Sonus Corona – Time is Not On Your Side

Label: Inverse Records
Releasedate: 22-11-2019

Sonus Corona is a progressive metal band from Turku, Finland and this is their second album “Time is Not On Your Side”. 

What can introduce a Prog record better than an arrangement of strings against a thick synth lead that suddenly dives into lower frequencies in order to make way for a melancholic piano? I don’t really know, but I know that it was the perfect intro in order to get straight into the business of heavy riffing which is “Induction”.

“Unreal” showcases the musical abilities this band possesses, I particularly enjoyed the bridge passage that mixes a playful synth lead line against a catchy guitar riff and that’s something I have not heard before. The song encapsulates a couple of elements that I enjoy from this band, which are chuggy riffs, in your face synth leads, great vocal melodies and sections dedicated to visiting other musical styles where the keys take the spotlight.

“Refuge” just shows how good this band is at putting together songs that benefit the melody, vocals just shine here.

“Swing of Sanity” starts off with a ballroom type of 50s sounding piano which then leads to a groovy riff, the vocal performance is quite fitting. This song is just proof that this band is not afraid to experiment with styles outside of metal, sometimes experimenting with elements that are more familiar within the pop world.

“Time is not on your side”, the song that carries the same name as the album, reminded me of Dream Theater’s musical style, and that’s from the compositional perspective, not from the musical wizardry and crazy solo sections perspective, perhaps also with a more bearable vocal timbre. It also puts the keys on the bench for a while, so the balance naturally favours the more metal sounds these guys have to offer.

“Moment of Reckoning” brings back the keys, odd rhythms and musical abilities are taken to the maximum, there are sections where they almost go into the depths of some sort of electronic music which at this point did not surprise me.

“Here” is the closing track and it has one of my favorite riffs off of this record but apart from that also the most epic instrumental section, these instrumental bridge sections are pretty amazing; it’s like they choose very different drum machine patterns and glue them together with the rest of the instrumentation, and somehow in the end, it all makes sense. Again they temporarily visit other styles, they throw some keyboard action, some synth leads and mix it all together.

“Time is Not On Your Side” has some great songs as stated before, and for the most part I’d say it’s a great record, every single instrument is performing and screaming for attention, especially the keys are quite in your face great, but I feel like they have some more ground to cover in terms of songwriting. As some of their songs were quite easy to the ear I can imagine that it’s just a matter of time and practice, soon we might have a Sonus Corona record where every song is a heavy hitter.

Line up:

• Ari Lempinen – guitar, backing vocals
• Harri Annala – guitar
• Miika Erkkilä – bass
• Rasmus Raassina – drums
• Esa Lempinen – keyboards
• Timo Mustonen – vocals

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