The Contortionist – Language

September 16, 2014 • Good Fight Music

Yes, The Contortionist is back! Even though these guys have been one of my favorite obscure prog-deathcore bands ever (I've reviewed both of their older albums here and here), to be honest I didn't have high hopes for this album. Usually bands like this fizzle out pretty quickly unless they totally reinvent themselves.

Well, this band didn't totally reinvent itself, though there are a few changes to go over. As to what's the same, we have the post-rock-tinged progressive metal, with complex chugging djent riffs integrated seamlessly into soaring, epic songs. They still do those metal grooving patterns better than most; while I'm usually not a fan of totally amelodic, pseudo-random guitar lines, they have always had just enough structure to lock into a really great rhythm.

Of what's new, most notable is the vocalist, who tends to focus more on clean singing. Though there are still harsh vocals present, they're more of a raspy hoarse shouting type than the intense death growls of before. While the new vocalist fits the softer sound better, and he does a fine job, I do miss the sheer ferocity and energy of the old guy. But I don't think I'd want them to go back just for him.

Additionally, the band has now fully let go of the deathcore sound that made Exoplanet so great but had mostly eroded away by Intrinsic. I still am a bit disappointed by that as I thought they did it really well and it was something really unique about them. So to the uninitiated, Language will probably feel like a pretty generic prog metal album—and I guess that's not totally wrong anymore.

The album does have some major problems with structuring, though. It takes a while to get the album geared up—the first two tracks are kind of wimpy compared to when "Language II: Conspire" launches into the band's signature math metal fury. The album goes on a roller coaster from grooving, jazzy polyrhythms to passive common-time noodling and can't seem to ever make up its mind what it wants to do. When I gave this album a solid focused listen, it mostly turned into a game of wait-for-the-heavy-parts. But maybe I'm just impatient.

Language is a good album, and The Contortionist is still a good band, but I think they're either heading in the wrong direction or they simply need more time to refine what they are doing. This album is still worth picking up and checking out, but it's not their masterpiece and it's no Apparition. Maybe next time.

Mastodon – Once More 'Round the Sun

June 24, 2014 • Reprise Records

When it comes to bands I've been listening to for as long as I have with Mastodon (about ten years now), doing longer-form reviews always feels a bit weird, especially when I don't really listen to the band anymore. Although their first four albums were indeed pretty strong, I've kind of lost interest in Mastodon over the years as I've had less time to listen to them (all too often the case). I barely gave The Hunter a chance and don't really even remember much about it; I think it can just be written off as a slight misstep in their career and they're basically back on track with Once More 'Round the Sun.

Although Mastodon's capacity for catchy riffing is still strong, their trend towards higher levels of melodicism and heavy-psych continues. It's not a very drastic shift in style at all, coming from The Hunter and Crack the Skye but they are sometimes a little bit lighter than they used to be once upon a time ("Asleep in the Deep" is mild almost to the point of being dull). Other times, though, they'll revert back to a heavy chugging sound reminiscent of Leviathan like on "High Road" or "Feast Your Eyes". So you get a little bit of both worlds; it's actually handled really well, and keeps things relatively fresh throughout the album.

There isn't really much else to say; just about anyone who'd enjoy Mastodon at this point has already heard of them and know at least what one album sounds like. One thing I do miss is the few times they had long epic progressive songs (on Crack the Skye and Leviathan); I think it was high time for another one and they really could have pulled it off here. Eleven shorter tracks make the album feel longer somehow. Also, what's up with the ending of "Aunt Lisa"? Good riff, but leave your chain-smoking cheerleaders at home next time.

Anyway, regardless, Once More 'Round the Sun is definitely a fun album to listen to. While most bands crash pretty hard after five albums without much change, I don't think Mastodon has done so. As far as intricate progressive-hard-rock-slash-metal goes, they're still near the top of the pile. I won't say I like this album more than their first four, but it's certainly one worth listening to anyway—at least a few times. I wonder if they can keep up the momentum.

Humanity's Last Breath – Humanity's Last Breath

September 24, 2013 • Rogue Records

Djent is the kind of genre that you don't really expect to ever develop much, aside from blatant and uninteresting fusion with other genres that almost always wind up being awful. And so I haven't really listened to any of it much lately (aside from the newer Meshuggah albums, and then only a little bit, because they're really not that good anymore). Of course that leaves me with missing out on a lot, as it turns out. Not that Humanity's Last Breath is really bringing something phenomenal or super-innovative or anything—but they do make a pretty good album.

All the standards are here: grinding muted guitar riffs downtuned at least an octave (and no bass, I'm pretty sure), robotic polyrhythmic drumming, devastating growled vocals. Surprisingly, for a band employing a style that's largely repetitive (and based around repetition), these guys switch things up a lot and they manage to strike just the right balance between establishing a solid rhythm or guitar line and then moving around enough to keep the listener engaged. I still can't tell the individual songs apart, but I find that I can skip around to just about anywhere in the album and something interesting will be going on.

A good deal of the album sounds a little bit deathcore-ish as well (I guess there's that fusion thing I mentioned earlier), but they definitely do it much better than it could have been were they a bit sloppier about things. There are lots of interesting parts where the music is very sparse, with slowly-played drum lines and riffs that jump all over the place, which feels a inspired by deathcore breakdowns—though here it's definitely done a lot more tastefully. The atmosphere also manages to have this sort of spacey industrial feel to it, without there really being any industrial metal present; maybe it's the mixing.

I guess in at least that sense Humanity's Last Breath sounds quite a bit fresher than (say) Meshuggah, though I hesitate to recommend them to just anyone as their style is probably going to inherently turn away a lot of people. If that's the case it's a bit disappointing as I think they do a surprisingly good job at it; it could definitely have been a lot worse. There's just a lot of amazingly fun riffage to dig into, and if you can get into that, this album is definitely worth checking out.

Castevet – Obsian

October 15, 2013 • Profound Lore Records

Today's review courtesy of New York black metal band Castevet (not to be confused with the other Castevet). I haven't followed them much, having just heard their early EP Stones/Salts, and while I won't say they're one of my favorite modern black metal bands, this album does stand up pretty well.

Based on what little of their other stuff I've heard (and compared to their contemporaries), Castevet's sound is slowly becoming more and more of a progressive sort of black metal—in a Gojira sort of way, not an Emperor sort of way, with some clean melodic sections clashing with heavy blasting and angular, polyrhythmic riffs. There's always a lot going on, and the song structures become somewhat fragmented and hard to follow as the band lurches from one section to the next. It's not really my favorite style of playing, but surprisingly (for me) they pull it off well a lot of the time, in no small thanks to some very strong riffs and rhythms.

but there's no denying that they still have a good aesthetic and they sound great here. Special mention goes to some really great plucky bass playing, which carries a lot of the songs when the guitar goes off on some weird tangent or has a cool alternate melody like the end of "The Curve". I also especially like the folky guitar interwoven into some sections, like the end of "Cavernous", which adds a neat, unexpected new dimension to the music.

Obsian is definitely not an album for everyone, but it takes black metal in a new direction and it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Hopefully their next release will be an improvement on what they've done here.

Gorguts, Origin, Nero di Marte, Dismemberment, Unkured

December 14, 2013 • Alrosa Villa, Columbus, Ohio

Back when I saw Locusta play in September, I thought that even though I don't really listen to much death metal at home, it's definitely a genre that I can get into when performed live. Tonight I tested my theory, and as it turns out I was totally right. Even though I was lukewarm to Gorguts' last album and I hadn't even heard of any of the other bands who played, I knew that it would still be worth it to give them a shot in concert. And it turned out to be one of the best shows I've been to yet.

Unkured

Gorguts couldn't have asked for a better opener. Although they fall at least somewhat into the "tech death" camp, these guys still managed to rock really hard. It was probably some of the old-school influences, so it was a familiar sound to a lot of people, and there is a lot of groovy rhythmic bits that really got us pumped up. Their songs were a bit disorganized and tough to follow, but it didn't really matter in that environment, I suppose. They still were very technically talented, with some really nice tapping. I knew it was going to be a good show just from watching these guys.
7 • Best Fascist Combat Boots Outfit Award

Dismemberment

Essentially, take the above band and make it old-school thrash and melodeath instead of old-school tech death. Fast, rocking stuff, really fun to listen to even though it normally wouldn't have been my thing. Really nice riffage, lots of headbangers, straightforward and metal as hell.
7 • Most Luscious Manes Award

Nero di Marte

The token "weird band" of the night. Rather than straight-up rocking stuff, these guys were slower-paced atmospheric proggy death/deathcore. Kind of like Ulcerate meets The Contortionist with loads of heavy atmosphere and very dense production. While it didn't work as well live as it probably would have in the studio, they were still pretty decent. Not as interesting to watch, of course, but they had some good songs and some good breakdowns and such to make up for it.
6 • Silliest Smoke Machine Award

Origin

The brutalest of brutal death metal. These guys were mesmerizing to watch with a really awesome stage presence and audience interaction (stories, diving). The music was a little forgettable, but the performance aspects made up for that (aside from when they'd get off time from each other, tsk tsk). Special mention to the bass guitar player who must be some sort of wizard; I've never seen anyone play the way he does, precision-attacking the frets and strings like he was trying to break it.
7 • Worst Stagediving Award. Also, Best Stagediving Award

Gorguts

They sounded basically like what I thought they would, but (as I mentioned) it was definitely much better live. They played Colored Sands in its entirety (I think) plus some older stuff as an encore. So it was a great set, and it was really cool to hear both eras of the band. I was kind of impressed how much the crowd really got into it. Also, how did I not even realize that Colin Marston was in the band? That was half of my excitement right there. Anyway, really great stuff, totally worth seeing.
8 • Best Drummer Faces Award

Katatonia, Cult of Luna, Tesseract, Intronaut

September 18, 2013 • Peabody's Downunder, Cleveland, Ohio

Yep, Cleveland. A two-hour drive (each way) just to see a show? I must be crazy, right? Nope, just Cult of Luna, who's touring the States for the first time in eight years, and this was their only Ohio show, meaning it'll likely be my only opportunity to see them play, ever. Looking back, it was kind of a silly idea and I highly doubt I'd ever drive so far just for a show ever again—not to say it was bad, though.

Intronaut

I've been listening to Intronaut for a long, long time, though only casually and I haven't really listened to their newer stuff very much. Their show was exactly how I thought it'd be—decent, but not particularly amazing. Apparently Intronaut as a band is really just a support outfit for their bassist to show off (although he really is quite good, so that's not really a complaint). The poor mixing (very light on guitar and vocals) didn't help much. They're a band that's definitely better on CD, but they were still enjoyable enough.
6 • Best Laser Light Show Award (Suck It, Tool)

Tesseract

They're a decent enough band I guess, but I never really cared much about them. They put on a good enough show, though; at the very least, it looked like they were having fun themselves. I was a bit disappointed by how much of their performance was automated, though—I guess it makes sense to play to a click track when your material is so technical, but automated guitar effects seems a little silly. (And don't bother pretending to play when it's obviously a pre-recorded guitar in that one song, it was so obvious.) Anyway, fine enough if you're a fan.
6 • Best Capri Pants Award

Cult of Luna

I probably overhyped this show in my mind—I mean, if you've seen their live DVD, you can understand how pumped I was. Now, they did put on as good of a show as they could: a fantastic heavy sound, very cool visuals (although the strobe light was a bit much), and some pretty intense playing. They did seem to have a lot of technical problems, though—broken strings, no bass for half a song, and one of the guitars seemed horribly out-of-tune for a whole song. Still, they played some great songs (nothing earlier than Somewhere Along the Highway but I'll take what I can get) and I did enjoy them quite a bit.
8 • Most Spilled Beer Award

Katatonia

I think I used to like Katatonia a long time ago, like 2005 or so, but I haven't listened to them in ages and it turns out they aren't really that good anymore. Their alt-rock-pretending-to-be-metal style isn't bad, just very unimaginative and not terribly fun to watch. Also, their entire setup was straight through the mixing board—no amps or anything, which looked really weird and made it seem kind of fake. I bailed after three songs because I wanted to get home, so it might have gotten better, but I doubt it.
5 • Silliest Banners Award

Behold... the Arctopus – Horrorscension

December 12, 2012 • Black Market Activities

Behold... the Arctopus is one of those bands that I (probably like a lot of other people) discovered around 2007, thought was pretty neat, and then promptly forgot about. Then they suddenly come out of nowhere with Weasel Walter as their new drummer and a new album to boot. But I don't think I harbor the same enthusiasm for the band or their style of music as I used to.

Horroscension is more or less the same to me as Years Past Matter was—technically impressive music, but that's about all you get; there's not a lot of personality to it. This album leans more towards mathy-jazzy-progressive metal than black metal but the end result is similar: in a word, random. And how. The music is utterly impossible to follow (like their earlier stuff), just riffs after riffs pasted together haphazardly and played at supersonic speed.

There are times when they pull themselves together enough to do something a bit more comprehensive, like "Deluge of Sores" or the end of "Horrorsentience", which is a bit more straightforward and easier to listen to. If the whole album was like "Deluge of Sores", it would actually be really listenable. There are a few highlights like it spread out through the album, but not really enough to make it worth the while.

There are people (obviously) who love this sort of stuff. And that's fine, I don't hold it against them. Personally, though, I like my music to have a bit of structure to it—at least a little—so it doesn't sound like I'm listening to a bunch of different metal songs all spliced together at random. It just doesn't appeal to me.

4

Krallice – Years Past Matter

August 25, 2012 • self-released

I gotta say I have no clue why I decided to review the new Krallice (other than the fact that it's "new"). I heard their first album and thought it was pretty decent; I heard their second and was disappointed because it was basically the same thing as the first. So I skipped the third, and went straight to Years Past Matter. And it's the same thing, again. Once you've heard one Krallice song, you've heard them all, really. This album is just another continuation of their same old sound, though admittedly it hasn't gone down in quality.

If you haven't, it's basically like this: Take your average second-wave black metal style—blastbeats, tremolo guitars, and all that—and turn it into a wall of sound, focusing entirely on texture over actual notes and rhythm. Do this for an hour, and you have Krallice. It's not quite as monotonous as it sounds, but really that's the best way to describe it: blast away on some random-ish notes, maybe do a short fill or bridge here and there, repeat. The songs have very little in the way of any sort of structure, as the songs just plow their way ahead without repeating themselves much (if ever). I wonder how they manage to remember what to play next—it often seems like there's no time signature or anything to gauge where they are in the song. This is also problematic for any listener trying to keep up with where the song is going.

To be fair, this album seems a bit more diverse than their older stuff (from what I can remember). Though they don't come very often, there are a few actual discernible riffs that aren't just straight one-note tremolo. And for being a one-trick-pony kind of band, they do what they do quite well. If you happen to be in the mood for a huge slab of monolithic music like this, then Krallice is your go-to band for sure. That mood doesn't strike me often, though, but when it does Years Past Matter is still at least somewhat entertaining. When the note progressions are less random-sounding they can get really cool—the opening and ending of the third track are actually quite beautiful, for instance.

Just go into this album knowing that there isn't anything on here Krallice hasn't already done before, and it's just an excuse to listen to some blasting for an hour. That said, for anyone who hasn't heard them before, this is a fine place to start as it's still just as good as they've ever been. Its appeal to me personally is a bit limited, as I'm not a huge fan of the band, but anyone who is should definitely go for it.

5

The Contortionist – Intrinsic

July 17, 2012 • Season of Mist

I raved plenty about The Contortionist's breakthrough EP Apparition, with its original style that successfully fused deathcore with progressive metal; their first full-length was just about as good for the same reasons. But it seems the band is starting to drift a bit from their original sound—which is completely understandable (no one should be stuck playing the exact same thing their whole career), but I'm not terribly excited about the direction Intrinsic is taking.

There aren't really any surprises for anyone who's heard Exoplanet: there's the same incredibly technical guitar riffs and drum lines, plenty of palm-muted detuned chugging, and the occasional light melodic bridge. What threw me the most was the addition of clean vocals, and how way different they are from the harsh vocals: they're very soft and airy, which sounds a bit strange alongside the incredibly heavy riffing. They have their place now and again, in the lighter and more atmospheric sections, though they can still be a bit jarring (especially opening up the album as they do). There are a few other additions like lots of keyboards; I don't remember offhand how much keyboard there was in their earlier material, but if there were any they definitely didn't form a core part of the band's sound as they do on Intrinsic. That, combined with some spacey vocal effects, gives the whole thing a very sci-fi feel at times, which is interesting.

The unfortunate thing about Intrinsic is that it mostly gets rid of one of The Contortionist's most defining aspects—their deathcore sound. They were just about the only band who could do deathcore well (probably because of the prog fusion) but here it's almost totally gone in favor of more straightforward progressive metal and math metal, kind of like Gojira minus the death metal. Some people will see this as a positive change, but personally I think it makes them seem a bit more generic and thus there's much less reason to listen to Intrinsic over Exoplanet. They still do pull out a really awesome breakdown here and there, like near the end of "Cortical" or all of the Meshuggah-esque "Solipsis", but they are so few and far between it's disappointing even though they are good.

While it has its moments, on the whole I'm not totally thrilled by Intrinsic. I preferred the old Contortionist because they were unique, even if they were a bit silly. Intrinsic is still a decent album and I'm sure plenty of people will get enjoyment out of it, and I've gotten a bit myself, but I can't say it's an improvement.

5

The Contortionist – Apparition

September 25, 2009 • self-released

They said deathcore was a genre that couldn't be saved. Every album in that style ever released was just a rehash of the same old chuggy breakdown clichés and it all sucked and nobody cared anymore. Emmure, Suicide Silence, it didn't matter, it was all the same crap. For a while I was one of those people.

Well, they must not have heard The Contortionist. Because this release totally turned everything around for me.

Sure, the typical deathcore elements are there—throaty and not-noticably-good vocals, detuned guitars playing muted and rhythmic riffing, breakdowns galore... but there's something about Apparition that makes it stand out. There's a certain atmospheric quality to it that saves it driven by exploration with other genres. The EP has a definite progressive influence, with a lot of melodic lines and some complicated guitarwork to complement the heavy breakdown riffs. "Eyes: Closed" has a melancholy, almost post-rockish bridge, in between some heavy but still emotional melodic lines. The band winds up throwing a lot at the listener, changing it up pretty frequently: a crushing, slow segment here, a quick break to clean, jazzy guitar, then a complicated polyrhythmic riff. It's the kind of erratic mishmash of style that I normally don't care for, but here everything comes together excellently in a way that keeps the listener on their toes.

Even though there are still a lot of typical breakdowns, the music comes off a lot more intelligent and interesting than your typical Emmure ripoff band, which is why I keep coming back to this EP for more. The juxtaposition of ugly chugging with beautfil, soaring melodies works brilliantly and the contrasts between styles just makes the heavy bits heavier and the proggy parts proggier. My only complaint might be, again, the vocals; they sound a bit off and don't always go with the music terribly well.

So if you can stomach a bit of djent in your metal this is definitely a release to take a listen to. And I still have no clue why I haven't yet checked out their full-length Exoplanet (2010).

8