SikTh – ‘Opacities’: The Tech-Metal Bar Has Been Raised. Again. [Review]

Back in 2003, SikTh tore the metal world a new one with The Trees Are Dead And Dried Out, Wait For Something Wild. In 2006, the already respected legends pushed proceedings to another level with Death Of A Dead Day. Then came the split mourned by fans the world over.

Today, things are different. Tech-metal has undergone a titanic transformation thanks to the likes of Periphery, TesseracT, and Animals As Leaders. Bars have been raised, boundaries broken, new names forged in the fire.

And SikTh are back, with new six-track mini-album Opacities. And in terms of outright stunning, mind-bogglingly bizarre, infectiously groove-heavy and utterly singular originality, the bar has been raised once again.

Opacities takes precisely zero seconds to get going. Behind The Doors throws Read more…

Posted on 02 December 2015

Lithium Dawn – ‘Tearing Back The Veil I: Ascension’ [Review]

This is one of the most inspiring metal albums of 2015.

With the first part of Tearing Back The Veil, Lithium Dawn have set out to stretch the boundaries of tech-heavy progressive metal. It’s an ambitious task, to say the least; with luminaries such as Meshuggah, Karnivool, Periphery, Tool and Tesseract already forging new paths into the future, it’s easy to overlook the underground underdogs out there, and assume that everyone bar the legends are paying lip service to progression while actually playing catch-up.

One of the most attractive aspects of the prog world is the fact that anything goes. It’s like watching a Thunderbirds rerun from the ’60s: “Anything can happen in the next half hour!” We expect twists, turns, and tangents – but Lithium Dawn don’t just live up to that expectation. They go beyond it, into the Read more…

Posted on 20 November 2015

Intervals – ‘The Shape Of Colour’ [Review]

Calling Intervals’ history complicated would be a serious understatement. Aaron Marshall’s brainchild has switched from instrumental to vocal-led prog metal and back again amid multiple lineup changes. Throw in an extended struggle with Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, and you have the kind of situation that pretty much anyone would find difficult to deal with.

The Shape Of Colour is the end result of Aaron Marshall’s fight to make something good out of something bad. The results are not Read more…

Posted on 14 November 2015

Mestis – ‘Polysemy’ [Review]

Through Mestis, Animals As Leaders guitar maestro Javier Reyes has set out to challenge himself, setting the following self-described standards:

1) “Create a style of music that focusses on being emotionally exploitive and technically sound…

2) …yet simple enough for the average music listener to appreciate…

3) …using the eight-string guitar in a form that is unconventional to the “trends” or independent of characteristics that are found in music styles/genres that have popularized it, [and]…

4) …create music that [expresses] my personality, upbringing, emotions and musical taste.”

While the results are unlikely to immediately appeal to 1D fans or your gran, Polysemy is definitely a far less cognitively overwhelming prospect than the average instrumental guitar-driven offering. What really sets it apart, though, is Javier Reyes’ ability to Read more…

Posted on 05 November 2015

A Dark Orbit – ‘Inverted’ [Review]

Heavy music is often dismissed as bring brutish and blockheaded. Sometimes, that’s fair enough. A Dark Orbit, however, are fiercely intelligent.

That extra cognitive capacity lends a sense of near-bottomlessness to Inverted. It’s the sonic equivalent of doing this:

I’m about to sound like Yoda, but for the faint-hearted, this is not. Weighing in at 15 tracks totalling well over an hour of sludgy subterranean grooves, bleak and Read more…

Posted on 03 November 2015

SikTh – ‘Philistine Philosophies’ [Review]

The masters of tech-metal are back, and just as fiercely original as ever.

It’s been almost a decade since what once seemed like SikTh’s swan-song, 2006’s Death Of A Dead Day. In that time, SikTh have inspired countless metal-oriented musicians across the world – but nobody has ever managed to incorporate more than a sliver of SikTh’s signature sound into their own work. These guys are simply inimitable.

Frantic, fierce, insatiably voracious…Philistine Philosophies is all of the above and more. This is no nostalgia trip. SikTh made a name for themselves by Read more…

Posted on 02 November 2015

Heck – ‘The Breakers’ [Review]

If your day is getting to you, listening to The Breakers could go one of two ways:

1) Heck’s beyond-insane mathcore-or-noise-or-whatever onslaught helps you release all that tension and frustration, as you headbang your way into a blissfully ecstatic semi-transcendent state…or

2) It just gives you a headache, resulting in you taking all the painkillers and maybe weeping from the trauma.

Either way, at least some kind of Read more…

Posted on 23 October 2015