Year: 2008
Country: France
Running time: 16 mins. 9 secs.
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Even though Demians sounds like the name of a group, there was in truth only one member at the time of their debut album's release: talented French musician Nicolas Chapel. Said debut album Building an Empire was released in May 2008. This was only four years ago, and yet Sand is not even the most recent entry in the top 20. I suppose that says good things about the state of progressive rock genre today. We will return to that one even more recent song a little later on.
Sand is the closing track of this excellent album, and what an immensely powerful closing it is. None of the seven preceding tracks are even ten minutes long, but Sand uses its sixteen to combine moments of quiet tenderness and melancholy to those of raw power and aggression. It is easily the most heavy metal -like entry in the entire top 20 and definitely the only one where singing at one point transforms to aggressive, low, throaty screaming.
And yet, even though Sand and maybe even Demians overall might be labeled progressive metal, it isn't really metal that Chapel concentrates on. Not even here, and even less on the other tracks of the debut album. In Sand, there are some heavy riffs, granted, but they comprise only a small portion of what could best be described as a melodic, mainly guitar, drum and voice driven progressive rock song.
We begin the musical journey of Sand with peaceful and quiet notes, perhaps even deceptively so. Tight drumming does start almost at the beginning, though, a vague suggestion of what lies ahead. Shortly after the halfway point things get very noisy and aggressive, after which there is an extended, much quieter and downright beautiful sequence. There we get a chance to gradually reach a more peaceful and mellow state once again. The last minutes of the song are instrumental and instead of a clear ending point it just seems to fade away - even though there is no fade out at the end.
Nicolas Chapel has not wanted to rest on his laurels following his debut. Demians' second album Mute was released in 2010, and a third, yet untitled studio album is due out later this year. Mute is a collection of shorter songs, the longest of which clocks just under seven and a half minutes. To be perfectly honest, there is nothing as powerful there as Sand but Chapel's talent as a creator of beautiful melodies continues to shine through.
Following Mute's release, Chapel was joined by guitarist Fred Mariolle, who is now officially the second member of Demians and therefore the upcoming third album is the first co-operative effort of two musicians. On the first two, Chapel played all the instruments and employed others only on tour. It will definitely be interesting to hear how the combination of two talents will affect the musical landscape of Demians.
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