Label: Art Gates Records
Date: October 30th, 2020
Xeno is a six-piece act coming from Middelburg, Netherlands. They are formed in 2011. and have two albums “Atlas Construct” and “Sojourn” which we review on this occasion.
It’s definitively not an easy task to label their music since it has a lot of variety in it. On first listening to this album, I didn’t like it that much, I was completely confused. Especially on the first track “In Stasis” with some jazzy elements. But with each new listen, “Sojourn” slowly drew me into the “Xeno world”. After each new listen I discovered something new, something interesting, and something that will force me to listen to the album again.
“Sojourn” offers a lot of powerful guitar work, a great combination of clean and “Mikael Åkerfeldt-like” growl vocals, hypnotizing keyboards, and an intricate and technical rhythm section. Each song encompasses a variety of rhythms, melodies, and tones.
Highlights of this album are “Epiphany”, “Nomad”, “Dusk” and astonishing 13-minutes magic titled “Sojourn”. On this track, all members of the band showed all talent and splendor. I would highly recommend the album to fans of Opeth, Tessaract, Dream Theater…you won’t regret it.
On “Sojourn”, Xeno has made a huge step forward compared to their debut “Atlas Construct” and made a brilliant album. You should definitely keep an eye on this band in the future.
