49 – TECH DEATH EXTRAVAGANZA

Noyan
Podcast
Fellow tech death enthusiast Ahmed joins me this week and we geek out about tech death for over an hour! Since Eden isn't cool like us, we don't get a chance to do this while he's around, so we really went deep with this opportunity! We discuss some news first, like new music/content from Opeth, Meshuggah, Ion Dissonance, Anaal Nathrakh, Astral Path, VOLA, and an interesting Patreon by The Reign of Kindo. Then we go into tech death, how it has evolved historically and geographically; what its watershed moments were, and we discuss some of the most important and influential albums in the genre. Enjoy!

Virvum – Illuminance

Ahmed Hasan
Reviews
A few months ago, Simon wrote an excellent piece about the fast-growing phenomenon of post-tech death, succinctly describing how early progenitors such as Cynic and The Faceless all the way to recent up-and-com... Read More...

What Heavy Blog Is Really Listening To – 9/9/16

Scott Murphy
What We're Really Listening To
For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no surprise that many of us on staff have pretty eclectic tastes that range far outside of metal and heavy things. We can’t post about all of them at length here, but we can at least let you know what we’re actually listening to. For those that would like to participate as well (and please do) can drop a 3X3 in the comments, which can be made with tapmusic.net through your last.fm account, or create it manually with topsters.net. Also, consider these posts open threads to talk about pretty much anything music-related. We love hearing all of your thoughts on this stuff and love being able to nerd out along with all of you.

Dave Davidson of Revocation: The Heavy Blog Is Heavy Interview

Heavy Blog
Features, Interviews
In just one more week, Revocation are about to drop an absolute bomb on the metal world in the form of the fantastic Great Is Our Sin. Coming off of their excellent 2014 album Deathless, this new record is an all-out assault on eardrums the the world over, sporting some of the band’s meanest and most mosh-friendly tunes to date. Take this and add a heap of atonal/experimental death metal flourishes, loads of d-beats and more solos than you'll know what to deal with and then cap things off with a Slayer cover. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that's exactly what Great Is Our Sin is, and it's an immediately essential piece of modern metal. I got a chance to speak with Revocation’s frontman and overall guitar wizard Dave Davidson this past Monday about the album’s songwriting process, working with Marty Friedman, upcoming tour plans and a lot more.

Connecting The Dots: Ne Obliviscaris

Karlo Doroc
Connecting the Dots
Last week we launched the inaugural Connecting the Dots feature, where we looked at Caligula’s Horse and other bands that have shared members with it. Those with a good memory will know that one of the projects we looked at was Arcane, and in particular 2015’s opus Known/Learned. A little known fact is that the session bassist on Known was none other than Brendan Brown of Ne Obliviscaris, and thus it is with NeO that our second edition will be focused upon.

First Fragment – Dasein

Noyan
Reviews
What's it about Canada that causes them to have excellent tech death bands? First Fragment is yet another one in the string of such bands, and they definitely live up to the stereotype. Their debut album Dasein, five years in the making, was anticipated quite a bit by those who had listened to their excellent EP The Afterthought Ecstasy. Playing in the lines of greats like Gorod, Beyond Creation and Beneath the Massacre, the band's debut album is an instant classic. Full of over the top melodic technical playing, Dasein is a joy to listen through and through.

Vipassi – Śūnyatā

Karlo Doroc
Reviews
There doesn’t seem to be anything quite like it out there, with its main drawback being that, at just over 30 minutes in length, there simply isn’t enough of it. Still, we must remember that this isn’t a full-length and that, in comparison to other EPs, its runtime is still quite healthy. Given that their other projects are in the middle of writing/touring/recording, this might be all we get from Vipassi for some time. Be sure to savour every moment of it.