If you like your death metal brutal, progressive, and quite possibly from another dimension then look no further than genre-bending quartet VoidCeremony. Formed in 2013, the Californian act’s second full-length studio album Threads of Unknowing (20 Buck Spin) delivers more of what was promised on their 2020 debut but with even more intensity and technical virtuosity.
Trippy, dippy, and totally mind-bendy are the first things I think of when I hear the new release from Poly-math entitled Zenith (Nice Weather For Airstrikes). The opening track and the title track have this bombastic, slightly discordant saxophone that blends beat poetry, jazz, and psychedelia. Poly-math reminds me of the jazz fusion jam bands of the seventies and eighties; think Dixie Dregs, but with saxophones. Chris Olsen kills it on saxophone, by the way. Every song is elevated by his playing. If you play saxophone in a band, Olsen’s playing on this album is where you want to end up in your playing.
Progressive metal is an ever-crowded field. What is progressive can vary depending on whom is listening and certainly by which band is playing. The virtuosity and creativity of the genre certainly has its fanatics and in order to stand out from the pack, you have to really bring it. New York City’s instrumental maestros The Astral Cadence have spent several years between wood-shedding at the studio and performing live to make a name for themselves in the scene and now their hard work has paid off with their self-released debut, Paradigm. Continue reading