I Like to Sleep – Bedmonster

Norwegian jazz force I Like to Sleep just released the fusionesque Bedmonster, a forty-minute disc of aggressive and sinuous jazz-rock fronted by vibraphonist Amund Storløkken Åse and supported heavily by Nicolas Leirtrø and his heavy baritone guitar riffs. Their soundscape cruelly lacks the presence of a bass guitar, but it’s somewhat attenuated by the low notes of the guitar. The album came out on 6 October, and it’s very good!

Kucoshka – Rad Tantrum
What brought me to this album is the sheer ridicule of their cover art, but what kept me listening is the music itself. One could think of it as mathcore from a talented punk band. The thirty-minute album is in your face and covers a pretty wide range of sounds, escaping the often fatal pitfall of sonic sameness. Rad Tantrum was released more than a year ago, but it’s still relevant and deserves your full attention.

The Guts – Flesh
More mathcore? Hell yeah. This one’s more into Sikth territory, mostly due to the idiosyncratic voice of the UK band’s singer. Flesh is a mere fifteen minutes long, but it’s pretty good! Nothing groundbreaking is going on, but it’s a neat addition to your collection.

Kloct – Healing
It’s quite rare, in my experience, to come across black metal bands using the themes and philosophies of Hindu spirituality, more often appropriated by new-age progressive metal bands. However, Kloct is such a band – a one-man band –, and Healing is a damn fine progressive black metal full-length based on the seven chakras and spiritual awakening. Honestly, one of the only complaints I have here is the use of sampled drums, but they’re done with taste and proficiency so it’s barely noticeable. Only excerpts are available on bandcamp.

Heptaedium – How Long Shall I Suffer Here?
Whether it is due to me or to the band getting better over time, I’ve grown to like Heptaedium quite a lot. This is a far cry from Underground Business, which I could barely tolerate… How Long Shall I Suffer Here? renews the “djentchip” sound of the project and makes it pretty enjoyable! Sure, it’s not yet on the same level as compatriots in The Algorithm, but it’s not bad at all!

Schnellertollermeier – Rights
Rights is the newest release from the Swiss experimental-modern-fusion jazz trio Schnellertollermeier. In just four tracks and forty minutes, they build upon polyrhythmic themes in odd times to construct something truly huge and magnificent. In this way, they get close to drone and post music. The title track is building up very slowly, but it’s very entrancing and rewarding to go through as a listener. Great album!

The Strawberry Republic – Perfe«t Information
Hailing from Iran, The Strawberry is a strange, psychedelic jazz project. Perfe«t Information came out last year, but it’s still very much worth your time, just for novelty’s sake. Their sound borrows heavily from electro-jazz, but also from jazz fusion and progressive metal, with the peculiar use of vocals. It’s somewhere between spoken word and plunderphonics, with some effects applied on it, the most striking of which might be pitch shift. I can only encourage them to forgo programmed drums if possible, moving forward, but the product is really interesting as it is already!

The Great Discord – The Rabbit Hole
Melodic progressive metal has taken quite a down turn, recently, but bands like this reassure me that we truly live in a golden age of music. The Rabbit Hole is a fine full-length album relying on vocal hooks of Fia and a lot of layered voice tracks. The riffs are reminiscent of some djent acts, but definitely favour the public’s acceptance of them over the technicality some bands prefer. Nevertheless, this is a highly enjoyable album that might get carved in your brain.

Wares – Wares
Wares is a Canadian indie band crossing the unlikely bridge between noise and surf rock. The vocals drown in echoes and excessive reverberations, while the guitars wail and the drums pound. It’s pretty rare we cover such bands, but when they offer us an album that’s as interesting and enjoyable as this one, we can’t help but. I get, here and there, some flashbacks of The Killers; perhaps it’s the singer’s similar style because the music is admittedly quite different. Nonetheless, Wares is one album you should definitely binge on!