Radiant Thought

Shaped by international collaboration, the Portuguese project blends atmospheric prog metal with raw emotion.

Thriving on an international exchange of ideas, the sights of Radiant Thought have are set firmly on wider horizons. Hailing from Porto, Portugal, Radiant Thought is the brainchild of guitarist and composer Valter Abreu, who describes his music as “progressive rock/metal inspired by the likes of A Perfect Circle, Tool and Porcupine Tree, with some industrial influences.” But this isn’t prog for the sake of complexity. As Abreu has it, this is an outlet for emotional self-reflection.

Radiant Thought has been a long time coming with origins stretching back to 2011 when Abreu began writing remotely with Swedish collaborator Stefan Sjöberg. Their cross-border partnership laid the groundwork for what would eventually become Radiant Thought, but as time and distance pulled them apart, the project lay dormant. It was during the pandemic that Abreu returned to the songs, re-working demos and shaping them into something new. “I revisited the material and decided to start making demos again,” he recalls. “I wanted a drummer, and since no one was playing live, Baard [Kolstad, of Leprous] was doing a lot of session work. I gave it a go and that’s when things really started moving.”

Kolstad’s involvement gave the project a powerful jolt. Abreu originally sent him demos with programmed drums, but the Norwegian dynamo responded with ideas that transformed the music. “The song just became huge and so much better than before,” says Abreu. “He even suggested production and arrangement tweaks – things like repeating a chorus one more time – and that really lifted the tracks.”

The result is 'Transcendence', an album that’s characterised by a sound that flows between atmospheric flourishes and heavy guitars, guided less by rigid structures and more by instinct. “It’s very intuitive,” Abreu explains. “Some songs need to build to something heavier, others stay calm. It depends on what they ask for.”

Though Radiant Thought is at present a solo endeavour, Abreu harbours ambitions to take the project to the stage, though new members will need to be assembled first. “It something that I want to do,” he says. “Let’s see how things develop.” Until then, Abreu hopes listeners will find something of themselves in his work. “I want people to see their own journey in the music – the dark times, and how they overcame them.”

- Julian Marszalek

For more info, www.instagram.com/radiantthought