2007-09-21
I've reviewed this extreme instrumental prog outfit's last album - Penumbra Diffuse last year, and I found it to be a brilliant, if quite difficult piece of prog metal. this band's new release continues in the same route, with some added elements brought into the mix.
These guys started out as a more standard tech death metal band at first, but decided to go all instrumental when their vocalist walked out. So basically, most of their prog still sounds like prog death metal, just without the growls, if I had to describe the band's music to someone who never heard it, I would pinpoint
Cynic, just without the vocals (vocoder included) and with added jazzy and classic prog rock elements thrown in as well.
The opener – Berserker Hypothesis has all of the band's trademarks – Jazzy drum rhythms accompanied by distorted/clean guitars in multi-layered and complex riffs, fretless and fret bass work, and interesting keyboard passages, with plenty of 70's psychedelic vibes through the use of a moog and other, lesser-known keyboards. This one really goes all the way with its aggression, the drums reach almost blast-beat speed and this feel like extreme metal, just played by a Jazz band.
Sinusoid Mirage starts out completely in the Jazz-prog Dept., clean guitars with plenty of Jazz-like passages and fantastic drum work and fluent bass-lines, I actually though the tracks is going to stay that way but further down the line the distortions kick in and give it some extra-strength.
It's always been difficult for me to review this band's music, since I am not much of a Jazz fan, and didn’t take to most of the heavily jazzy prog bands, such as
Spiral Architect. I bet they get a lot of "why not get a vocalist?" requests and I suppose I second that motion, it would definitely make their music more digestible. Still, This is a unique album, by a band that creates unique music, and getting a vocalist may cause some of that magic to wear-off, so as hard as it is for me to admit it, these guys might have done the right choice in leaving things the way they are here.
Alon Miasnikov
