Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review. Today I bring The Implication by A Squandered Potential which was released on September 7th, 2025. This is a one man band from Eric Harper with production and bass help from Sean Hart.
This one man project is a progressive metal amalgamation with a huge emphasis on technical death metal. This album The shredding on this album is really impressive to say the least. There are a multitude of techniques used on guitar for the duration of this album.
Right off the bat The Soul Protectors had my attention. It starts off with a really intricate passage that has clean vocals over it. The real kicker is the clean(singing) vocals that are used over this. It’s not very often that harsh vocals don’t accompany playing like that, on top of that it’s sounds as though the track is in a major key! This is so unusual and so cool to me, it’s almost like a tech death band was in a good mood while writing! This is encapsulated by the two covers to end this album. One cover Of What’s To Come is by Deeds of Flesh and the other shocked and surprised me! Live and Learn which was made famous by Crush40, or as I knew it, the menu music to Sonic Adventure 2 Battle!
The Implication is one of my favorite tracks on this debut album. I love the passage starting at 1:21, it sounds like a textbook metalcore passage mashed together with tech death! That made me smile and headbang real hard the first few times I listened to it. Plus the subsequent sections of the track is super technical and chuggy just adding to the grounded easy head banging feeling!
Lust For Depravity is my favorite track on this album hands down. The first section reminds me of The Faceless in its sci-fi sounding harmonies and meandering guitar lines. Eric’s vocals I think are the best on this track throughout this track. To me this might be the most technical track and really peaked my interest.
I’m glad I stumbled upon some of the posts that Eric has made in over time in the Death Metal sharing Facebook page! This solo project has a debut and I know he has a band that is working on music as well. Overall I would give this debut an 8/10 on my personal scale. I can’t wait to hear more and hope I do! Don’t forget to stream and buy this if you like it! Likes are below!
https://open.spotify.com/album/3RYevpH6IZqONto7X6VlIX
https://www.facebook.com/share/17JSVakXQQ/?mibextid=wwXIfr
https://asquanderedpotential.bandcamp.com/album/the-implication
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-implication/1839215304
https://youtu.be/INEAx6xvoEs?si=yS6CR8l7_MapA5L4
The Implication by A Squandered Potential first appeared on technicalmusicreview.com.
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