Mike McCleary - "Fallout From Midnight Tides" Album Review!!

It's now time for our 167th monthly CD review at The Sault Metal Scene, as we're taking a look at local hard rock solo musician Mike McCleary's seventh album "Fallout From Midnight Tides"! An instrumental album unlike his pre-pandemic efforts with vocals, this was independently released to his Bandcamp page on February 1st, and is one of only two albums in his back catalog currently available to buy/stream (his prior discography has been reworked or de-listed wholesale). Recorded last year with Mike on all instruments, "Fallout From Midnight Tides" is on sale on Bandcamp on a "name your price" model, and while it can be obtained for free, consider buying it to support his work! While one short track was cut from the planned album due to Mike feeling that it sounded forced, there are still 6 songs spanning 32 minutes to check out here, so let's begin this album review with a look at the first track, named "Entanglement"!

Inspired by the abstractness of time, this is definitely a departure from his prior output, in that it has dramatic overtones that remind me of a marching battalion in a fantasy movie. If you're expecting a guitar showcase, look elsewhere, but Mike shows off his range as a composer to good effect! The plodding four-time note throughout is something that I'd have held back on or cut, but it's an interesting diversion that reminds me of something that Mike could easily slot into a score if he wanted to write one! Track #2 is "Perpetual Motion", which comes from the constant string tap reminding him of the titular machines. This is an acoustic composition that has benefits from Mike adding that tap to give the song a bit of percussion that otherwise wouldn't be present, and it'd be interesting to see him play this in a video. Far from a ballad, this is a very effective showcase of his guitar skill and it's well worth checking out on its own merits!

Third up is the album's shortest song, "Harmonic Objectivity", which is inspired by staying objective in difficult conversations, and he emphasized listening to the song in stereo due to two guitar performances being intentionally split across audio tracks. The balance is clearly discernible! While relatively spare like the preceding song, it does have pretty qualities to it as a guitar piece, so fans should appreciate it, though I would have made one channel's audio be clearly different in tone or instrumentation to better reflect the theme. The second half begins with "Bismarck", which is influenced by imperialism & World War II, and thusly named for the German battleship. If you've been waiting for a song more akin to his prior output, than this is the song for you, as it's a proper hard rock composition with guitar, bass, and drums, and makes the most of its 7 minute runtime with multiple shifts in tempo and intensity.

My favourite part is the intense speed metal chunk that begins about 3:53 into the track, and Mike also lays down a solid guitar solo! The guitar riffs do seem to have a fuzz on them, and I do feel like the bass isn't layered as well as it could have been, but this is an entertaining number, and you can see how it inspired Mike to do an instrumental album! The album's title track "Fallout From Midnight Tides" is next, and it is inspired by anxiety-prompted emotions when lying awake at night. The longest song on the album, it opens with 2:20 of soft and ominous playing accentuated by well placed guitar work, before jumping into galloping thrash metal, and eventually leaning into solos and showing off Mike's guitar abilities at the forefront. The late bridge wasn't for me, but more often than not, this song works quite well! The final song is "Spaghettification", which is inspired by an object being compressed and stretched in a black hole.

A spacier opening leads to a heavy chugging riff that reminds me of Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction", but it bounces between that and softer stretches that allow Mike to lay down some more guitar solos of varyingly softer qualities, though the extended guitar solo 5:50 in will please metalheads the most, and it is quite a capper to the album! 

So, what are my final thoughts on Mike McCleary's new instrumental album? It's hard to compare to his prior output, both from the lack of vocals and from most of his other work not being available to hear nowadays, but this might be his best album in terms of pure musical quality! Without needing to stick to a traditional song structure, let alone how he views his vocal range, Mike gets to show off his skills as a composer and guitarist to good effect, and those last three songs prove that he could be quite an asset in a local metal band if he were to join/form one! Even without lyrics, there's a maturity there that is welcomed on multiple levels. The opening three songs are interesting compositionially and show his range beyond just rocking out, but my biggest problem with the album is the track layout. I wouldn't have had the three short experimental songs first and the metal epics last, as it's really imbalanced this way.

Spreading the six songs more evenly and tweaking a few minor things here and there would have made the whole package stronger, but this is a very solid release that hard rock and metal fans should give a whirl, especially tracks 4-6! Mike hasn't posted on his Facebook page since the album's release, but hopefully he's still at work behind the scenes, and show your support by buying or streaming "Fallout From Midnight Tides" at the above links! I hope you guys liked this month's CD review, and stay tuned next month when we look at Crucify The Whore & Molten Imp's "Pyrolytic Punishment" split, and for more news next week! Thanks everyone!