[asmox]

I just stumbled across this completely by accident.

It's Behold... the Arctopus guitarist Mike Lerner's solo project. It's mostly guitar-dominated as you'd expect, but it actually reminds me a lot of Ron Jarzombek's solo work, which is a huge complement from my end. The music doesn't focus exclusively on non-repetition in quite the same way that BTA does, but what repetition exists on this album remains completely kinetic. The riffing is solid, the shredding is quirky as hell, and above all - the songwriting is coherent and dynamic. The drums are programmed and don't sound too far off tone-wise from Devin Townsend's ZTO, but the programming itself is fairly ridiculous - plenty of blasting, double bass at inhuman speeds, off-time rhythms, polymetrics, et al.

The whole thing has a very spacey and strange feel though. There are more than a few ambient synth effects throughout the album, and you'll frequently catch an entire soundscape being developed behind the erratic drums and guitars. The songs go through movements, so it's not a monotone riff fest a la Machinations of Dementia. Vocals are in three basic flavors - a reptilian shrieking reminiscent of Sol Niger Within, a "normal" singing voice, and narration similar in style to Into the Electric Castle-era Ayreon. The production job is ultra clear as well.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a love at first listen album for any fan of BTA. Further, any fan of any kind of quirky metal would probably find something (or everything) to love here. I'm not sure where you can buy this, but if you've read this far, then you should probably get your hands on it post-haste.

edit: i should also mention that i think this is way, way better than Skullgrid.

 

[discombobulation]

Cool, will check it out. Am a fan of Machinations, Sol Niger - not so much Skullgrid (but I think I needa listen to it more for it to grow on me)