Short Reviews [Claemus - 2021 - "Daydream"]

When I heard that Hutt Valley band Claemus had released their debut album I was immediately intrigued, as I came across the single Hedonist a few months ago, and given the number of influences and styles they had managed to ram into 5 minutes what could they do with a full album? These guys have managed to secure support slots with bands as diverse as P.O.D., The Ocean, Make Them Suffer and Intervals, yet one could never imagine those four bands playing at the same festival, so why do Claemus manage to be a common link? The answer to that is just down to the sheer variety of styles on offer, which means that we can get a commercial hard rock number like Epilogue (which is strangely not the very last song on the album), which comes across as American crossover prog or Aspire Part III which has strong similarities with Written By Wolves. Of course, there is the aforementioned Hedonist, which is a commercial belter which has been heavily influenced by Meshuggah and Protest The Hero, and one soon realizes that Claemus is very unlike most bands around in that they genuinely takes bits and pieces from bands they admire, throw it into a melting pot and messes about with what comes out. They are a progressive rock band in its very truest sense, in that they are taking influences and putting them together in new and interesting ways where they are moving and out of different genres, sometimes staying mostly in one and at others mixing them together. The result is that the listener can look at the track listing, and all they know for sure is that there are 9 songs and a total playing length of 38 minutes, and no idea at all what the album is going to sound like. This is more unusual than many may think, as even though some bands do change their style from one album to the next (for example Metallica – I never said the change was a good one) while others play basically the same style throughout their career (AC/DC), it is unusual to find a band changing not only from one song to the next but often within the song as well. This is why they are able to get so many different support slots as they can tailor their set to whoever they are playing with, so someone seeing them support a death metal act like Make Them Suffer will come away with a very different view to when they are playing with a more progressive band like The Ocean. At times this almost comes across as a compilation in that they are so diverse, with the common thread being good songs with mighty hooks. Recovery is probably my favourite, a real builder with long commercial passages, vocals moving into falsetto, great drums and passion shining through as it ebbs and flows. This is an album which is thoroughly enjoyable the first time of playing, and it only gets better from there.