Tag Archive: progressive

War From A Harlot’s Mouth – MMX

Filed Under: Reviews

Jan.07, 2011

War from a Harlot’s Mouth

MMX

01. Insomnia
02. To Age And Obsolete
03. The Increased Sensation Of Dullness
04. Sleep Is The Brother Of Death
05. The Polyglutamine Pact
06. Cancer Man
07. C.G.B. Spender
08. Sugarcoat
09. Spineless
10. Recluse MMX
11. Inferno III/IV

[Lifeforce | 11/09/10]

I actually planned on reviewing this album earlier, but due to some medical complications I wasn’t able to. Then the 2010 list came about, and it had actually fallen under my radar. And I regret that it did, because I would’ve exchanged one of my selections for this one. To be honest, I had a hard time staying interested in War From A Harlot’s Mouth earlier work In Shoals. My main complaint at the time was the fact that In Shoals lacked the consistent intensity throughout for me to want to continue listening to it past the beginning tracks. Fast forward to their latest album, MMX, and things have certainly changed in respect to maintaining the energy. As for consistency, this is still a point of criticism which I’ll explain later.

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Tags: hardcore, ion dissonance, jazz, progressive, The Chariot, War From A Harlot's Mouth

Son of Aurelius – The Farthest Reaches

Filed Under: Reviews

Oct.15, 2010

Son of Aurelius

The Farthest Reaches

01. Mercy for Today
02. Let Them Hate and Fear
03. The Farthest Reaches
04. Olympus is Forgotten
05. Facing the Gorgon
06. Pandora’s Burden
07. A Champion Reborn
08. Myocardial Infarction
09. The Calm
10. A Good Death
11. The First, The Serpent

[Good Fight Music | 04/13/10]

I took a chance when I purchased Son Of Aurelius’ first album The Farthest Reaches. Usually before purchasing any album I guarantee I’ll enjoy it by giving it a pre-listen through research on the internet. Before buying The Farthest Reaches, I had only heard Mercy For Today and knew it fell into the broad genre of death-metal, a genre I’m very picky about. After listening to the album repeatedly for over a week, I can say I’m glad I took that chance; I’m glad I gambled.

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Tags: Beneath The Massacre, Grind, melodic death metal, progressive, Son of Aurelius, tech death, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless, The Red Chord

Intronaut – Valley of Smoke

Filed Under: Reviews

Oct.05, 2010

Intronaut

Valley of Smoke

01. Elegy
02. Above
03. Miasma
04. Sunderance
05. Core Relations
06. Below
07. Valley Of Smoke
08. Past Tense

[Century Media | 10/12/10]

Post, progressive, sludge, experimental, you name it, LA’s Intronaut have their hands full when it comes to having depth of range in their music. When they released their first EP Null back in 2005, it showcased the band as a progressive metal outfit with a touch of melody and aggression. And speaking of melody, Intronaut do a damn good job of it on their albums, which cannot be said of many bands nowadays. Since then, they’ve released another EP, The Challenger (2007), and two full-length albums, Void (2006) and Prehistoricisms (2008), all of them being powerhouse albums which propelled the band further into the progressive metal genre. Their newest full-length album, Valley of Smoke, which will be released on October 12, 2010 through Century Media Records, is a continuation of their past work, plus a whole lot more.

Valley of Smoke greets your ears with the natural and raw sound of feedback on the opening track “Elegy”, soon after, heavy down-tuned guitars, unusual rhythms and tones, and well-versed vocals take over and immerse the listener in a complete soundscape where everything comes together perfectly. Joe Lester once again shines on bass and makes himself known throughout with crystal clear notes that work well alongside the heavy riffs of Sacha Dunable and Dave Timnick. The deep and strained growls, provided by Sacha, are spread throughout the album and come in when needed and are never overdone, and the jazz influenced style of drummer Danny Walker propels this album to a whole other level.

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Tags: Baroness, Century Media Records, experimental, Intronaut, Mastodon, Null, post, Prehistoricisms, progressive, sludge, The Challenger, The Ocean, Valley of Smoke, void

Review: The Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis

Filed Under: Reviews

Mar.16, 2010

Picture © Adrien Chabal / Achablive (Flickr)

Option Paralysis: the tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none. Ironic, given that the question of whether or not to buy this record contradicts this dilemma completely. For me, this is the musical event of the year. The upcoming Devil Sold His Soul, Deftones and Protest the Hero offerings can all go suck a fat one – relatively speaking.

I doubt many of you reading this will be unaware of this incredible band; they transcend and skullfuck just about every boundary in extreme music we have. Defying categorization, they are inarguably aggressive, intelligent and groundbreaking in equal measure.

Opening track Farewell, Mona Lisa has been floating around the internet for a good while now. The video was premiered at the beginning of March, but its quality hasn’t diminished despite its now-tremendous familiarity. Chinese Whispers also reared its head fairly recently to a rapturous internet reception, and is (if my interpretation reads correctly) a well-deserved middle finger to the Calculating Infinity-era purists.

There is something here for every Dillinger fan, however. Good Neighbor, a perfectly formed burst of syncopated time signatures and staccato strumming, harks back to their early sound, whilst epic jazz-lounge (not even kidding) tour de force Widower wouldn’t be out of place on Ire Works.

In no way is this amalgamation an effort to please everyone though – more the logical progression of what’s come before.

I’d perhaps like to have seen a little more variation on the patented Dillinger ‘all-at-once’ formula. Whilst the combined force of immediate and simultaneous guitars, drums and vocals is a potent weapon, it is not one to be abused. But I guess it’s a moot point when the tracks still sound utterly amazing. View Full Article »

Tags: Calculating Infinity, Chinese Whispers, Farewell Mona Lisa, Gold Teeth on a Bum, Good Neighbour, hardcore, ire works, mathcore, Miss Machine, option paralysis, progressive, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Widower

Oh, Joyous Of Days!

Filed Under: Live, Upcoming releases, Video

Jun.01, 2009

So awesome, their instruments defy gravity

Between The Buried And Me enter the studio today! FUCK YEAH!

Let us celebrate for the prog metal awesome that is sure to grace our ears. Here’s “Mordecai” from their sophomore effort, The Silent Circus and “Selkies (The Endless Obsession)” from the Colors_LIVE DVD.

Mordecai

Selkies (The Endless Obsession) – Live

- JR

Tags: Between The Buried and Me, Colors, Colors_LIVE, Endless Obsession, Mordecai, progressive, Selkies, The Silent Circus

Dysrhythmia Attends A Festival of Popular Delusions

Filed Under: New music, Upcoming releases

May.28, 2009

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

Tags: Dysrhythmia, instrumental, math rock, progressive, Psychic Maps, Relapse Records

The Heartland Settles In On The Frontier

Filed Under: Audio, Reviews

May.27, 2009

The Heartland are one of those progressive whatevercore bands that like to do their own thing. They don’t care about the pressure to fit into a mold and conform to one genre, which is nice to see. I know I use this phrase too often, but this album goes all over the place. There are so many different influences going on in this album. At times, it sounds like Converge is opening at a Jimmy Eat World show. How about Between The Buried and Me playing with Explosions in the Sky? Hell yeah. This sounds like my kind of record. Speaking of BTBAM, The Heartland takes on a similar type of progressive song structure throughout the album, giving us chaos and extreme music with shifting time signatures and takes a break to be something much more beautiful, atmospheric, and catchy.

The vocals on Frontier range, but not too heavily. You have a Converge carbon-copy of a sort of mid to high-register that I’m not particularly that big of a fan of and then you have an emo/indie clean vocal style that accompanies the music at the time well without being too whiny.

The guitar work is excellent. The guitarist has chops, playing some shredding solos and chugging and grinding along in some complex time signatures and rhythms. Sometimes the band takes a step back and does a jazz or blues solo. Sometimes we get some ambient and atmospheric guitar lines with delay effects that lull us into a false sense of security.

This album is pretty climactic, but somehow it just seems too short for a progressive record. At the end I feel that there’s just more to be desired. I think when hearing this album, we’re hearing a band that’s just now getting comfortable with who they are and experiencing a growth in their sound. This album is pretty solid. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more from this band as they plant their feet and get more comfortable and progress as they move on in their careers.

Check out The Heartland at myspace and listen to one of the lighter jams on the album below.

Ursa Major

3.5/5

- JR

Tags: ambient, atmospheric, frontier, mathcore, metalcore, progressive, the heartland

YAY DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN NEWS

Filed Under: Upcoming releases

May.27, 2009

Nothing gets my pants tighter than hearing about news regarding a new Dillinger release. The Dillinger Escape Plan has signed a deal with Season Of Mist Records, joining it’s roster of bands including Cynic, Gorguts, and Mayhem. The upcoming album will be released in early 2010 in collaboration with the band’s brand new label, Phonogetic Records, which is to be announced.

When describing the sound the new Dillinger album to Rock Sound Magazine, guitarist and mastermind Ben Weinman had this to say:

“The new songs sound dark and evil,” he stated. “Very early ’90s thrash-influenced.

“Lately I have been realizing the purpose of why I started Dillinger all those years ago. It was to make people truly uncomfortable and to make them not feel accepting of what is happening in their surroundings. When I was growing up, I discovered metal and it interested me, I liked that it was dark and talked about the fact that the world is not all puppy dogs and ice cream cones. But then it just got ridiculous, humourous. I look at black metal bands and they are supposed to be so evil. But it’s not real. It’s about fiction. About goblins and the gates of hell; pretty much a bad horror movie.

“The music we are writing is influenced by the feelings I get when I hear and see the real evils of this world. Horrible things that make me really question if there is a God or not. This shit is not comfortable, the world is not comfortable, babies are getting raped in your town for God’s sake. Young girls are being sold as sex slaves, but most people sitting at their computers downloading music don’t want to know. They want to sit on a message board or play fantasy football while their mommy makes them a sandwich.”

The thought of a thrashed up version of Dillinger is pretty badass, methinks. I’m a little bummed that the album won’t be out till 2010, but it will be worth the wait. What a hell of a way to kick off a new decade.

Late last night, Ben Weinman signed onto the official DEP message board and answered questions. Check out some of the more important questions below, after the jump.

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Tags: Ben Weinman, Cynic, Dillinger Escape Plan, experimental, Gorguts, mathcore, Mayhem, Phonogetic Records, progressive, Season of Mist Records

Devin Townsend – Ki

Filed Under: Audio, Reviews, Upcoming releases

May.20, 2009

Throw whatever you expected from Strapping Young Lad mastermind Devin Townsend out the window for this record. It’s different right from the beginning. Ki is the first of four albums that Townsend plans on releasing under the Devin Townsend Project. This album certainly does feel like it’s a precursor to a much larger concept, setting up a brilliant stage for things to come.

The album starts off peacefully with “A Monday”, which is a short ambient guitar track that sets the mood for the album so the listener knows what to expect. This track leads into “Coast” which starts out peacefully and melodically and builds itself up into the much heavier track “Disruptr“, which hits a climax and falls back down to a calmer ambiance before building us back up yet again through “Gato“, which sports a catchy chorus featuring a female vocalist. The way the songs flow with the rise and fall of the first couple of tracks lets the listener know right off the bat what this album is all about: restraint. This album definitely captures Devin’s bipolarity perfectly, but differently than his other albums. Devin starts out at peace, giving us beautiful ambiance, atmosphere, and melodic music. Over time, his peace gets disrupted somehow, and he starts to lose his shit. But somehow, unlike his last works, he takes a step back before taking it too far. Instead of going into a pissed off rampage as he did with SYL, he screams into his pillow and goes about business.

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Tags: ambient, atmospheric, Devin Townsend, Devin Townsend Project, Ki, progressive, Strapping Young Lad

Ben Weinman Presents: The Best Tweet Ever

Filed Under: Audio, Upcoming releases

May.19, 2009

dillingerescpln my life: make music that is the soundtrack for god beating the shit out of a pinata made of your face. Then i put fake butterflys in my tree

Yep. That sounds about right.

Dillinger Escape Plan will release their new album hopefully by the end of the year. If it’s anything like Ire Works, it will be the single best album to come out in 09. I’ve got nothing else to add, but here’s some Dillinger for your listening pleasure, featuring Mastodon’s Brent Hinds on guest vocals.