If you have two hours to spare and you are a fan of Volumes, Aristeia, and Scale The Summit, I suggest that you check out Wide Eyes’ new 26-track album entitled Volume. First off, Wide Eyes is an entirely instrumental band, so don’t hold your breath while you’re waiting for the vocals to kick in. In all honestly, I’m not a huge fan of instrumental bands so it may come as a surprise to the majority of people that I chose to review this 109-minute instrumental album. However, after listening to a few tracks on Bandcamp, I really liked what I heard and knew that I had to give this album a shot so I figured I may as well review it too.Because this album is so long, there are so many things that I could talk about, both positive and negative (not so much). With that being said, instead of analyzing individual songs, I have decided to focus on the two main aspects (guitar and drums/synth/keys) as a whole.Right from the first track, “Inception”, I knew that I was in for a treat. For most of the album, one of the guitarists use a djenty tone, while the others are playing melodic leads or ambient passages and it makes for one immense combination. Most importantly, the riffs and leads are fresh and interesting for the majority of the album and not stale in the least bit!
The drumming on Volume is solid, but it lacks anything to give the album that extra punch (or kick). It becomes a little bland at times, like I was expecting the guitars to be (thankfully, they were very interesting). Although the drumming does become a little bit bland, the majority of the focus should and probably will be put on the guitars, so that is actually a minor flaw. Also, the synth and keys bring an extra effect to Volume and it makes up for the fairly standard drumming heard on the album.
If you feel a similar way towards instrumental bands that I do, I doubt you’ll be able to get through the entire album without taking a break or two, however, I strongly recommend downloading it from their Bandcamp (link below) because they are giving it away for free. If you choose to indulge in the entire album, I wish you luck. If not, at the very least, I really hope that you check out “Inception”, “Eskalofrio”, “The Galveston Key”, “Empirical”, “Demarcation”, and “Kamel Krush” (that was extremely difficult) because they are a few of the strongest tracks on Volume.
If Wide Eyes chooses to snag a vocalist, I have a feeling that they’re going to become one of my favourite progressive metalcore bands, even if the vocalist is sub-par. The songwriting is just too spectacular and everything flows too well to go unnoticed. 
Links: Facebook – Bandcamp
