Mombu / Mosca Violenta – Hunting Demons

by Dæv Tremblay

a0742052546_16The presence of jazz in metal music seems to be an increasingly popular trend. Most noticeably, it’s the addition of the saxophone that’s often just enough to make us think that the band has successfully merged the two genres into one, but most of the times it’s just a clin d’œil to it, and the music itself doesn’t bear any of the subjacent characteristics of jazz.

The first ones to incorporate jazz, in a form or another, into metal were Atheist, Meshuggah, and Cynic, back in the early ’90’s. Since then, it gained in popularity and it’s … Read more

OSR: December 6th, 2015

by Dæv Tremblay

Only punchlines, no introduction!

Crown Larks‘s Blood Dancer is a very fulfilling experimental “art” rock album to listen to! I stumbled upon Akhenaten when I was writing my “Forced Fusion” post, and they’re a pretty cool black metal band with Eastern influences. Anderwelt is an Austrian that combines post-metal, black metal, and hardcore, among other things; Schattenlichter is a pretty solid 4-part album.
Infernal Wrath is an experimental tech-death beast, and I’ve fallen in love with Inside of Me, check it out! [Listen to some excerpts of this album on CD Baby]

Outre mesure is a … Read more

Forced Fusion

by Dæv Tremblay

Mute the Saint is the latest example of what I will call forced fusion, but they are certainly not the only one, and definitely not the first or last one we’ll have to endure. Forced fusion is the merger of two musical genres, or the addition of a gimmick to an already existing genre, in a rushed or shallow manner.

The first other band I can think of is M.A.N, later known as Massive Audio Nerve. They claim to be the first microtonal metal band, and I am very highly doubtful on that, with their first album released … Read more

Sha’s Feckel – Feckel for Lovers

by Deidre House

Cover art

Reed player Sha has made a name for himself over the years among fans of the Swiss “zen funk groove” school of jazz pioneered by Nik Bärtsch and Don Li among others. The full-length debut from his project Sha’s Feckel, Feckel for Lovers, is a diverse and dynamic set of heavy jazz fusion tunes. Featuring Sha on sax together with a guitar, bass, and drums trio, this group weaves huge riffs with odd grooves within engaging and thoroughly fearless compositions.

The album starts out with “A,” a 13 minute piece that gradually crescendos from somber, pensive fusion to … Read more

OSR: December 3rd, 2015

by Dæv Tremblay

In today’s one-sentence reviews, we’ll take a jab at

An inventive and sweet prepared piano and beats album; gets better the more you listen to it. A saturated sort of death grind EP that’s quite good, really! An ambient and dark jazz album that’s quite minimalistic and dissonant in its approach.
Finally, new Sikth music; need I say more? A rather odd experimental rock album that will seduce you with its careless innocence. I’m all for innovation, and it’s the first time I hear saxophone and jazz influence in sludge music; it’s great, too! Antigama have returned with probably the… Read more