Michigan’s Holloway (once known as Avitus) which houses brotherly principals Ross and Josh Morgan plus guitarist Shawn Julien have a mission in mind with their debut album Illusions. Beyond extending their music into cross-changeable media via proposed poetry, film, visual art and online tools, Holloway seeks to reinvent modern prog rock and metal by stripping it down to the basics and sculpting from the primers.
While their debut single “The Visitor” is structured identically to Queensryche’s title track “Empire” only with a different sway to the primary melody, Holloway comes to the table with figurative vibes akin to Dream Theater, 3, Staind, Coheed and Cambria and Underoath on Illusions.
Sometimes Illusions mixes up power prog with emo punk on the title track or “In the Dreamscapes of the Dead” and sometimes Holloway jacks up the volume with AOR-reminiscent tones blended with pop punk, using “Plague Marks” as an example. The difference for Holloway on “Plague Marks” is its sensibility to fuse some slinking percussion on the bridge before hammering the track home.
Illusions gets its audience’s attention right out the gate with a superb guitar-happy detonation on “Non-Inception” before opting for more ear-coaxing verses and a hooky chorus. Group leader Ross Morgan switches his vocal delivery from early twenty-something croon to a bellowed roar deafening enough to match the explosive opening which makes a reprise before “Non-Inception’s” last verse.
Illusions’ storyline, per the band, is “about a guy who loses his girlfriend and he essentially gets trapped with finding her soul, contacting her dead soul.” Aiming high with a cinematic mindframe for this album, Holloway best serves this purpose on the dark and graceful “The Current,” which slowly builds upon a melancholic piano line with high-end, swooning vocal tones from Ross Morgan and perfectly-sprinkled xylophone sublets.
While “Teeth & Tongue” and “The Gauntlet” adopt a jagged flavor somewhere in the middle of Queensryche and Staind, one of Illusions’ finest-written tracks follows afterwards with “May My Actions Be Seen.” “Actions” is rather busy considering its mid-tempo pace, yet the crunching layers and detailed note patterns Holloway heaps with each escalating bar is brought to climax then jerked back to start position for another build-up.
Opening their veins for their listeners, Ross and Josh Morgan seep past wounds into Illusions, primarily exorcising past heartache from the loss of their mother. Ross Morgan especially utilizes the various media around him to convey the emotional wreckage his muse (and straightforwardly his and Josh’s feelings) wrestles with.
Illusions’ cryptic cover art (reminiscent of something between Heironymous Bosch, Tim Burton and the old Hammer horror flicks) courtesy of Susan Van Sant projects the horrific sentiments the Morgan brothers wish to share with the world through the vehicle of their aggrieved muse.
The final mix of Illusion was overseen by Jens Bogren of Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, master polisher behind the work of established metal leaguers Opeth, Katatonia and Soilwork. Suffice it to say, Bogren’s touches on Illusions is one of the reasons it sounds as professional as it does.
For the listener’s purposes, the Morgans’ bloodletting on Illusions is mostly visceral stuff considering it could’ve gone in a weepier direction. Illusions is powerful at times and depending on how deep the Morgans want to push the limits with this project, their album could find itself a sleeper hit in the underground.
Reviewed By Ray Van Horn
