“Following the uniquely progressive death(ish) trend of increasing Hippietude, Exist has slowly morphed over the years from a spacey, Meshuggah-ish prog act in the vein of Intrinsic-era The Contortionist to a Pink Floyd-ian tricky-rhythm rock, primarily, outfit.” Evolve, mutate, Exist.
“Repeat after me: Djent is not a dirty word. It certainly appears that way with the general consensus in the metal community of the often maligned offshoot sub-genre of progressive metal. The potential is definitely there for bands to take the basic template of the djent formula and manipulate the components in a myriad of interesting and innovative ways, yet the quality bands able to do this effectively appear few and far between.” Semper fi, or semper die, there is no semper try.
“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.
“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.
“Here’s a free top tip for all you kids looking to break into the music business: name your band something easily googleable. Distance have been kicking around for almost ten years now – forming in 2005, releasing a demo in 2006 and several singles at the end of the last decade – but presumably escaped any significant interest because no-one could bloody find them.” Marketing is for the market wonks, but you have to give them a little help.
Unlike the progressive rock and heavy rock of the past, Periphery isn’t really writing great symphonic works of art or abstract tracks with smart, snappy choruses. Nor is this a shred-fest in funny time signatures á la Dream Theater and their oppressive and ubiquitous ilk. Nay, Periphery is something unique to the 2010s. That good? I dunno.
The guys in Textures are smart guys and they make smart metal. Their brand of metal has a lot of technicality and there’s no tediousness in their approach to song writing. So if you’re a two-digit IQ kind of listener, please don’t bother us with any dim-witted comments you may have concerning how pretentious you think these Dutch fellows sound. Textures started to blossom as a unique band with their second album Drawing Circles and they cemented their sound quite impressively with 2008’s Silhouettes. Some line-up changes brought in a new vocalist and a new keyboardist which consequently had them take three years to put out album number four but it’s one that is definitely worth the wait
