Tagged Of Montreal

It is no small challenge for bands to find a way to sonically distinguish themselves from the legions of acts in their genre. There's no shortage of ways (intentional or not) for groups to get this done, but in the past ten years or so, we’ve been hearing bands more frequently pull from unusual and atypical influences, bringing about a “What the hell is this?” line of thinking more and more often. Whether it's a mixture of seemingly incongruent styles in the overlap of some wacky Venn diagram like this year’s fantastic Zeal and Ardor release Devil is Fine, or Between the Buried and Me’s spontaneous (and quite addictive) polka/circus/surf segues, it's proven that there's reward for ambitious risk-taking. As a result, it seems as though the metal community as a whole has adjusted their tastes. There's more open-mindedness for things that stray from the path, and that's exactly where Madison, Wisconsin grind duo The Central excel on their latest release, Discovery Of A Rat.