NOT MUSIC: Vox Medusae Is Out Now!

The Music

The Words

Potmos Hetoimos‘ 11th album—the first on the Not Music label—is now out!

The album is available to download for free. Alternately, you can acquire this limited digipak for just $10, shipping included, anywhere in the world.

This is a 56-minute concept album in 8 tracks telling the metaphorical tale of Perseus slaying Medusa, who is tearing his life to shreds.

Matt plays all instruments safe for the saxophone and guest vocals and solos. The album is mixed by Angel Marcloid (Fire-Toolz, Mindspring Memories). Members from the bands Curse and Usti Waya appear on Vox Medusae, and it has been recorded by Ben Rosenbach and Matt Matheson.

Read more on the story and theory behind the album by clicking this link: Sludge Titan Potmos Hetoimos Premieres New Song, Goes In-Depth on Songwriting Process

What Others Said

No Clean Singing

[The songs] don’t move in predictable directions, the manifold stylistic ingredients changing and falling into place in kaleidoscopic fashion. I wouldn’t call the changes chaotic, but they’re certainly sharp and surprising. It will help if you enjoy jazz and prog. It will also help if you enjoy being drugged and/or pistol-whipped. Also, the vocals, though chameleon-like, are relentlessly intense.

You can hammer your head with this music and move your body, and also fall into dreamlike reveries, experience expressions of agony and be lifted in exultation, find big smiles on your face and be left befuddled or aghast. Fascinating, exuberantly creative, technically impressive music for the adventurous-minded among you.


Toilet ov Hell

For Vox Medusae, Matheson employs a variety of non-traditional musical scales. Vincent’s Medusa narration is told in harmonic Locrian, while other portions of the album see Matheson dabbling in Lydian Dominant or Hungarian Augmented. It all lends the track (and the album itself) a density, a confusion, a weight. There is a great sense of struggle in the way disparate styles compete for the listener’s ear, paralleling Matheson’s as Perseus’ own conflict for mastery of the monsters that torment him.


Heavy Blog Is Heavy

[The] album is going to give you just as much of a wild ride; I still haven’t completely digested it as it takes influences from abrasive and heavy acts like Cult Leader but also channels some of the weirdness of bands like Dødheimsgard. But I can easily say that if you’re looking for some heavy, chaotic and conceptually well thought out, look no further; Vox Medusae is exactly for you.


RTMB (in Spanish)

Esto me llevo concertar que el aporte que yo puedo dar y que he tratado de plasmar, es la visión que puede tener el simple consumidor entusiasta. Ese que le gusta compartir rarezas, esas que en el futuro puede que se conviertan en los aclamados discos de “culto”; no sé qué tanto pueda llegar a esto Potmos Hetoimos, pero de lo que sí estoy seguro es que cualquiera que tenga como propósito conocer cosas que se salen de su cotidianidad podrá encontrar algo valioso aquí.


Head-Banger Reviews

There’s a special chaos achieved within the hour-long experience that “Vox Medusae” encapsulates that’s executed brilliantly through a true menagerie of different instruments done via different takes on different styles that Potmos Hetoimos approaches with both fervor and talent.


The Links

Not Music on Bandcamp
Not Music on Facebook

Potmos Hetoimos on Bandcamp
Potmos Hetoimos on Facebook