Sightings by lluminated Minerva

Cruise Through Space With Illuminated Minerva’s “Sightings” off Upcoming “Enigma Adamantine”

Canada’s Illuminated Minerva have a spacey full-length album “Enigma Adamantine” dropping on September 25, 2020, and a music video for the first single “Sightings”.

The band released an EP “The Immaculate Deception” in 2014 and this new album, while touching on similar concepts, embraces longer songs, a more technical edge, and a higher production value. With a little bit of everything genre-wise, except vocals, Illuminated Minerva takes the listener on a ride through space and conspiracies theories guided by archived audio clips. Illuminate Minerva shares their take on the album:

“’Enigma Adamantine’ is an instrumental progressive metal album based around conspiracy, UFOs, and abductions. A musical examination of modern mythology laid out with hard-hitting bass grooves, technical guitar lines, soaring leads, and complex drumming matched with audio from years past present an auditory mirror reflecting our deepest fears and questions yet to be answered. An album experience as unique as the stories within.”

The album, as a concept album, is written to be listened to as a whole in chronological order where the themes can flow from one song to another. Each track does carry its own weight, the first single “Sightings” being no exception. The second track on the album is the song for those who ‘want to believe’! Odd time signatures, throbbing bass, and first-hand accounts of unknown aircraft frame the question of ‘are we alone?’.

The progressive and melodic instrumental quartet suits a wide variety of people, especially fans of Tool, Scale the Summit, and Intronaut.

L-R: Pat Lawtey (Guitar) | Matt Petti (Bass) | Nathan Bourgeault (Guitar) | Jordon Bourgeault (Drums)
Photo Credit – Chris Aune

“Enigma Adamantine”
lluminated Minerva
[September 25, 2020]
Genre:
metal, progressive, ambient
Base: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Label / Booking / Press:
Asher Media

Illuminated Minerva is a technical, progressive metal band, from Calgary, Canada. Brothers Nathan Bourgeault (guitar) and Jordon Bourgeault (drums) were both musicians growing up and eventually started their first project Sequoia, the beginning of their musical collaboration. Eventually, they moved on to form Illuminated Minerva, with a goal to push the musical boundaries further.

Rounding the lineup out is local scene veteran Matt Petti (bass) who played with drummer Jordon Bourgeault in Verbal Deception; and Pat Lawtey (guitar) who played with the international act Kobra and the Lotus.

The bond between brothers and former bandmates results in a very natural writing process for the progressive metal quartet. Knowing what works and what doesn’t comes easily and allows the band to intertwine astral riffs, and technical harmonies highlighted by the absence of vocals. Combined with archived audio clips the result is oratory artistic storytelling taking the listener through space and time, exploring conspiracies and unanswered questions.

With a captivating and visceral live show, the seasoned musicians of Illuminated Minerva have played with a host of bands locally including Tesseract, Intronaut, and Cloudkicker. In 2014, the band released their debut EP “The Immaculate Deception” and are following it up in 2020 with a full length “Enigma Adamantine” due out Sept 25th.