The Schoenberg Automaton – Vela
[01/21/13]
[Myriad Records]
In a time when the word “math” has largely been misattributed to the various Meshuggah djent clones, there are still bands that are making sure that the genre of mathcore continues its legacy of melding the chaos of hardcore, the brutality of death metal, and the oft-shifting time signatures of technical and progressive metal. Keeping in the recent tradition of the resurgence of mathcore via the likes of Car Bomb and Dissipate, rising Australia stars The Schoenberg Automaton eschew trends with their debut album Vela. While their myriad of influences are shown on their sleeves — the trudging stutterred riffs of Gojira, the schizophrenic chaos of early Dillinger Escape Plan, and the forward-thinking technical battery of Between the Buried and Me are all plain as day — their sound wears more like a continued step in the genre lineage rather than shameless mimicry. The Schoenberg Automaton go beyond channeling just the aforementioned bands, however; throughout Vela, the band do well on adding in flavors of traditional death metal and even black metal influences, namely on tracks like leading single ‘Ghost of Mirach’. Even early moments reminiscent of Solace era Ion Dissonance are apparent. All of this comes together in a seamless fashion that Schoenberg have spent many hours perfecting, both setting them apart from the average internet band and giving them a hodgepodge prog/tech sound that is strangely all their own. Make no mistake, The Schoenberg Automaton will be a force to be reckoned with out of the already impressive Australian metal scene if their first offering already hits this hard. – JR & AD
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