When a band of promise finally comes into their own, it’s a magnificent sight to behold. Time can be the sort of thing that can just as easily wear down a passionate musician as much as it can lift them up to allow them to become their best possible form as the trials and tribulations begin to stack, showing listeners what there is still for such talent to throw down. For some, it takes quite a long time, but for others, it feels like hardly any time at all. Restless Spirit has been on an undeniable rise since its debut EP eleven years ago, and time has only been kind to the act with each subsequent release showcasing a new side to the band that feels like an awakening. With their forthcoming opus, that very idea comes to a pinnacle to offer us what might be the band’s crowning achievement to date.

In many instances, the point of a self-titled effort is to show people what your band is at its core, what you’re all about, and a distillation of what you can bring to the table in whatever fashion you bring it about. It’s oftentimes a chapter that defines what you do moving forward in whatever era you may find yourselves in with your vision clear as could be. In no small way, that’s precisely what it feels as though Restless Spirit has accomplished throughout the entirety of these eight tracks that are the culmination of all that has come before while always making it clear that Restless Spirit is still carving out their own path forward. Three years since their last offering, it’s clear in each of these songs that Restless Spirit truly lived up to its very name as it’s practically every aspect of this album that sees the name’s trademark sound sharpened to a magnificent edge from its heaviness to varying psychedelia to its evocative songwriting that feels like a true embodiment of carpe diem. It’s in virtually every minute of this creation that the unbound, free-roaming spirit of metal itself plays a key role in showing us precisely what Restless Spirit wants to be known as: a force that’s not to be trifled with, making a destiny forged by their hands and their hands alone, and an exploratory sound that shows us life is not something to be taken sitting down even if it knocks us off our feet. Defiance and perseverance are integral to what make this eponymous creation feel like an injection of intoxicating liberation straight into the veins that keeps you coming back time after time. Truly, Restless Spirit has picked a great effort to name as their defining chapter.

Restless Spirit has been a name on the lips of many every few years with each release that they put out, and it should absolutely be no different with all that they’re offering us this time around. A work of brilliant, fluctuating heaviness that knows precisely when the pull they hammer back and then throw it down at the prime opportunity, it’s this record that has the makings to set the stage for all that Restless Spirit will deliver in the future. And if for some unfortunate reason the act were to call it a day and end the act before a new effort arises, this is a magnificent ending note the likes of which many can only dream of.

LISTEN to “Restless Spirit” on Bandcamp here.

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