It is probably unsurprising that modern progressive metal regularly reaches into the realm of science fiction for inspiration. Sleek, shiny futurism fits the atmospheric mood, the aesthetic and often the ideology firing the creative juices of these bands. As we know, the success of a science fiction concept often rests on how seamlessly the familiar and the unfamiliar are blended together by whoever is holding the pen.
Our newest writer Simon Clark is a regular attendee of the annual UK Tech Fest. Below, Simon highlights eight qualities of the festival he’s noticed over the years. Click here for info on bands, venues, tickets and more. … Familiarity The inaugural Tech Fest weekend was held in a small…
Welcome to Connecting the Dots, the column where we give a brief rundown on a central band along with a host of other projects their members, both past and present, have been involved in. Today we’ll be focusing on djent mainstays TesseracT, whose members have been very active over the…
Editor’s note: Yes, it’s that time of the year again! While our own Album of the Year list is already published by the time you read this, we still have a ton of end of year content for you. Over the coming week, we’ll be exploring 2017 in various of ways: through…
Djent had an explosive entrance into the world of heavy music, around the start of the decade. It was a truly exciting occurrence, with first-wave acts like Periphery, Animals As Leaders and Cloudkicker filtering the technically-driven progressive sound of acts like Meshuggah, Sikth, and those of the budding “Sumeriancore” movement, into something altogether more accessible, while still retaining much of their forebears’ technical and progressive edge. Yet, like most new sub-genres, djent quickly devolved into pastiche and gave way to over saturation—perhaps a little bit quicker than most. Djent, it seems, has had a propperly ballistic trajectory, and—in 2017—as its momentum trails off, it’s hard to get excited about this once-promising phenomenon.
Some albums are a long time coming; production, schedules, lack of inspiration, and much more can all lead to a delayed release. When that happens, there are two possible results. Either the eventual release falls short of expectations which have been brewing for so long or the album is elevated by catharsis and a long wait reward. Happily, the latter seems to be the case with ZETA’s debut. Born from a collaboration between Katie Jackson, Paul Antonio Ortiz (AKA Chimp Spanner), and Dan Tompkins (TesseracT, ex-Skyharbor), the album is a retrowave trip tinged with a slew of 90’s pop influences. The wait for the album has tallied years of teasers, singles, artwork, and baited breath for a collaboration that seemed too good to be true. Finally, as of today, it has been released to the world and lo! we are pleased, for it is good.
The fusion of electronic music and metal has been and always will be controversial. This problem stems from an imbalanced focus or a shallow appropriation; you have to do both genres justice, and placing synth arpeggios over breakdowns isn’t how you make compelling music. It takes a well-worn understanding of both genres to execute a worthwhile fusion, and it’s true that few have been able to demonstrate this knowledge and creativity. Of all the acts that have made an attempt to bridge metal and electronica, French musician Remi Gallego’s project The Algorithm may well be the one that makes the best case for the cause.
In the past decade, the rise of one-man metal “bands” has definitely seen an alarming rise, mostly due to the advancements in home studio technology and its increasing affordability. While there has clearly been an ample amount of oversaturation in many of the genre’s newer styles and bad production habits…
This year marks the tenth year of Euroblast festival in Cologne, Germany. The festival has been delivering an impressive lineup for a decade now, with last year marking a decided increase in both quality and quantity. Bands like Meshuggah, The Ocean and Monuments made this festival the main pilgrimage site for fans of progressive, djenty…
If you’ve been following the Chimp Spanner blog over the last few weeks, then you’ll know about the Chimp’s recent run-in with the dreaded ‘deadline’ word. You read his full thoughts on the matter over at the blog, it’s definitely an interesting read, but the bottom line is, we got to…
