Review: Duality – Elements

There are four bands called Duality listed on metal-archives, two of them from France. But only one of them has already been featured on DutchMetalManiac before, and it’s the very one we will be talking about today. Tim has reviewed the 2017 EP Archeology back then, and I checked out the old EP for reference before diving into Duality’s latest offering Elements.

Since the 2017 EP, Duality actually released five individual singles (Buried and In the Sun in 2018, Ship and Fluffy Cloud in 2019 and Solace in 2020), that are now bundled into and re-released on this new EP. I assume that some remastering took place, but if so, it was done very subtly – the individual singles already sounded amazing, and so does this EP. This comes courtesy of Amaël Durand at DNA Music Studio, who did an amazing job with the soundscape on these five tracks.

Stylistically, Duality’s type of progressive metal lands somewhere between Monuments and TesseracT: lots of djent riffs, atmospheric elements, breakdowns and groove changes build the backdrop to a mix of (mostly) clean and (some) guttural vocals. While every musician in Duality displays his technical abilities, the songs never really descend too much into excessive technicality. Still I wish there were more recognizable patterns in these songs and less jumping around between riffs and ideas. Note that this is a subjective problem I have with almost every band in this genre, and less with Duality in specific. There are many great moments and riffs on Elements that I really enjoyed. There might actually be a few too many of them shuffled together, as I can barely remember what the first song sounded like after I finished listening to the EP 24 minutes after I pressed play.

I made a point of pointing out the excellent production of this EP, and I actually think this is a bit of the problem for me: Elements is an extremely well produced spectacle that sounds amazing and wows with technical musicianship. But take that away, and I miss a solid riff or chorus that sticks with me. Once again, that might be my subjective problem with this genre in general. If you like djent and technical prowess in your metal, this might be perfect for you. Sadly, it isn’t for me.

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