Arcade Messiah is a one-man progressive metal project from Ireland. This is his third album.

Although there are some vocals on this release, it’s mainly instrumental, with the man behind the band making sure that the music has the starring role.

The songs are the kind of modern, progressive rock/metal that bands like Russian Circles and Cloudkicker do so well, although there’s probably more of the former than the latter in Arcade Messiah’s sound.

Elements of progressive/post-metal/rock all make themselves felt throughout this 42 minute work, giving the listener a lot to absorb as the playing time ticks down.

There’s a lot of drama and intrigue in Arcade Messiah’s music, and this comes out in the delivery, performance and feel of the songs. This is an album that’s all about mood, feeling and texture. Although it has atmosphere, I wouldn’t necessarily describe this as an atmospheric release though. It’s more about the aforementioned attributes than pure atmosphere per se, although, as I say, it certainly has its atmospheric moments.

The previous paragraph is probably a rather jumbled way of saying that III has a lot of kick-ass rock riffs and uptempo rhythms in addition to the emotive content, all designed to create songs that allow the listener to explore the album’s multifaceted delivery.

Bright melodies and chunky riffs work in partnership to forge music that has a clear direction. III knows what it wants to achieve and also seems to have a firm plan on how to achieve it.

As an instrumental album, (in the main), I’ve enjoyed this more than I sometimes do with instrumental releases, and it held my attention well throughout. A lot of the credit for this must go to the quality of the songwriting.

I’d recommend you give this a go for sure – give it a listen today.