Band: Sgàile | Album: Traverse the Bealach | Genre: Progressive metal, Post-metal | Year: 2024
From: Glasgow, UK | Label: Independent
For fans of: Devin Townsend, Avandra, Elder
I pride myself on generally being pretty good at pronouncing non-English words reasonably closely to how they would be by a native speaker. (I make no claims about my ability to string together a coherent sentence, mind you.) However, the spelling systems of Irish and Scottish Gaelic truly baffle me. I’ve been told that they actually make a lot of sense and are fairly consistent, if you sit down and learn the conventions. I haven’t done that, though, so this band’s name, Sgàile, made me raise an eyebrow. It turns out it’s pronounced roughly “sky-lee,” (which is not too far off what I would have guessed), and it means “shade” in Scottish Gaelic.
Sgàile is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Tony Dunn, and Traverse the Bealach is their second full-length release. (“Bealach” means something like “way” or “road,” according to Google Translate.) There is an unmistakable Scottishness to this music, and there are some passing similarities to Saor, another notably Caledonian metal act. But where Saor tends to be more atmospheric and impressionistic, Sgàile’s riffs have a bit more punch and definition behind them.
The 11-minute “Psalms to Shout at the Void” starts off quietly, however. The initial clean guitars linger in the background as heavier instrumentation emerges. The solos in this opening section are grand and cinematic, but they also feel focused. Around the midway point, things quiet down, and vocals enter. They’re contemplative, and I like the layering he uses. Contrasts between jangly clean guitar and more powerful passages are striking and help this long piece fly by.
“Lamentations by the Lochan” has a fist-pumping, chugging riff to kick things off, and the verse continues with the majestic, but slightly airy, melodic tendencies established on the preceding track. This song also does a great job at keeping the momentum up; this doesn’t feel like a nine-minute song. The playing is complex but not overly flashy, and the way it evolves is smart and organic.
Things slow down on “The Ptarmigan’s Cry”, and Celtic flavors are especially evident in the clean guitar lines and vocal melodies.The song’s midsection features some lovely harmonized guitar lines that add a plaintive quality. This is followed by the quiet interlude “Introspect”, a nice palate cleanser.
“Silence”, the longest song on the album, blasts off with a high-energy passage, and Dunn’s vocals soar over the top. There’s a lush quality to his voice, and he effectively manages to evoke broad, open landscapes without making the music feel washed out. This cut features some of the heaviest instrumental passages on the whole record, and Sgàile continually balances weight and texture expertly.
It’s around here, though, that this album’s length becomes something of a burden. “The Brocken Spectre” is a good song, but it really isn’t meaningfully different from much of what precedes it. This album would have been improved by cutting one of these songs, but there’s no obvious contender for which one it should have been. This is similar to problems which have plagued Elder and Slift on recent releases. Putting out an hour-plus album where the songs are all broadly similar with an average length of ten-ish minutes can make it a challenging listen, and not in a particularly rewarding way.
Traverse the Bealach ends with “Entangled in the Light”, and its opening is unexpectedly upbeat. The hi-hat pattern and pulsing synth strings lend this piece a fitting lightness. As this song enters a heavier passage, there’s still that sense of warmth and hopefulness.
Sgàile’s second full-length album is a solid release. It’s powerful, majestic progressive metal with some post-metal leanings. Subtle Celtic influences can be heard in the melodies and clean guitar lines, and the songs are all well constructed. It is a bit longer than it needs to be, but it’s still a strong release, on the whole.
Score: 78/100