Polyphia – Renaissance

When you’re an instrumental band consisting of three exceptional guitar players it’s natural to want to lay everything on the table and show just how good you are. While Polyphia‘s debut album Muse did just that, Renaissance takes a different approach. It’s the perfect title for an album that not only sees a rebirth of the band’s songwriting style but also elevates the genre to an impressive new level, thanks to an infusion of melodic hooks and infectious rhythms.

The band cite hip hop, and modern pop acts such as Justin Bieber and Drake, as personal influences and they’ve managed to infuse these styles into their music to deliver metal-based guitar music with intensely catchy rhythms. From the bass-heavy grooves of “Nightmare” and “Crush” to the feel-good dance beats of “Amour”, the focus on up-tempo rhythms keeps the album moving at a swift pace that becomes addictive and infectious.

Despite this being a fully instrumental album it’s extremely lyrical. Each song has a central theme and, like all good pop songs, they cycle through intelligent structures that guide you back to the main hook, giving each track a noticeable chorus and catchy melody that proves you don’t always need vocals to serve up hooks that leave you whistling for days.

Polyphia’s three superb musicians treat us to an abundance of highly impressive, technical guitar playing across the album’s twelve tracks, but what’s more impressive than the guitar work on show, is what’s not being played. This record is far from self-indulgent; despite having the ability to shower the record with complex solos and individual flair, the band show a level of restraint that emphasises the growth in maturity of the band’s songwriting. The key focus on Renaissance is delivering coherent, catchy songs and by balancing a tasteful amount of technical proficiency with simplistic structures that prevent the songs from being busy and overly cluttered, they’ve certainly delivered.

While Muse showed Polyphia’s prowess as musicians, Renaissance proves that they’re also fantastic songwriters and with both of these skills honed, they’ve achieved an album that’s sophisticated and long-lasting, as well as technically impressive. It’s a near flawless demonstration of how sublime an instrumental record can be and thanks to its fusion of metal and pop styles, it’s accessible to a wide range of audiences. This is not only a fantastic achievement for the band, but should see them rise as ambassadors for the genre as well.