Out of Dublin, Ireland comes the progressive metal band SECTILE. Formed in 2016, they released an EP in 2017 that garnered them some success and notoriety across Ireland and the UK. After completing a bit of touring, they worked on their debut album, "Falls Apart," a diverse and powerful album that highlights the range and ability of the members of the band.

SECTILE kicks off "Falls Apart" with a banger of a track, "The Hunt." Where this band excels is in highlighting the balance between its light, gentle moments with the heavier parts. The song gets off to a delicate beginning, a quick moving beat then levels off when vocalist Gabriel Gaba enters and eerily serenades the listener. Then, things quickly escalate to a crash for a thundering chorus, full of riffy, bass drum punctuation that is synchronized with the vocals. Gaba soars, his falsetto sweeping through the lyrics matched by the ambiance of the music behind him.

The next track, "Archetypes," gets off to a bit of a slower start. The proggy musicians slowly accent and pound their way through the verse, mixing up the styles and time signatures without regard. This leads to one of the best choruses on the album, a definite earworm. "Black Cloud" follows suit. In fact, for being a progressive metal band, a lot of SECTILE's songs follow the same sort of song structure. Light, moving intro that leads to a pre-chorus crash, with the chorus itself being an impressive, soaring affair. Overall, things are definitely executed well, it's just that the songs themselves are a bit predictable.

"Daggers" is the last track on the album that really caught my attention. Again, a light talking intro for Gaba before the hammer drops and the musicians of SECTILE drop some truly heavy metal. This song has much more attitude than the others as it pounds and drives forward.

"Falls Apart" by SECTILE is well worth a listen for fans of light and dark progressive metal (think LEPROUS or OPETH). SECTILE is composed of impressive musicians, talented individuals in their own right. The songwriting, however, is a bit lacking in terms of originality or hooks. After listening to the album a few times, none of the songs really stood out as "incredible," most were just quite good.

Favorite Songs: "Archetypes", "Daggers"