The story of Sometime in February is one of chance and serendipity. Hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, this instrumental guitar trio is set to release Where Mountains Hide, their first album for InsideOutMusic/Sony Music. The album features sophisticated yet accessible compositions that reveal a maturity beyond their brief time together as a band. Despite their recent formation, they’ve already caught the attention of their peers and are poised to make a mark in the music world.
The band introduced themselves with their first single under InsideOut, titled ‘Hiding Place’, which showcased their melodic approach. Now, with a full album of new material, Sometime in February presents 12 captivating tracks, from the fusion-metal opener ‘Palantir’ to the progressive complexity of ‘Outside In’ to the blues-infused, prog-metal closer ‘Funeral House’.
Ahead of the album’s release we asked the band about 3 releases that have influenced them a lot in their musical career.
The Contortionist – Intrinsic
Scott Barber (drums)
2012 was an absolutely stacked year for prog metal releases. Bands like Periphery, Meshuggah, BTBAM, and Car Bomb all put out excellent albums that fans still consider some of the best from those groups. However, what I was most excited for at the time was The Contortionist’s follow up to their seminal 2010 album Exoplanet. 2012’s Intrinsic took the best parts of Exoplanet (crushingly heavy sections offset by keyboard and clean guitar-driven ambient soundscapes) and cranked them both up to 11. The heavy parts were heavier, and the ambient sections were somehow even more beautiful than before. The album is filled with twists and turns that can really challenge the listener’s ability to simply follow along without wondering ‘wait, what did they do there, and how did they do that?’ The process of learning several songs from Intrinsic on the drums proved to be major impact on the way I approach writing drum parts to this day. As a self-proclaimed music nerd, this album really puts my brain to work in exactly the way I like, and I whole-heartedly recommend a listen if you’ve never heard it before.
Boston – Boston
Tristan Auman (Guitar)
Going back to the start for this one. This is the album that got me into music in the first place. I’ll never forget my dad playing ‘More Than a Feeling’ for the first time when I was eight years old. Tom Sholz’s tone was unlike anything I had heard, I was immediately hooked. It was all so creative and ahead of its time. So many hits on this record, it’s kinda unbelievable, and it absolutely holds up today. The fact that it was largely tracked and produced by Sholz in his own basement recording setup is one of the coolest things to me. Given the quality of the production at the time it seems like a miracle, but no, they just knew their stuff. Brad Delp’s performance here is probably my favorite vocal performance in rock, he belts and harmonizes in the most satisfying ways, it is always with me in my head. For my very concert, I got to see Boston in 2008, very shortly after Delp’s passing. There were a couple vocalists filling Delp’s place, including Stryper’s Michael Sweet, and Tom sounded just as good as I hoped. We ended up meeting Sholz’s wife after the show, she came up to us and gave me a guitar pick, and that’ll always stick with me.
Haken – The Mountain
Tristan Auman (Guitar)
This was kinda my entry point into modern progressive metal. It was the natural progression of my Dream Theater phase, and towards heavier music like Haken’s contemporaries in BTBAM, The Contortionist, and so on. The Mountain has a little bit of everything I like. ‘Atlas Stone’ kicks it off with arguably the best textures I’ve heard, with their use of guitars, keys, strings, and choirs. Not to mention the fantastic production and mixing on this record, thanks to Jens Bogren, which is possibly one of my favorite sounding records of all time. They have some very heavy tracks as well, with ‘In Memoriam’ and ‘Falling Back to Earth’. Something I love is that it’s all just parts to serve the song, they don’t focus on heavy stuff or weird parts so they can be the heavy or weird band, all of it works because each part serves its purpose in the song. It’s the perfect mix and this album shows it. My favorite track is probably ‘Pareidolia’, which is the best example of this. The latter half of this album is supremely underrated. Such subtle beautiful moments on ‘As Death Embraces’ and ‘Somebody/Nobody’, and Ross’s vocal performance is such a standout. Overall, this album feels effortless, just a band being their truest selves.
