I first stumbled on Corelia a few years after college and can’t really recall how I found them. But I purchased the album digitally in 2012 on my iTunes account (remember when people did that?!?!) and I’m constantly reminded of them every time I connect my phone to the Bluetooth speakers in my car. Nostalgia is one of the handful of albums that make the rotation for randomly autoplaying in those moments (much like Kavinsky’s OutRun) and I’m always pleasantly surprised because this album honestly kicks ass. It’s a blend of heavy metal and prog-rock that is really remarkable in its ability to blend technical wizardry with radio-adjacent vocal hooks. Effectively it’s a really accessible progressive metalcore album, which is relatively unique in the subbiest of subgenres.
What’s even more bizarre about Corelia is their short-lived existence embroiled in controversy. They established a pretty strong fanbase in 2011 after releasing Nostalgia, raised $30K through Indiegogo in 2015 to record a full-length album, and then just disappeared off the face of the Earth. And then in April 2020 (in the midst of the pandemic) the band broke four years of silence after falling victim to a hoax where someone impersonating them claimed that the band would be releasing their long-awaited upcoming album. The fan backlash was intense (as to be expected with four years of silence) before they finally released demo versions of their new project via email to the contributors (that album can be heard here).
At any rate, the influence of the band and specifically the influence of lead guitarist Chris Dower who is truly one of the sharpest guitar players I’ve ever heard, lives on. Nostalgia still gets 70,000 streams per month on Spotify which is really saying something considering how magnificently things blew up on them over the course of the past 13 years. Corelia will always be one of those “what could have been” stories, a band who could have singlehandedly changed the face of metal in one sweep if they could have found a way to figure out their interpersonal dynamics and struggles with mental health.
Standout Songs: “Treetops”, “The Sound of Glaciers Moving”, “Red Sky Harbor”
Matthew. 