At first I was intrigued by the name. I had read “Sir Canadian something”, and was really close to just shake shake shake it off as I unapologetically do quite often, but I actually took the extra effort of re-reading those three words correctly. Sir Cadian Rhythm, there we have it! A somewhat awkward pun that makes it sound like they needed a name asap and it’s the only thing they could come up with.
But I kept reading the promoter’s message which was so devoid of formatting that I had to scroll right quite a lot to finish … Read more
It’s hard for me to believe that ISIS hasn’t reunited under the name ‘Sarin’. If you told me that Aaron Turner was fronting this project, I would believe you – Sarin’s vocals, vocal phrasing, guitar tones and riff style sound terrifyingly identical to Turner’s, the drummer’s style bears quite a lot in common with Aaron Harris, and the production is quite similar. Despite all of that, I would have some questions. Why did ISIS feel that they had reached a dead end and break up the band, only to start a new project that felt like they took two steps… 
I had the pleasure of being introduced to The Mercury Tree at Progtoberfest this past year. This Portland band was easily one of the most interesting and modern sounding bands on the bill. They are far from being just another prog band, as they incorporate influences from math rock, jazz, alternative rock, and more. All of this is evident on their latest record, Countenance, which displays an enormous stylistic range (and a huge progression from their previous records, which did not include many of these elements). If you’re a fan of bands like The Mars Volta, Tera Melos, Tool, and … 
Australia seems to be a great spawning point for good dissonant heavy metal, Ulcerate and Ne Obliviscaris being the two most obvious examples. Ur Draugr falls between these two bands in sound. Being on one hand relying on dissonance a lot and on the other hand progressive and black metal.