“We live in an age where trends tend to follow a very specific curve thanks to high-speed propagation and market saturation. Djent is no exception. The first stage is inception. A creator comes up with an idea, shares it, and becomes ground zero. Sometimes this is subtle and hard to trace back, sometimes it’s Meshuggah.” Consult the Djent Timeline if you will.
“To me, there’s no music genre entirely without merit. Hardcore? Give me some Counterparts, please. Hip hop? Aesop Rock is my jam. Emo? I’ll rock out to Taking Back Sunday like it’s 2005 and I need something playing in the background while I apply eyeliner for my Myspace profile pic. Djent? Now that’s a tricky one.” Go easy on the guyliner, Z.
“I’ve commented before on the excellence of select album covers and continue to keep an eye out for the very best of the bunch, often discovering new music simply on the merits of a killer Bandcamp icon. After all, if you’re an independent band with little in the way of PR, it pays to invest in a jacket that gets a listener’s proverbial foot in the door. Such seems to be the strategy of Tardive Dyskinesia, who know that even if you have a poor memory for names, at least you’ll remember this face.” Face-palm.
“Popular music has had a shadow looming over it for years: talent shows, where thousands of contenders come to have their hopes and dreams shattered, burned and the ashes spread to the winds. Apparently the practice has also come to unpopular music; in 2011, Century Media crowned proggers Oddland the winners of the Suomi Metal Star contest. Those last three words make me gag, but at least Oddland got a record deal out of it, with Dan “The Man” Swanö as their mix and mastering bonus.” It’s not every day you get to win a Swanö.
“When first listening to Terminus by While Sun Ends I was on the train. In lieu of much exciting to say about the record itself, I will begin with this. It was on a Euro-trip where I visited a number of central European cities. I had the pleasure of making the journey between Munich (Germany) and Salzburg (Austria), a route which takes you through the beautiful Bavarian Alps. These travel days were substantially stop-gaps but this ride was a highlight of my trip, as we sped through a plethora of emerald hills, past azure lakes, observed grand mountains and stopped at quaint villages with lots of men whose names I presume to be Klaus. All of them. I paint this picture as that part of the world is extraordinary. The same cannot be said for Terminus. It is, indeed, extra-ordinary.” The home of trains is plain.
“Look, I get it: ‘metalcore’ is a dirty word in the metal community. Telling a bunch of underground metalheads that you like metalcore is the equivalent of painting a big scarlet letter right between your set of Fred Durst nipple rings. And while I agree the genre has its shortcomings, I can’t help but enjoy it nonetheless. Part of it’s because this is the music I grew up with – sure, there’s lots of emo choruses and re-purposed Gothenburg riffs, but they’re my emo choruses and re-purposed Gothenburg riffs!” We have a Core infection in Sector 6!
“Not unlike a djentier and techier Every Time I Die, Masquerade combines a fuck-all attitude, tightly riveted melodies and rhythms, and a sense of abrasive aggression into a 42-minute package that feels like getting a piece of steel wool shoved down your throat—yet it remains hooky enough to wash it down with something sweet afterward.” Like putting Splenda on brass knuckles.
![VOLA – Inmazes [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/12371041_10208087369732906_1742163103346762917_o-768x768.jpg)
“VOLA are highly unusual in their approach to modern progressive metal. The most apt description I can define is prog-power by way of djent, offering the catchy melodies of Anubis Gate and Voyager but executed with the staccato, modern heaviness of a post-Meshuggah era.” Some things just sell themselves.
“Danish five-piece Cold Night For Alligators are described by their press kit as “progressive death metal with brutal technical hardcore, layered with tremendous atmospheric ambient sounds.” Doesn’t that sound great? I salivated at my luck, dreaming of this great new band that sounds like Cynic, Gaza and Hope Drone.” That’s our Kronos – forever drooling and droning.
“Imagine third-rate Slayer-worship, a guitar tone so doctored it almost resembles djent, and lyrics so mindlessly asinine and violently vacuous that they actually pain me to hear them. Throw in a faltering vocalist and unimaginative song-writing and you have The Hatred Inside. Intrigued?” Better than fourth-rate Slayer, right?
