The return of Gorguts is an exciting prospect for many, something that’s been on the hook for the last 12 years. After all, their album Obscura spawned a new breed of prog and tech death and even became the namesake for one of our favorite bands in death metal. Hint: It’s Obscura.
The return of the mighty Gorguts is upon us! The highly-influential Canadian technical death metal stalwarts have announced that their new album will be entitled Colored Sands and will see a North American release date of September 3rd. The band also announced a string of U.S. headlining dates in September leading to and from North Carolina’s Hopscotch Festival, which are listed below.
Being a huge fan of Chuck Schuldiner’s genre-defining musical endeavor Death, I was unbelievably excited to realize that the New York leg of the Death To All tour (which happened to be the closest one to where I live) was on my birthday. I immediately obtained VIP tickets and started preparing. When the day finally came and I stepped in the venue as part of the VIP soundcheck session, I heard “Scavenger of Human Sorrow” playing. At first I thought it was just the album track being played, but then I realized it was being played live, and I was immediately sold on the tour. Matt Harvey of Exhumed was on vocals, and he sounded just like Chuck. It was surreal. Soon after, we were lead to the main hall of the venue so we could watch the soundcheck, and our adventure began.
Krallice01. -
02. Inhume
03. The Clearing
04. Diotima
05. Litany of Regrets
06. Telluric Rings
07. Dust and Light
2011 was arguably the best year I have ever personally seen in terms of album releases. We had great releases from Protest The Hero, Machine Head, Anthrax, Trivium, Textures — the list is mind-boggling. However, one enticing underground act from New York City released possibly the greatest Black Metal record of the past 10 years, and it went relatively unnoticed. It is my hope to change that today.
Oh yes. This news is most excellent.
From Cynic‘s Facebook:
Dear Cynic family,
We’d like to thank you guys for making our first ever US headlining tour a great success and a lot of fun for us personally! Not only did we have a great time performing a set list this extensive, there was also a real family vibe going on behind the scenes between us, our crew and the guys from Intronaut and Dysrhythmia.
As we are wrapping up our touring cycle for Traced In Air and Re-Traced with this successful tour, it’s time to get ready for album number 3! The first baby steps into this gigantic process are being taken right now, creating little embryos of songs that will turn into fully fledged CYNIC tunes over the course of the following months, exciting!
All the best,
CYNIC
I don’t care if it sounds like Focus. I don’t care if it sounds like Re-Traced. Hell, I don’t care if it sounds like Aeon Spoke. This shit can’t be bad.
More word on this as it gets out!
- JR
Oh boy! Another great tour that I have no chance of seeing!
Cynic are going to do a trek across the nation late summer with Intronaut and Dysrhythmia for Decibel’s Hall Of Fame Tour: Re-Traced and Re-Focused Live. Hooray for prog!
Cynic will perform Focus in its entirety, along with tracks from Traced In Air. However, Paul makes it seem like they’ll perform both:
“Focus will be performed in its entirety from start to finish, along with Traced in Air and beyond. It’s going to be a journey directly into Cynic’s pulsating, vibrant heart.”
Whether it’s just one full album or both, it’s still going to be fucking great. Too bad it’s not coming near me. Same as it ever was. What a bummer.
Here are the dates:
RE-TRACED / RE-FOCUSED TOUR DATES:
Thu/Jul-22 – - Los Angeles CA – El Rey Theatre
Fri/Jul-23 – - San Francisco CA – Slim’s
Sat/Jul-24 – - Portland OR – Hawthorne
Mon/Jul-26 – - Vancouver BC – Commodore
Wed/Jul-28 – - Denver CO – Marquis
Fri/Jul-30 – - Minneapolis MN – Station 4
Sat/Jul-31 – - Chicago IL – Bottom Lounge
Sun/Aug-01 – - Detroit MI – Magic Stick
Mon/Aug-02 – - Toronto ON – Opera House
Wed/Aug-04 – - Montreal QC – Café Campus
Thu/Aug-05 – - Boston MA – Harpers Ferry
Fri/Aug-06 – - New York NY – Bowery Ballroom
Sat/Aug-07 – - Philadelphia PA – Trocadero
Sun/Aug-08 – - Washington DC – The Rock and Roll Hotel
Mon/Aug-09 – - Carrboro NC – Cat’s Cradle
Tue/Aug-10 – - Atlanta GA – Masquerade
Thu/Aug-12 – - Orlando FL – The Social
Fri/Aug-13 – - Ft Lauderdale FL – Culture Room
If you can go, do it. Don’t take this shit for granted, because Cynic doesn’t headline too often.
- JR
Instrumental math-rockers Dysrhythmia uploaded a new track over on myspace. The track is called “Festival of Popular Delusions”, which is off of their upcoming album Psychic Maps, due out July 7th on Relapse Records.
It’s one of their more “straight forward and unrelenting-type tracks” off of the album.
It sounds pretty awesome. Put it in your ear hole.
-JR
Progressive instrumental band Dysrhythmia just announced their east coast tour in support of their upcoming album Psychic Maps, which goes on sale July 7th in North America and July 17th internationally on Relapse Records.
You can see the tour dates below after the jump.
-JR
I’ve known of Salt Lake City based progressive rock/hardcore/post-punk band Loom for quite a while. In fact, they even sent a few tracks from their new album to me via email last year. I thought it was good, but never really got into them much until recently. I must say, this is probably some of the most original music I’ve heard in a while. Maybe I’m just not used to hardcore music with violin and melodies as catchy as this. I don’t know. I just know that I dig it. A lot.
Selva Molhada is Loom’s first full length album. I’m not too good with describing things so I may be a tad off-base, but I could imagine getting Loom if you combined the sounds of Baroness, Dysrhythmia, and threw in a violin. This album sees a combination of sludgy riffs, dissonant guitar lines, violin harmonies, and occasionally shifting tempos and time signatures.
Vocals on this album are fantastic. Screamed raspy vocals are the main course here, but throughout the album, cleaner melodic singing and vocal harmonies make things stand out more. As I’ve said before, the vocals can get wonderfully catchy, but they are by no means poppy.
While reviewing this album, I’ve listened to it twice. It’s definitely a grower, begging multiple listens to pick up on things that may have flown by you without notice. Selva Molhada is on sale now for $10 at Loom’s webstore. I highly recommend it. This one will be one of the better releases for 2009, for sure.
4/5Listen to more of Loom now on Myspace.
-JR
