A rock single is nothing without a signature riff, and Ignescent’s “Remnant” definitely has something special. The fretwork in this track isn’t quite the face-numbing brutality you would expect from a conventional heavy rock single, but it doesn’t need to be – the lumbering rhythm of the riffage here is enough to make anyone a rocker for life. Ignescent has a lot of competition coming at them from virtually every direction in the American underground today, but considering the depth of this all-new performance, it’s hard to debate whether or not they’ve got the chops to hold their own with the best in the game right now.
The lead vocal in “Remnant” has a lot of feistiness to it, but we aren’t listening to a singer struggling to keep up with the dramatic pacing of the backing band. On the contrary, the verses are shaping the groove here just as much as the percussion is, which isn’t to say that the bassline is left in the lurch. The bass parts are providing the guitar with just enough of a canvas to really illustrate a deeper sense of tonality and texture than what we get out of most rock singles these days, and that alone makes this an interesting listen to me.
This backend is definitely large and in charge, but as previously stated, Ignescent is mixing this track to create foundations atop which to tell a story, rather than hitting us with one giant burst of thunder all at once, as many of their contemporaries likely would. They’ve got too much precision to give us a punky slop in “Remnant,” and while this is the first time I’ve listened to their music and studied their aesthetics, it’s difficult to describe this performance without using a word like technical or even elegant with regards to the arrangement.
“Remnant” feels like a full-package rock single that features a band refusing to overthink their craft, and in 2022, this makes them quite the noteworthy bunch of players indeed. Ignescent are rising through the ranks of an underground hierarchy that has never seemed quite as flooded with fresh talent as it does at the moment, and yet the swagger they’re playing with in this track and its music video suggests they aren’t sweating the competitiveness of their scene in the least. If anything, they’re ready for the big leagues, and this is a single that states so rather plainly.
Kim Muncie