Polyphia – Be Not Afraid Review

What the fuck am I listening to? That was my first thought when I threw on Polyphia‘s new album, Be Not Afraid, whose opening track, Let There Be Light, progresses from the familiar guitar virtuoso, proggy guitar licks into a bizarre amalgamation of dubstep and digital hardcore.

I’ve gotta hand it to Tim Henson and the gang; they certainly know how to flip genres. This is just the latest in the band’s crusade to touch on every musical style that isn’t traditionally guitar-driven. Be Not Afraid could almost pass as a Machine Girl album, with its heavy, distorted assault on the ears, but it just misses the mark.

“Clipping? Nah, never heard of it!” That’s what I imagine engineer RJ Pasin said when producing this record. Throughout the album, the low-end absolutely crushes the remainder of the frequency spectrum with heavy distorted clipping, which I assume is an intentional choice to really hammer home that this album isn’t the prog metal you expected. Far from it.

If you came into Be Not Afraid blind, like me, you’ll be surprised, track after track, just how much this album doesn’t feel like a Polyphia album. It’s full of samples, glitchy IDM drums, and overprocessing, taking a somewhat familiar sound into more of an electronic Future Bass territory. If someone said to me that this was a remix compilation by AWOLNATION, I’d absolutely believe you.

I get that Polyphia aren’t your usual prog metal band. They are insanely talented at what they do. Even in this review, the term virtuoso is thrown around so often when referring to Henson, but I feel like this album strays so far from the path that he and the rest of the band have forged over the past decade. I understand they’ve dabbled in different genres, pushed boundaries of what is considered prog metal, but for me this just doesn’t hit.

Despite being such a technical album, the overuse of sampled and programmed bass and drums almost takes away the talent and charm that Henson’s guitar work has. It doesn’t feel organic, and any sense of humanity feels stripped from the music. It’s all very digital, and that, for me, doesn’t make for an enjoyable Polyphia record.

I genuinely can’t imagine how this music will go down live, especially if their setlist includes tracks from their older catalogue. I’m imagining those videos of dudes with huge car sound systems with insane subwoofers blasting the skin off of anyone who dares sit in the passenger seat, except it’s an entire audience of fans expecting some technical, mathy prog metal.

I genuinely don’t know what to feel about Be Not Afraid. There’s talent here, for sure. But it’s so overshadowed by oversaturated EDM production choices, glitchy sampled drums, and thumping bass that I just can’t really find anything to enjoy about this record. It’s a mess of ideas that try to work together, but like water and oil, they just don’t mix well.

I feel like this is the band’s attempt to dive into digital hardcore, where artists such as Machine Girl, Atari Teenage Riot, and even The Mad Capsule Markets have paved the way, but ultimately they completely miss the mark.