Review by Saxy S for Anchoret, The - It All Began With Loneliness (2023)

The new and debut record from Canadian progressive metal band, The Anchoret, is a perplexing listen for me. I find that It All Began With Loneliness is a solid enough of a record from a composition and performance standpoint and I find nothing wrong structurally with regards to production. And yet for some reason I cannot wrap my head around it.

And you would think for an album with this much instrumental variety that it would be right in my ballpark. Featuring a heavy assortments of organ, saxophone, flute and even a clarinet solo, mixed very well with a modern progressive metal palette, each part is given plenty of room to breathe and shine when the time arises. This albums highlight however, is the impressive use of multitracking on the vocals. While listening, I could hear plenty of Dream Theater influence, but that one addition brings these songs to life in ways that Dream Theater would never attempt in the modern era. Think of this as closer to a more accessible version of Native Construct or, to a lesser extent, An Abstract Illusion.

However, I still couldn't latch on to this as much I would have hoped. I think my two biggest criticisms of It All Began With Loneliness are how monochromatic it all sounds. I fully expect a thrash metal record, such as Raider's Trial By Chaos, or any plethora of modern metalcore records to be monochromatic, since they rely so heavily on those low open string, palm muted riffs. Whereas in progressive metal, it just doesn't sound like much of an effort was made to make these tracks unique from one another. My other biggest criticism, a continuation of the last statement, is that this record just does not have enough steam to plow through a full hour runtime. The songs "Until the Sun Illuminates" and "Someone Listening?" sound great and got my progressive juices flowing thinking that this was going to be a special album, but then the record just kind of sat there and did the same thing for the remaining five tracks. They aren't bad per se, but the record is so focused on this one niche (which works really well by the way) that it turns a record that should have been great into one that is average at best.

Best Songs: Until The Sun Illuminates, Someone Listening?, Unafraid