Review: “The Place I Feel Safest” by Currents

“The Place I feel Safest” was released by SharpTone Records in June 2017 as Connecticut’s Currents fourth release, the follow up to the 2015 8 track album “Life//Lost”. Though it has to be said that the earlier material had a different line-up.

Opening up with the tech-metal onslaught of “Apnea” which seemlessly blends Nu-Metal tinged lyrics with breakdowns and polyrythms before smashing into “Tremor” which introduces a clean sung chorus while underlaying it with a screamed vocal pattern. It’s a slow burn of a song, clearly identified as a single. “Night Terrors” then kicks in and steps up the DJent side and heaviness with Deathcore growls before slowing down towards the end to add more clean vocals. “Burn it down” will be a line that becomes a sing-a-long at the bands live shows. As with “Night Terrors”, “Delusion” shows the full range of what the band are capable of, rap-screamed style vocals mixed up with clean singing and tech-metal atmospherics. Then comes the Super Mario NES era DJent solo as if out of no-where. “Withered” has a couple of clean verse sections which sounds a bit out of place against the backdrop of the palm muted guitars. The pause-play moments wrapped around breakdowns, lift the base of the track up. Lyrically, while it’s distinctly Nu-Metal vibes, there are only a few mentions of “pain”. In fact, the first few songs actually unfold more like a horror story. As with a lot of the album, “Dreamer” does something a lot of Metalcore bands fail to do, which is to maintain the energy and bounce through the clean vocal sections. “Forget Me” comes in like a heavier punk song riff before a tech-metal bridge and return. Some of the riffs actually bring Periphery III to mind, such is the quality on show. The album title track “The Place I Feel Safest” maintains the albums vibe without actually being one of the stand out tracks. Lyrically the song reads like a dream that unfolds towards a nightmare before the wake up. “Silence” is a DJent masterclass. It gives a nice
20 seconds of breathing space with a melodic intro before coming in with palm muted guitars and clean vocals. It’s soaked in slow burn atmopherics and acts as a breather while also having enough about it to keep the vibe going. The solo is a piece of magic. The vocal range on “Another Life” is most impressive with a Deathcore pig squeal making an unexpected appearance. Closer “Shattered” is suitably both crushing at atmospheric.

Overall, each song is solid and of a specific type while bringing it’s own unique part. The album as a whole unfolds like a horror story, frantic energy, angry pissed off attitude and bleak outlook. There is plenty of raw nu-metal emotion on show but with a tighter control than the bands of the original era used. The production is rock solid with every element having crystal clarity, drums hitting clear and crisp, guitars have a crisp brightness to their tone. It has to be said that the instrumentation, the musicianship is the highlight of this album, the vocals and lyrics are playing second stage. There are common themes; sleep, dreams, nightmares, a broken home. Atmospheres and intensity soaks through the entire album. It’s quite clear that SharpTone are building a powerful lineup of bands under their roster, those of experiance like Attila and Emmure, but also those who are going to be ones for the future, like Loathe and Currents. [8/10]

Tracklist:

1. Apnea
2. Tremor
3. Night Terrors
4. Delusion
5. Withered
6. Dreamer
7. Forget Me
8. The Place I Feel Safest
9. Silence
10. Best Memory
11. Another Life
12. I’m Not Waiting
13. Shattered

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