HEAVILY HARBOURED AHOY, LANDSCRUBBERS!

I don’t usually get down with anything too technical. The cliche of “I can play more notes faster than you” is just boring, isn’t it? I see the appeal, I really do, but I see the appeal of it in the technicality of bands like NOCTURNUS:

NOCTURNUS – ALTER REALITY

Overtly-intricate arpeggio sweeps hidden amongst bay area thrash-sounding death metal. . . until you get to a solo, then it becomes comprehensively clear that ever additional note is planned. Written. Important. As I’ve pointed out in the past, I’m very prone to just about anything that comes with a side order of space, but I don’t believe I’m being too giving with my stand on NOCTURNUS really helping trigger the birth of what technical death metal is nowadays. Through the beauty of cohesion between the revolving time signatures and individual tones of each musician, these guys somehow managed to fly under the radar for many metal fans in their heyday, which is the real shame of it all.

Which leads us to what Sweetness hath wrought:

BEHOLD THE ARKTOPUS – ALCOHOLOCAUST

 

We get it, you quit drinking with your cool crust friends, learned way too much theory, stopped actually picking up the instrument to write anything, and this is what we get. It basically sounds like something between a jazz-free jam that got recorded by accident, and like they sent all their instruments sliding down the stairs and they stood at the top pulling the cords to bring them back, slipping, repeat.

Not for moi, or I’m assuming most other people.

And to wash that taste out of your mouths, allow me to assure you that something so heavy didn’t just spawn that barely-listenable cacophony, but even in this day and age, people are still resurrecting valiant monuments in the name of technical metal, but with different variations at their cores. One of my favorites beings these kings,

QUO VADIS – HUNTER KILLER

 

CANADA SAYS “YOU’RE WELCOME”, AS PER USUAL. This Montreal based fretless bass bomb squad outpaced most people’s brains with their follow-up album to this work of art, but I love the roots of most bands more for whatever innocuous reason. Though extremely melodic, I would say the pace alone at which some of those licks are commanded out of guitarists Arie Itman and Bart Frydrychowicz and beyond technical!

There are a few scattered acts here and there who are prevailing against the adversity shared many up-and-comers, but I haven’t heard a technical masterpiece out of ANYBODY in the past half-decade or MORE!

View the spectrum as you may, but I believe we have arrived in a musical era based on the proliferation of the idea that selling the idea of money, makes you famous, and for some fucking clowns, it actually works. So, in future, if something is a little too much for you, perhaps you should see how much of that thing you are really allowing in, or if you just really like that beat despite the artist being a walking trash bag.

BEAR OUT~