Category Archives: Review

Ancestors Revenge – The Archaic Return

by Dæv Tremblay


Do you need some more tech-death with fretless bass in your life? Because that’s just what Ancestors Revenge are about, with, I guess, the added blackened adjective to it, given the black metal elements in their music. Blackened tech-death, now we’re talking!

The Archaic Return, the band’s debut album, is long enough to satisfy your hunger and varied enough to keep you interested from start to finish. The drums are absolutely relentless, greatly supporting the riffs and song structure. That drummer is definitely one of the best I’ve got to see recently, he … Read more

Mammoth – Polymorphism

by Dæv Tremblay


Mammoth takes the best of classic progressive rock and fusion elements to deliver us a truly hairy beast, Polymorphism.

With such a band name, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to The Explorers Club’s Raising The Mammoth album, which is a gem of modern progressive rock. Mammoth are definitely more on the technical side of things, with more instrumental songs, more intricate instrumental parts and less directed towards creating an atmosphere, what The Explorers Club mainly did on their latest album, most notably on their 21-minute, 16-part suite Gigantipithicus (Prog-O-Matic), which is every bit as … Read more

Itzamna – Metnal

by Dæv Tremblay


D’you like jazz? Of course you do! D’you like metal? Of course you do! Itzamna is all about that! France sure has some awesome music to send us, and we gladly accept another newcomer in our music gallery!

Instead of taking djent and adding a few jazz touches to it, I think Itzamna went the other way around: taking jazz compositions and peppering them with a little bit of djent and other metal spices. Saint André must be the harshest song on display on their EP, Metnal, but it still isn’t what you’d call “djent” in … Read more

Deux Pouilles En Cavale – Tambour Et Temps Morts

by Dæv Tremblay


Experimental Frenchy rockers Deux Pouilles En Cavale serve us their second meal; after their eponymous breakfast LP and short lunch of an EP, here comes the dinner. With a fancy name like Tambour Et Temps Morts, or “Drum And Time-Outs” (it really sounds fancier in French but what doesn’t?), we are to expect a royal meal, and we, weird-music lovers, are truly served!

First off, the kitchen has employed two new cooks since their first album, bringing the number of musicians to that of a quatuor! Yes, their debut album … Read more

Cryptic Ruse – Chains Of Smoke

by Dæv Tremblay


Microtonal music artist Jason Yerger’s project Cryptic Ruse (formerly City of the Asleep) – now with actual microtonal guitars! – returns to show us his new and masterfully crafted work: Chains of Smoke.

Using three different exotic tuning systems – 13 EDO, 15 EDO, and 23 EDO (EDO stands for Equal Divisions of the Octave) – and a wide palette of musical genres, Jason makes us travel to never-before heard sonic landscapes. By using “oriental” and “middle-oriental”-sounding tunings with a more standard (for us, westerners!) metal band quatuor instrumentation, with due distortion, riffs, … Read more