October 2024 Featured Release - The Infinite Edition

It's already October somehow, so it's time to dust off the old Progressive Metal records and go back in time a bit, at least for me. This month's feature is the sophomore album The Human Connection from Perth's Chaos Divine, a band that is relatively unknown but worth highlighting in my opinion. This album actually played a big part in my original discovery of more obscure Metal when I was originally getting used to harsh vocals, as Chaos Divine have an extremely smooth and palatable blend of Progressive and Melodic Death Metal with a little bit of that more modern chug style that either blesses or plagues Infinite records.  I still have this CD locked and loaded in my car and I've returned to it here or there on my longer drives, so I'd be interested to see what everyone else thinks of this band's best offering to date. 

This album was actually one of the more formative ones for me, coming early in the lifecycle of me listening to Metal with any sort of harsh vocals. At the time, I was really into the idea of bands bouncing between clean and harsh vocals, no doubt because of the heavy Opeth influence I was under. After stumbling on Chaos Divine, their style was a perfect meshing of the slightly harsher Metal I was dipping my toes into and the Progressive Metal that I enjoyed so much. Was I aware of other more established (and probably stronger) bands that still had this sort of style that I would have loved? Absolutely not, so I ended up buying this CD and it lived in my car for a very long time as I took long drives to college and wherever else. I wanted to revisit this for a deeper look as not only was it one of the first reviews for an album that I wrote, but for a bit of a nostalgia hit while trying to be extremely critical of an album that I think is good, but maybe it's not all that special. 

And honestly? It isn't really anything that special in the grand scheme of things looking back, but I still find myself immensely enjoying this collection of songs. Chaos Divine's claim to fame, for me at least, is their balance between harsh and clean as their name so aptly alludes to. Most of the album has lead vocalist Dave Anderton doing soaring leads that I still think are great to this day; he really sells the big chorus moments and has some solid verse delivery as well. His harshes, however, leave a bit to be desired. I've definitely grown away from the rasping, strained, and somewhat weak sounding growled vocals as I have a better baseline of what I think powerful sounding harshes in Progressive Metal can be, whether it's examples like Wilderun, Ne Obliviscaris, or even a safer choice like Amorphis. That being said, Anderton's harshes are used sparingly and well on choruses and big moments like the opening "One Door", the climaxes of "The Ringing of the Sirens" and "Chasing Shadows", and a nice opening hook on "Invert Evolution". The rest of the band does some solid work in my opinion, with each riff having a ton of movement as Chaos Divine loves to write whirling background scales for their lead guitars alongside slightly more complex than normal chugging rhythms. "Beautiful Abyss" has the best example of this as it's one of the more catchy and groovy songs on the album as it does a fantastic job of building upon the starting motif with tons of transitions and different layering without falling back on the harsh vocal crutch for any of the choruses or climaxes. The final 12-minute epic also really takes its time and is a great atmospheric payoff that feels like it fits right into the flow of the album, although the final 4 minutes of it really drags on and ends the album on a more somber and reflective note instead of a massive, satisfying climax. 

Even though I set out to get rid of some nostalgia this month, I think I still really like this album. It's easily Chaos Divine's best work to date, as Colliding Skies and Legacies just didn't have the staying power or memorable moments for me. I think the album has such a satisfying flow to it and while it may lack the aggression and grit of some heavier hitting Progressive Metal albums, I really enjoy the more contemplative and spacey atmosphere that this album has. The overall songwriting has stood the test of time and many, many listens to the point where it's still pretty impactful for me, which is impressive after all these years. Even though it's still definitely a nostalgic comfort alum for me, it's a more than decent diamond in the rough for Progressive Metal fans looking for something a bit softer around the edges or to expand their knowledge of Australian Metal bands. 

4/5