metal / metalcore / mathcore

Back to Belgian soil, this time with a heritage from the Antwerp Metal Fest event (read). One of the most surprising bands was Cyclus with their suffocating blend of metal, hardcore and mathcore. Now, they combine their previous EP's into one full length, titled 'Sekt'.

The band is formed by members of Minus45degrees, Born From Pain, Calibre and Facedown (amongst others). Yet, with Cyclus they decided to shed all genre boundaries and create a whole different musical universe, loosely based on the 1951 movie  'The Day The Earth Stood Still' .


On the album, the band looks at the earth and humanity from the perspective of an alien race. They see what humans do to the planet and decide to eradicate that virus. This concept reflects mostly in the intros of the three separate EPs. The rest of the sixteen songs are powerful pieces of heavy music. 'Distress Signal on a Stellar Wave' and 'A Most Painful Realisation' can probably best be described as metalcore with their crushing riffs and intense screams. Yet, more often the vocals take on a clean form, something I can surely appreciate.

The combination between complexity and intensity is overwhelming. Very little on this album is predictable. In my head, heaps of bands pass by, be it only for mere seconds. Killswitch Engage, Amenra, Anthrax, Oceans Ate Alaska, Tool, Dillinger Escape Plan, System Of A Down, Despised Icon, Calibre (which perhaps might be expected) and heaps more appear, it's like a three day metal festival crushed into a bunch of three minutes lasting tracks. Is that good? It certainly is impressive.

'Is Your Feeling Formidable?' and 'No Force is Half Felt' are two of my absolute favorites here. Somehow Cyclus has managed to combine noise, chaos and sheer brutality into one massive distress signal. My advice would be to just dive in and let the music do its mesmerizing work. Fans of the extreme should absolutely check this out. Cyclus isn't just another band to explore musical horizons, they are a unique and overpowering entity in an already baffling metal scene. So yeah, this comes bloody recommended.


​Serge

avant-garde/ experimental / mathrock/ indie rock

Long Time, No See is an album by British Math Rock group Desert Vows, released by Tower To The Sea Records on May 17. A very concise and objective album, only thirty-seven minutes long, it has nine tracks: New Leaf, Lagoon, Miyazaki Frontier, Midnight Floater, 4:47am, Koriko, Standing Under Broken Falls, Templeinthedistance and Long Time / No See. A very gracious and interesting record, with unusual harmonies that breaks its preemptive and ascendant intonations on the verge of its own deeply surrealistic sonorous tonalities, the vivacity and the creativity of the melodies in general on this album are profoundly enthusiastic, quite captivating and evaluative of its own atmosphere.

This album certainly is a sensitive, placid and genuine experience on experimental intuition, that organizes in the deepest longevities of the senses an overlooking amount of perceptive nuances with the sincerity of a groundbreaking ability. While the sound of the group is transcendental and poetic by one hand, on the other, an organic logic derived by a precise, but very persuasive technique, seems to evolve and to be imperative, all the way through. With revolving processes that dilute the harmonies of its sensible nature, at the same time, the band knows how to activate the tempestuous nucleus of its charm, as the music replicates its gracious arrangements around the epicenter of an aligned soul resurgence, that poetically drives the listener into a corner of the universe that feeds the allegorical references of its own existence. 

With harmonies that displays concomitantly qualities like intelligence, creativity, elegance and splendor in abundance, Long Time, No See is an arduous fragrance of sophisticated and proverbial graciosity, that knows how to create pure artistry in an elevating and profoundly genuine musical shape. A testimony of cultural diligence, that converges to a point of asymmetric perfection, that is delightfully pleasant to hear, this album disperses crystallized waves of dense perceptions all the way throughout its notes. 

A very pure and whimsically dilapidated work, that appeals to the reason of human nature as well as its inherent sensibility, Long Time, No See, by Desert Vows, is a curious, selective and astoundingly peculiar album, that certainly showcases in an audaciously singular style a unique paroxysm, that came to be a victory for the entire genre, as a whole. 


Wagner

post rock / math  rock

There’s No One New Around You is an album by American post rock group Gazelle(s), released on October 20. With seven tracks – Ghosts and Giants, Discord Dents and Bends, Sound Becomes You, Sounds Become Space, The Shrinking Talk, Great White Black, Empty Fills Your Hands and How Moral They Were – the harmonies and the general structure of the songs are quite traditional and simple, but there is an extravagant beauty on its purely objective, but sometimes introspectively subjective, musical nature. 

The melodies, in overall, are increasingly ascendant and proverbial in tone, and allusive to a lucid approach of rapture, that inadvertently creates a marvelous sense of infinity into the songs. Inserted in an audacious conjuncture that aggregates an intense evaluation of rhythmic capacities that sometimes remember a neoclassical panorama of effervescent sonority throughout the infinite paradigm of the music, There’s No One New Around You manages to have an individualistic tension that corroborates its flirtatious and charming, but easy rhythmic structure. While I can’t define this album precisely as magnificent, the final result manages to be a satisfactory work. 

The harmonies are generally intriguing and salutary consecrations of sentimental grievances, that seems to rise from strict, but exploratory patterns of happiness. While the group follows the more general basis of post rock as whole, there is a formidable verve of authenticity brilliantly developed and inserted into their style. Unfortunately, sometimes, an invariable sense of monotony can be felt throughout the record, as the melodies feels lethargic and redundant at certain passages, but nothing that compromises the main qualities of the work. In a general evaluation, There’s No One New Around You can be considered a good album. Nevertheless, they seem to have far more competence in technical terms than in the creative aspects of their music.  

For an audience sympathetic to a more symmetric sound, that gets close to neoclassical and easy listening, this album certainly will be received as a pleasant surprise. With a serene atmosphere, and an exponentially calm sonorous layer, Gazelle(s) has conceived an interesting album, that deserves to have its place of appreciation, in the podiums of the genre.   


Wagner