SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: INTERVALS – MEMORY PALACE

INTERVALS
MEMORY PALACE
INDEPENDENT

Since the release of Intervals’ debut album A Voice Within in 2014, the guitarist behind the moniker, Aaron Marshall, has emerged as a significant force in the progressive rock scene. Unbound and fiercely unapologetic within his creative expression, Intervals has stayed true throughout his releases to his wizard-like guitar chops and dissonant use of canorous and ethereal elements that have defined the progressive rock artist as one of the best instrumental guitarists in the genre.

Untethered by creative restriction, Intervals once again comes back with guns blazing with one of the artist’s most technically impressive feats to date, Memory Palace. Using some of the most distinctly exhilarating, catchy, and transcendent guitar riffs the artist has mustered together on an ever-growing catalogue of albums, Intervals looks to transport the listener to another musical world but looks to reinvent the use of telling stories within a medium that doesn’t use vocal talents to guide one through the journey.

Together, touring and recording trio, drummer Nathan Bulla, bassist Jacob Umansky, and guitarist Aaron Marshall seek to create a hefty experience that strives to embody what it means to be fully invested in an instrumental storytelling experience.

“Neurogenesis”, featuring KOAN Sound, starts the listener’s journey off with energy to burn with jagged, angular guitar riffs that bleed into golden passages of irresistibly contagious melodicism, beginning moments such as this show that Intervals hasn’t lost a step since being away from the scene with 2020’s Circadian.

Earworm tracks such as “Mnemonic” and “Nootropic” are some of the most attractive and addictive listens on the record. Distinguishing itself from previous releases, Intervals’ latest album presents a more robust and melodically fluid instrumental experience, showcasing a diverse range of uplifting and inventively caustic passages that reflect his past, present, and future soundscapes.

Intervals trades some of the high-energy moments for more subdued numbers like “Galaxy Brain” featuring J3P0 and “Side Quest” featuring Evan Marien. A colorful transaction of jazz-infused environments and electronic candy-coated fury experiences that lends itself to more exciting and complex energies, Intervals strays away from becoming stale or boring by giving the listener something different flavors to navigate before returning to more familiar territories with “Lacuna” featuring OBLVYN and final track, “Chronophobia”.

Boldly original and precision-focused, “Lacuna” and “Chronophobia” show a level of crushing authenticity and gorgeous cathodic elegance that concludes such a divergent excursion.

Memory Palace is an experience that unveils a new direction for the instrumental titan. Full of melodic and creatively aggressive contrasts blanketed by strong atmospheric tension, Memory Palace serves as a magnum opus of the artist’s unbridled ingenuity that only seems to get better with time.

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