Cybergrindr – Fully Automated Psychic Violence

Cybergrindr is a probably-solo project from British Columbia. It is one of the few bands whose name actually reflects the genre they play… and they do it very right! Cybergrindr’s cybergrind is far from mundane. They see the opportunities the genre brings them, and they take them. For example, they profit from the obviously-programmed drums to go beyond what would be realistic: on ‘The Overseer Has Come Online’, they use drum hits – seemingly kick drums – at superhuman speeds to create what we interpret as musical notes, with pitch and length. And even though it’s the only place where … Read more

Parazit – Paradigm Paralysis

The Mexican instrumental experimental metal trio Parazit recently released their newest album, Paradigm Paralysis. At first glance, you can already feel how the three are held together by the strong chemistry in the group. The overwhelming bass is front and centre, overdriven, and played aggressively. The drums are not too far behind, with their intelligent rhythms and careful timing supporting the stringed instruments in their wingless flight over strange territories. Last but not least, the guitar’s slew of effects help vary the sonic landscape and put in context the meanders of the bass and drums. The whole sounds like … Read more

Mammoth – Deviations

mammothIn the world of progressive rock and metal, instrumental albums are pretty common so it’s a bit hard to stand out. Mammoth absolutely manage to do this with their new album Deviations. Impressive playing paired with amazing production quality and beautiful tones prove that these guys are at the top of their class.

The first song, ‘Entanglements’ sounds like an entanglement of instruments weaving wonderfully through each other. Impressive guitar arpeggios and solos are complemented by ambient keyboards and intense drums. The middle section of the song calms down with a bright clean section that builds back up into … Read more

Devin Townsend Project – Transcendence

transcendenceDevin Townsend has gone many different musical places in his career, frequently doing something drastically different that what he’s done before, most notably on his first four albums in the Devin Townsend Project with Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction, and Ghost. Transcendence is no exception, as it takes his sound to a new level. On this album, Devin took input from the rest of the band, musicians he’s been working with for 10+ years, and relinquished some control to them. Because of this, the band sounds more united than on other recent DTP albums, like Epicloud and Sky Blue.

This was brought Read more

Karmakanic – Dot

Karmakanic’s fifth studio album, Dot, is a progressive rock album inspired by recent writings by Carl Sagan. Frontman Jonas Reingold stated that this inspiration stemmed from Sagan’s quote about the picture of the earth that Voyager 1 took in 1990 from the outer areas of our solar system. “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter Read more