Skyharbor- Guiding Lights

Date: 22^nd March 2015. Venue: Blue Frog, Mumbai. Event: Rolling Stone (India) Metal Awards 2015. Phenomenon: Skyharbor winning awards in almost all the categories.

Well, I had always heard about this band founded by the guitarist Keshav Dhar and being applauded by everyone. But had missed listening to their albums altogether. Their last album Guiding Lights was released in 2014 and as soon as I started listening to it I could understand why they are creating waves!

There is huge merit in listening to complete albums- one song after another- rather than listening to singles which are really good. In the age of YouTube and iTunes, there is a tendency to listen to only the best songs by a band instead of the complete album. A few years back, we would have had to buy the CDs/EPs (or even cassettes) and go through the whole album song by song. I have come to realize that that’s the way albums are meant to be listened to and it renders a totally different meaning to the individual tracks. Even more so with the progressive genre.

The first song on Skyharbor’s album is Allure and boy, is it an awesome track! It starts off right away with a normal 4x4 time signature being played in all different combinations for different instruments giving a great prog feel. The track keeps perfectly oscillating between a heavy (distorted guitars) and a clean style of playing. What stands out is the bass and the drum pattern that starts off at 2:32 into the song followed by the guitar solo at 2:51. This calm and intricate patch (makes you feel like an Opeth song) gets a superb transition into the heavy style at 5:10.

While the album demonstrates that the musicians are some of the best in the world, it would be difficult to make them sound as good as they do without a flawless production. The sound quality of drums, the guitar tones and multi-layering of sounds is just impeccable.

Skyharbor’s music puts them in the same league as Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Dream Theater. If you like Allure do make sure to listen to the complete album and especially Evolution (their most popular song) and Halogen + New Devil (these two tracks are meant to be heard in sequence and the transition is just brilliant).

It would have been great if the drummer Anup Sastry and vocalist Daniel Tompkins had continued their brilliant work with the band. Nonetheless, waiting for more music from this amazing band.