Instar Offer “Stepping Stones” To Their Next Journey

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Another homegrown project we are immensely fond of comes straight from our dear editor-in-chief, the aforementioned Eden Kupermintz, and our good friend Greg Greenberg (Seven Circles), who, with guitarists Doug Van Bevers and Nick Maini and drummer Travis Orbin (ex-Periphery, Darkest Hour) form Instar, a beautiful fusion of post-rock, math-rock, jazz/metal fusion, and spoken word. Those who are at all familiar with Eden know that he is an ardent lover and connoisseur of sci-fi and a writer himself, and he lends his own illustrative prose and mellifluous voice to give the project a distinctly cosmic post-y feeling. The last time we mentioned the band on this site it was to recommend their debut EP, which featured Eden on one track and other guest vocalists on the other two. Eden has since joined the project as a full-fledged member, and if the lead track from their upcoming album Ex Nihilo Cycles “Stepping Stones” is any indication, Instar is prepared to take an enormous leap for their first full-length release.

For Fans Of – Nova Collective

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It’s been a while since we’ve written one of these columns, and that’s not because we dislike them. Past a certain point it starts to become more difficult to find important bands representing or making waves in a certain genre or sub-genre and finding a group of similar or tangentially-related bands to recommend. Up to this point though we haven’t really written one of these posts as essentially a response or plea to listeners. Sometimes bands who execute a certain style or sound garner a lot of critical and popular praise to the point of being credited with some sort of innovation or something radically different from anything else out there when the reality is far from that. It’s rarely the fault of the bands themselves though as they don’t give themselves that kind of credit, but once in a while it’s important for someone to politely correct consensus thinking and offer a little more context, and that is exactly what we’re going to do here and now with the debut album from metal/jazz fusion band Nova Collective.

Hey! Listen to Fossils!

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Fossils are a Denmark-based duo that does instrumental sludge in a new way—that is, without the use of guitars. The band’s members—Simon Tornby and Per Silkjaer—only play bass and drums, respectively. Although their latest EP, The Meating, utilizes vocals, their two albums The Meat Rush and Flesh Hammer do not; instead, they fill the track with some of the most pummeling, earth-shaking, head-snapping riffs and pounding drums ever recorded. Each song the track plays is short and sweet—usually around two minutes—but doesn’t forget to groove like you wouldn’t believe.

Pomegranate Tiger – Boundless

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With a significant reduction in personnel, Pomegranate Tiger returns as a (mostly) one-man project nearly three years after 2013’s Entities [review]. What four members were previously doing has been shouldered by multi-instrumentalist and project mastermind Martin Andres, having written and recorded the entirety of the new album, Boundless. Entities succeeded…