Album Review: Altostratus – Complete the Connection

Updated: Mar 3, 2020

Hailing from Newcastle, UK. Altostratus are semi-newcomers to the scene having formed in 2015. 5 years later they have finally released their debut album “Complete the Connection”.

The album starts with the title track and begins with a very well composed piece that to set the tone of the guitar work, and technicality, before delivering the djent in full force.

Lead single 'Hosnian Prime' is composed of some beautiful guitar work, and delicious use of reverb to create the feeling of large spaces. The music video also helps with the feeling of the open spaces when it cuts to the band on a hilltop surrounded by open rolling hills.

All throughout the album there is a great attention to detail on how each section flows into the next piece, or passage of the song. All the songs sound epic and keep the album at a good pace making it easy to digest. While the music it self is pretty formulaic for genre, this is a great listen for anyone who is a fan of groups like Skyharbour, Modern Day Babylon, Tesseract etc.

'Persea Americana' has a lovely opening making clever use of jazz style guitar work and gets a good groove moving.

The band is tight in their delivery and have a mastery of the usage of the 'djent' styling with their usage of intricate guitar work and composition using staccato guitar parts to accentuate some harmonized guitar parts in several songs. If they can continue to evolve their style, they will no doubt carve out a nice, long career.

The band will be on tour through Scotland, beginning in Edinburgh on April 3rd, with their culmination date on April 11th, in London.

If you are a fan of instrumental djent, you are going to enjoy this album front to back.

Signing Off,

Bill 'Furious' Groen

VIMH Contributing Writer