapsulation of Klone’s ongoing evolution, it begins as another wide-eyed drift through tranquil waters, before building to a clattering, distorted climax, thereafter dissolving into eerie, Floydian ambience, twinkling and thrumming with hypnotic persistence.
A band with a relentless hunger for what comes next, Klone have never sounded more confident or idiosyncratic than they do here. This is smart, soulful and spontaneous modern prog, and the perfect balance between grown-up songwriting and the joys of a limitless imagination.
The Unseen is on sale now via Pelagic Records.
