Five years have come and gone and the Dutch trio, whose resumés include Cynic and Exivious, have finished their new offering, sporting a notably more drab cover than its predecessor. Is this an ill omen, or is that judging a book by its cover?
Exivious
Interview With Tymon Kruidenier of Our Oceans
“What do you get when you throw former and current members of Cynic, Exivious, and Dodecahedron all together in a room to record music? If you said something like quasi-jazz infused blackened death fuckery, you’d be absolutely…wrong. Completely. Like, not even close. What you do get instead is some of the loveliest sounding prog rock you’ll hear all year. Who knew?”
Seven Year Storm – Aion I Review
“It was before a long journey that I haphazardly shoved all my new music on to my iPod, paying no regard to the attached one sheets and band biographies. Having never heard their material before, it was without expectation or even awareness of genre that I approached Seven Year Storm’s début EP Aion I.” Road trip music is important. Does the rubber meet the road here?
Animals as Leaders – The Joy of Motion
“It’s a bit early to assess the impact of the djent scene on metal overall, given that its rapid boom and bust occurred so recently, but preliminary findings are that it produced and popularized some definite keepers. One of the foremost are poised to release their third album. Tosin Abasi’s inventive instrumental ensemble took metal by an impressively subdued and nuanced storm with their eponymous début, carving out a canyon for current sweethearts like Exivious to wash into. For all of their stylistic idiosyncrasies, Animals as Leaders gets billed as a jazz-influenced prog-metal band, but I like to think of them more as a jazz group caught in an unlikely love affair with Meshuggah. Whatever you call them, and what you call them is likely to be overwhelmingly positive, you should be expecting something great out of The Joy of Motion.” Join Kronos as he delves into Djent and what wonders it has wrought in the music world.
The AMG Staff Picks the Top Ten Records o’ 2013
This year the plebs get a say. While I have fought against this with every fiber of my body, Madam X‘s caring, feeling, and ultimately populistic, womanly touch has poisoned this blog by allowing people who aren’t me (including herself) to have lists. Frankly I’m offended. No one comes to Angry Metal Guy to read these guys’ lists. But hey, you know how it goes. Times, they are achangin’. As I no longer have time to be the site’s lone dictator, and Steel Druhm has proven incapable of keeping the mustache twirling hipsters underfoot despite his enormous gun collection and tough talk, you, dear reader, get extra Top 10 lists.
I hope you’re happy.
Record(s) o’ the Month – November 2013
“Since you’ve already been gifted with end of 2013 lists from the AMG staff and know exactly where we stand on the year in music, hopefully you’ll all be too pacified and complacent to notice how late this post is. Though the back end of 2013 was awash with quality releases, November saw that flow reduced to a trickle as the record industry began to wind things down for the year. That said, there were some bright spots that deserved attention and recognition, and in the interest of being complete and meeting the expectations of our ever demanding readers, we present the Records o’ the Month for November.”
Cynic Drops “The Lion’s Roar” Lyric Vid
I don’t know about you, but Cynic’s 2008 record Traced in Air is one of my favorite records of the decade. I love Focus and think it’s one of the best records in the history of technical and progressive metal. However, I have previously expressed some skepticism as to the motives of this band. While the Re-Traced EP was an experimental take on the Traced in Air tracks and worked really, really well, I was less enthused with the band’s Carbon Based Lifeforms EP. During that one, I expressed some sentiments that have been floating around the underground in terms of quoting an acquaintance of mine:
Exivious – Liminal Review
“Guitarist Tymon Kruidenier and bassist Robin Zielhost were introduced to the metal masses as the new members of reactivated prog/death gods Cynic back in 2007, with Zielhost replacing bassist/Chapman wizard Sean Malone for live purposes, and Kruidenier handling both guitar and growling duties both live and on Cynic’s incredible comeback album, Traced in Air. Both members would end up departing after the subsequent tours for Traced in Air, instead working on their own muse, the all-instrumental Exivious.” Anytime someone mentions Cynic, metaldom gets all agog. Grymm boldly mentions them here in relation to an all instrumental, prog-metal monster. What comes after agog?
Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Fallujah – The Harvest Wombs
There’s a band called Fallujah which put out a record called The Harvest Wounds. It’s awesome and you missed it. Shame on you.
Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Beyond Creation – The Aura
I made comments earlier to the effect of that I’d not heard the 2011 death metal record of the year. Nader Sadek definitely fills in that gap deftly, but Beyond Creation’s 2011 release The Aura from some obscure Canadian Label that is going on a 6 month vacation so you can’t actually order records from them, should […]
