Downfall is Ark Ascent’s debut album which was released back in 2019. I picked it up recently after hearing one of the songs and being impressed enough to hit the button.
The band has an excellent album of mainly heavy progressive metal with some contrasting quieter songs making a fine listen.
I suppose it can be deemed a concept album of sorts with the sometimes cheesy lyrics being from the viewpoint of the last survivor of a cataclysmic event leading to the end of things as we know them.
Sure – it’s a prog rock staple topic and been done time and time again however Ark Ascent pull it off with some aplomb musically with a generally bombastic approach.
Arrival is a tasty slightly overblown short instrumental with some crunching riffs and blazing keyboards which segues in to Point of No Return. Thumping riffs, blazing solos, huge keys bigging up the atmospheric feel all of which broken intermittently by some slower passages giving vocalist Rogue Marchal an early opportunity to show his range.
Sanctuary follows in similar style as does to a large extent The Darkest Hour. One of the more heavier songs here with a battering ram style a bit like say Hellowween then in the latter third of the song it burst out in to a stupendous few minutes of blazing guitar and keyboard/synth glory before closing out by revisiting the melodic chorus. Top stuff. Have a listen:
Farewell slows it down with a short, gentle piano-based cut and an accompanying vocal then the title track comes in as a nice bit of more a melodic metal style approach.
Ascension seems to form a separation of sorts being a short acoustic-based instrumental to tone down the preceding heavy stuff. It leads in to Innocence Lost which is similarly acoustically based going in to power ballad territory.
The powerful prog metal comes back with The Aftermath. Heavy And Atmospheric with another huge showing of dextrous shredding and glorious keys/synths going on during the instrumental passage.
Another short acoustic cut is Closer to Heaven – then we have the stupendous thirteen minutes of The End of Time. This is something special. It starts reasonably unremarkably with a slower, melodic thing going on before smashing out in to a full on prog metal bombast in quite some style. In particular the guitar and keys/synth passages mid-song are quite jaw-dropping in complexity and performance.
Ovverall – Downfall is a solid album of progressive/power metal with a varied approach and top-notch musicianship in particular the impressive guitars and keys/synths giving it all quite a push in the right direction.
If you’d like to pick it up for yourself, check out the Ark Ascent BandCamp page. The album available as a limited edition CD or the streaming/download option:
https://arkascent.bandcamp.com/album/downfall