Floating Me - Floating Me

Wed 15th Jun, 2011 in Music Reviews

It’s a question of which those in the local progressive rock scene have been asking each other for years: will we ever see a ‘team up’ of our favourite bands in one almighty group? The answer is yes, and the culmination of which is Floating Me, a devastatingly brilliant group comprised of members of Cog, Scarymother and Karnivool.

Arriving on the scene the same time as A Thousand Needles In Red (a sideproject for The Butterfly Effect’s Clint Boge), the self-titled debut from Floating Me is everything you would come to expect from the minds behind our great prog acts. Former Cog drummer Lucius Borich, along with members of Scarymother invited Jon Stockman of Karnivool to provide bass and the results are astounding.

Opening track Deathless draws out the sound in increments, a prologue of sorts before the album truly kicks into full effect with Narke. Andrew Gillespie’s vocals play with your head and your heart, driving deep with full emotion that resonates within. The band’s name comes from a repeated lyric in Spirals, Gillespie repeating over and over again. It’s heavy and dark, packing a punch. Stockman’s bass skills are given a real workout with Breaking To Breathe, one of the highlights of an album that seemingly changes shape with each song.

Much like Cage by Dead Letter Circus, Bezhumous has an industrial rock vibe to it, bass driven and haunting throughout. The album winds down with the final three songs; Short Cuts To Feeling, The Beautiful Fall and Across the Gulf. The inclusion of acoustics in The Beautiful Fall is particularly worthy of note, giving the album its heart and soul. As Across The Gulf winds the debut album towards its close, the blood, sweat and tears provided to create this stunning album are truly evident.