Disconnected Souls—Fragments of Consciousness (2024)

Details

Mixed and mastered by Brandon Wolfe and Jeremy Valentyne. Album artwork by Simon A Visuals. Photography by Tom Lloyd.

Band

Matthew Simon Fletcher (Fletch)—Guitars, keys, bass, programming and backing vocals
Holly Royle—Guitars, clean vocals, keys and programming
Patrick Lloyd—Clean & harsh vocals, programming
Felix Luca King—Clean vocals, synths, programming
Tim Jenkins—Synths, keys, programming and guitars

Additional musicians

Jeremy Valentyne—Guitar solo on “Fragments” (track 10)

Tracks

Delirium
Dissonant whispers
Plague rats
Petrichor
Symbiont
Kintsukuroi
Human error
Loveless
Silence of the doves
Fragments
Monachopsis (A waltz at the end of the world)
Iyashikei

Review

Fragments of Consciousness (2024) is the debut album from Chester-based, English quintet Disconnected Souls. The band was formed in 2018 out of a desire to blend electronic, classical and metal music. Following their debut EP Warring Elements (2021), the band have since released an array of diverse singles leading up to this debut album.

Disconnected Souls strives to create a distinctive sound that draws upon the depths of metal, fused with electronic tones and classical textures. Each member brings a diverse range of musical interests to the rehearsal space and the resulting sound encompasses a wide variety of instrumental and vocal styles.

The band takes its name from the growing disconnect between humans; from each other, from within ourselves, as well as the increasing rift with the natural world.

Musically, the album is diverse; very diverse.

As Matthew Fletcher said, “I don’t expect that this will be an easy listen and you might be positively baffled by what’s going on, but hopefully you’ll agree that we fulfilled our objectives of producing something different, and you’ll feel enriched for having had the experience (positive or negative)!”

The band describes itself as ‘cinematic metal’, with each song the soundtrack to some modern/dystopian drama. There is a strong progressive element to these songs as they twist and turn, offering new surprises and revealing different aspects of the same song and weaving in new musical influences: symphonic, death metal, metalcore, electronic, industrial, classical … but, it works.

Conclusion

As anyone who has followed this humble blog will attest, I love albums like this—there is a creativity and a risk to smashing these so very different influences together. But Disconnected Souls have done an extraordinary job of creating something that has integrity, originality and interest.

Review score: 90%

Video

Disclosure

CSquared contacted me inviting me to preview Disconnected Souls’ forthcoming album, thank you. I have no connections to either CSquared or Disconnected Souls. I’m not being paid to review this, but I did get a free digital copy of the album to review which is pretty cool. Many thanks to Curtis Dewer from CSquared, and to Disconnected Souls for continuing to create fresh, exciting new music.