Children of Nova - Impossible Landscape

I'll get to the Mars Volta. Don't worry. For now, though, I think it's appropriate that I share some lesser known and yet impossibly talented bands first. Children of Nova are a lot like The Mars Volta and The Dear Hunter. They're a modern progressive rock group, and they're also quite well associated with the post-hardcore scene. The difference is that both Volta and Dear Hunter had their roots in post-hardcore because they were birthed from it - those groups At the Drive-In and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart were good for a reason - while Children of Nova are a bit backwards. Children, instead of being either one genre or the other, basically just pushed both of them into each other, seeing as though they're so alike.
From the start you can hear it. Erratic houses some great opening "wake the fuck up" shredding, and introduces us to our vocalist - who, along with the atmosphere the band puts off, will definitely remind you of other groups, like Casey Crescenzo and Claudio Sanchez. This might be their debut album, but Children of Nova pulled out all the stops. They're out to really perfect sounds that we've already heard. "Moments of Clarity" feels like a perfect Muse song. "First Signs" is the song you put on when you're driving in a space ship towards the sun in a last wise guy attempt to save the world from a meteor that you just left Bruce Willis and a bomb on and your fiance is crying in a space station in NASA, but just before you run into the sun, you dawn your master chief armor and jump out the back with a bomb in tow, then you just figure, "fuck it" and point yourself like a needle towards Earth. And it works.
If at any one time a track doesn't keep the flow moving, it's "Silhouette". This song basically just kind of falls in on itself. Every album needs a soft song, I guess. Even if it just brings the flow of the album to a dead stop and makes us forget why we liked anything in the first place. However, something great about modern prog rock is that our bands today really know how to close an album - just look anywhere. Porcupine Tree and The Volta have been doing it for decades now, and Children of Nova are no exception. On "It's Just a Ride" they pound back into your skull that they are fucking. bad. ass.
Tier: 3 [Good Shit]
[the Russians have got nothing on this]