Review
The Seven Mile Journey
The Metamorphosis Project

Fonogram/Pumpkin Seeds in the Sand (2008) Loren

The Seven Mile Journey – The Metamorphosis Project cover artwork
The Seven Mile Journey – The Metamorphosis Project — Fonogram/Pumpkin Seeds in the Sand, 2008

Operating under the post-rock banner, The Seven Mile Journey's The Metamorphosis Project offers an hour of sparse and atmospheric soundscapes. It is the group's second release for Denmark's Fonogram Agency, and is released in the United States on Pumpkin Seeds in the Sand. The design is minimal yet eye-catching, with a white logo stamped in the corner of a glossy black digipak. Varying only in color, the art is identical to their previous releases. It's almost as if the band wants the music to speak for itself...

Opening track "Theme for the Elthenbury Massacre" offers little in terms of variety, using droning guitars that maintain a bleak aura. It's similar to many Explosions in the Sky songs before they crescendo and, frankly, that monotony makes it rather boring; it's the auditory equivalent of driving through the plains for hours on end. You might come across an occasional hill or curve, but it's basically a lot of the same thing. After fifteen minutes and two tracks, the album starts to pick up.

On "Identity Journals (Anonymous)," the group incorporates more energy, varying the tempo and offering a melody to counter the record's dreary start. For my tastes the melody is essential. Despite any traditionalist arguments one might make for the post-rock genre, the hint of catchiness keeps me interested. The guitars are utilized to drive a melody that overlays the earlier drone - shifting the tone from banal to foreboding and eventually optimistic. It's effective without being flashy. The next two songs incorporate a mild crescendo, subtler than their aforementioned Austin contemporaries, with a melody weaving in between the atmospheric, tone-setting drone and an emotional rise. After approximately twenty minutes of teetering on catchiness, the band briefly transitions between the earlier abyss and back to a gloomy crescendo in tune with the middle of the record on the closing "Purification - The Journey Transcriptions."

The Metamorphosis Project is parallel in structure to a screenplay: the six tracks can be broken into two-song "acts" conveying an emotional setup, change of outlook, and climax. The rise and fall are alternately intriguing, mildly catchy, and climatic. It's a solid album with emotional heights but, unfortunately, the record just takes too long to get going before its all-too-brief peak. It's an epic crescendo structure without enough epic. The record is solid but unexceptional. I would not recommend it for anything more than atmospheric background or enthusiasts of the genre.

6.0 / 10Loren • March 31, 2008

The Seven Mile Journey – The Metamorphosis Project cover artwork
The Seven Mile Journey – The Metamorphosis Project — Fonogram/Pumpkin Seeds in the Sand, 2008

Recently-posted album reviews

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more