The new album from Finnish Prog Metal band Wheel ‘Resident Human’ is out today on Vinyl, CD and Digital.
‘Resident Human’ is available here: https://Wheel.lnk.to/ResidentHuman
“Breathtaking melange of melancholy and power!” – EMP
“Equally relevant to society and intimate!” – Legacy (13/15) album tip!
“A strong work!” – Metal Hammer (5/7)
“In one word: intense!” – Rock Hard (8,5/10)
“A lyrically and musically dark and completely stirring album. Complex Progmetal which skillfully unites brute and reserved parts and creates a dynamic that only very few bands can achieve!” – Eclipsed (Sven Schmidt)
James Lascelles, the band’s vocalist says this about the album: “Resident Human is a deconstruction of what it is to be human in the modern age. From venemous online exchanges to introspective revelations, the album explores the duality of our underlying nature; our tendency towards destruction and our capacity for empathy. Through questioning our place in the seemingly hostile universe we inhabit and taking a step back from the gut-driven reactions we all experience as we observe the wider world through our screens, the album documents the journey of personal growth Wheel has undertaken over the past few years. The album is more raw than anything we’ve made before and shamelessly showcases all the scars and vulnerability of our performances. We are incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve on this record and it’s our pleasure to finally share it with you all.”
Tracklisting: 1.Dissipating (11:52) 2.Movement (4:24) 3.Ascend (4:23) 4.Hyperion (12:09) 5.Fugue (4:32) 6.Resident Human (10:32) 7.Old Earth (2:17)
Watch the stunning video for the album’s first single “Movement” at: https://Wheel.lnk.to/Movement/youtube
The Helsinki-based Wheel were formed in 2015 when singer James Lascelles moved to Finland and, through a fluke appearance on a Finnish TV show, met the core of what would become the early stages of the band. The members’ love of polyrhythms, different grooves, abstract time signatures and bands that see things differently would create the unique sound that appeared on their first EP in 2017. A follow-up EP ‘The Divide’ in 2018 would further cement the group as one to look out for.
With their first headline tour booked in for February 2020, and the promise of a US tour waiting for them in April, it was around then the instrumental bare bones of ‘Resident Human’ were coming together. Initially to be squeezed into a 10-week recording period, their plans changed once COVID-19 hit the world hard; the band had to roll with the ever-changing punches.
From the desperate content harvest of copy/paste culture (“Ascend”) to the polarized rhetoric surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement in America (“Movement”), ‘Resident Human’ is Wheel vocalizing the ashes they’ve witnessed falling throughout 2020 – putting a voice to our fallible nature.
“We joked at the start of the year that it’s going to be the year of progressive music concept albums about COVID,” James laughs. “And we’ve kind of done that…but it’s more about the time COVID has allowed us to explore ourselves rather than the pandemic itself.”
