The thought of a progressively oriented instrumental album isn’t likely to get the blood pumping, but put aside all negative attitudes, because Boundless is a surprisingly powerful, fluent and edgy album, with each track moving along heavy lines yet also a more sophisticated symphonic arc.
Very much a one-man project, Pomegranate Tiger is the brainchild of Martin Andres, and he revels in being able to show off influences from Dream Theater to Goblin, Between The Buried And Me to Tangerine Dream.
Every composition has a deftly woven complexity built around some bristling guitar mania and also string sections which have the eeriness of a 70s Italian horror soundtrack. Manifesto plunges straight in, with an overt metallic drive weighted against a neatly worked, semi-orchestral melody line.
This approach continues, with The Masked Ball and Billions And Billions offering spectacular soundscapes, as Martin lets his imagination run riot through a gamut of stormy and ethereal ideas and interludes. Boundless reaches its climax with the haunting Cyclic and Ovation, where the extremes coalesce. A progressive and metallic triumph.
