A Difficult 2012—Part Four

Part four of five...

Diagonal—The Second Mechanism (Metal Blade/Rise Above)

The Second Mechanism recasts Diagonal as an almost entirely instrumental act that hammers away with the alacrity of Hatfield and the North or some berserk incarnation of Caravan. I loved their first album, but this is a much more confident effort. The five songs are muscular and rhythmically involved, with a bit of jazz that gives Diagonal their own, uh, angle in the old progressive game. Guitar and sax lead the way, often in unison, and the supple, surefooted rhythm section drives the machine along, aided by brilliantly earthy, no-BS recording. Compared to Änglagård, it's rather sparse—more of a live "blow session" than a studio-based audio puzzle. It really does sound like a shit-hot Peel Session. Hats off to whoever engineered this, sure, but the biggest credit must be given to a band that has their material down cold. Man, these guys can play.

Änglagård—Viljans Oga

Änglagård's long-awaited comeback is an onslaught of sophisticated progressive rock. Each of its four tracks is an intense workout, featuring themes that emerge, repeat, then fly apart in a thousand different directions. With guitars, bass, drums, mellotron and flute all intertwined, it's an orgiastic sonic tangle that almost defies easy consumption. Yet the sounds are so natural and inviting that you dive in without question. The only boner killer is the circusy passages in "Langtans Klocka"; otherwise this is dazzling from the start to finish. As someone who craves such music, I'd never complain that it's too much to take in; however, the process of making Viljans Oga evidently took its toll on the band, which started shedding members as the album neared completion.

Janel & Anthony—Where Is Home? (Cuneiform)

I reviewed this elegant and inventive guitar/cello collaboration here. I'm looking forward to hearing what they get up to next.

Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell—Don't Hear It...Fear It! (Metal Blade/Rise Above)

ASCS blast us back to 1974 with this burly blast of power trio rock, all flares, bomber jackets and sideburns. Perfect music for bombing up the M1 in one of these. Never mind the image, though—they deliver a well-worn musical style with power, grit, and not a little genius. Imagine Budgie stripped of the pastoral interludes and you've got the Shovell pretty much. Not that they don't have their eccentricities—there's that crazed-looking falcon (?) mascot of theirs and a bunch of songs that even at their most rockin' can still swing and turn down some interesting back alleys. "Devil's Island" and "Red Admiral Black Sunrise" are my kind of rock songs—speeding up, slowing down, getting loose, getting tight, and all built on a deep foundation of riff. And on "Scratchin' and Sniffin'" they've got the working stiff's anthem of the year. Put it on and I'll get the next round in.

Dysrhythmia—Test of Submission (Profound Lore)

This is Dysrhythmia's fiercest outing yet, the trio growing less and less polite as they develop and disperse their genius amongst other projects (Zevious, Krallice, Gorguts, etc.). I may praise a lot of "my" music for its retro authenticity, but there's nothing old-fashioned within Dysrhythmia's particular din. I can't trace anything further back than the early '90s in their approach. There are no solos or anything very groovy. If it resembles good ol' rock music at all, it does so for only a few seconds before lurching into something else. On the other hand, their songs are tight, especially by today's slovenly standards. Strong themes with logical linking passages let you draw a thread through each adrenalized track. I found that seeing them live and witnessing the visceral flair and concentration with which they perform this music is an essential to appreciating Dysrhthmia. They really are one of the finest bands pounding it out on the road today.

Gods of the Grave (Rickshaw Theatre), Dysrhythmia/Dog Shredder (Iron Road Studios), Oct. 26

This was one of those nights when I just had to go for it. I’d originally planned to attend just the Dysrhythmia show, but that show’s promoters, realizing that there were some competing gigs on East Hastings, moved the set times towards the wee hours.

I had a few hours to kill, so I decided to hit up the Rickshaw Theatre for Nothing Is Heavy’s Gods of the Grave event first. This was another of their local metal bonanzas featuring umpteen of the finest bands in the city. I arrived in time to see The Nautilus lay down a mind-bending set of spazzy, avant-garde metal. I need to keep an eye on this impressive trio; I’m sure they’ll be playing a lot. M16 were next, and had a more traditional thrash approach. This being my first exposure to them, I couldn’t quite figure out what they were going for. The riffs sounded more European than Bay Area. Did I detect a Coroner influence? Surely not. They were tight—with Mike Hannay from Anciients on drums, they couldn’t help but be—and talented players, so it’ll be interesting to hear how their sound develops. Every band was having problems with monitors and stage sound, but Auroch suffered the most of the bands I saw. They were ready to kill with their intricate and atmospheric death metal, but got a little out of sync during their first number, “From Forgotten Worlds.” They managed to cope, however, and the rest of their set decimated as intended. After a bunch of songs from their outstanding new album, they brought out a Mitochondrion dude on vocals for their final song, a wicked cover of Akercocke’s “Enraptured by Evil.” I had time for one more band, and that band was the mighty Galgamex. Hell, I’d make time for Galgamex if I had to. I defy you to find a more manic, punishing band than this East Van Death Metal (that’s what I’m guessing the EV/DM on their banner stands for) quartet. I’ve seen them three or four times now, and I honestly couldn’t tell you how any of their songs go; they’re just too much to take in. Total destruction.

By now it was closing in on 11:00, so I reluctantly turned my back on Archspire and headliners Tyrants Blood and caught a bus down Hastings to Iron Road Studios. There wasn’t much of a crowd there yet, but I’d say 30 or 40 people showed up at the evening’s peak. Hidden Towers were a nice discovery—tight, punchy prog rock played by a crack trio. They reminded me a little of A Ghost to Kill Again, who’ve unfortunately disappeared since I reviewed their debut album. Dog Shredder were just nuts. Since I last saw them at the Rickshaw, this Bellingham trio have become an improvising monster. They took a familiar song like “Battle Toads” and blew it up out of (nearly) all recognition. They also brought their own lighting “rig,” which consisted of two towers of super-bright work lights that illuminated the band from behind. I say this a lot, but I was happy that I was almost completely sober. Another beer and I would have toppled in the face of such sensory overload. After some long changeovers between bands, Dysrhythmia didn’t start playing until 1:35, but god, they were amazing. Compared to their set opening for Cynic a couple years ago, this experience was much more punk rock and personal. Watching them do what they do—i.e. shred their asses off—right up close in this little room was truly flabbergasting. The setlist stuck to the Test of Submission album as far as I could tell—they might even have played the whole thing in order. As the last band I’d see on this evening of ultra-intense music, they pushed beyond all the boundaries for 45 sweat-soaked minutes. It was an exhausting, exhilarating night.

Cynic with Dysrhythmia and Intronaut at The Venue, July 26

“Where's all the huge ’dozers?” asked Mrs. Mule soon after we’d gotten our bearings inside The Venue on this balmy Monday night. She was right—by the standards of most metal crowds, our fellow concert-goers were clean cut and slight of build (and not a little farty, unfortunately). None of this surprised me, seeing as we were attending the progressive metal bill of the summer. During Cynic's set, Paul Masvidal himself called it a geekfest. That made it official. The audience eyed fretboards as carefully as the musicians did; too amazed to mosh, I imagine.

I’ve wanted to see New York’s Dysrhythmia for ages, and they made it worth the wait. They rocked with full force, raging through their sadistically complex material. I don’t know how music like this gets made—how do you get these riffs across to someone else, how do you arrive at these song structures? The band obviously have a superb working chemistry. Their personalities and approaches mesh well in performance. Colin Marston reminds me of Voivod’s Blacky, whipping around his half-head of long hair and sawing away at his bass. Drummer Jeff Eber grits his teeth with the concentration it takes to make it through the set. Kevin Hufnagel stays relatively relaxed, save the occasional deep headbang, directing all his energy into his hands. Despite carefully tuning up between every song, their set kept up the momentum, from the conventionally rocking “My Relationship” early in the set to the blacker, more dissonant recent material towards the end.

I missed Intronaut the last time they came through town, opening for Mastodon. The Californian four-piece have fashioned a progressive sludge sound that is more appealing to me in concept than execution. They’re killer musos, all right, and the band is tight, but the balance seems off. I’m always happy to hear bass featured so prominently, and the drummer was cracking me up with the most ridiculous fills—basically soloing through the entire set. I didn't hear them meshing well as a rhythm section, though. With the bass taking the lead, I wanted to hear the guitars rise to the challenge and add distinctive voices of their own, but they stuck to their own corner. I could see and hear the complexity of what they were doing; I just didn’t feel it. Sometimes everyone did lock in, and the band sounded rich and deep. Groove was in their grasp. Too bad it happened only occasionally.

Last time I saw Cynic in Vancouver they were opening for Meshuggah (no shortage of ’dozers at that show) and then I saw them last autumn headlining Noctis III in Calgary. Both shows were in support of Traced in Air and were quite similar as a result. The Calgary show was naturally an expanded version of the Vancouver gig. This tour had the Decibel-sponsored angle, where they would play the dB Hall of Fame album Focus in its entirety. The first half of the set did indeed comprise “Veil of Maya” straight through to “How Could I”, with no announcements or fanfare, just some trippy lighting and projection effects as the band did their thing. The crowd knew what to expect and cheered on numbers like “Veil of Maya” (in which the vocal mix suffered from early-set teething problems), the mind-bending “Uroboric Forms,” and personal favourite “Textures”—which always struck me as their most King Crimson-ish song, an influence that Masvidal attests to in the actual Decibel Hall of Fame piece. The second half of the set was much more eclectic, devoted to Traced in Air and a couple sundry items. “Integral Birth” was performed twice, first by Paul Masvidal solo as a beautiful acoustic number, then in a full electric version to end the concert. The space between was filled in by Traced in Air numbers like “Evolutionary Sleeper” and “Adam’s Murmur” as well as new track “Wheels Within Wheels” and a number from their post-Focus Portal demo. Cynic performed everything with impeccable style and delicacy, which might not be what you want from a good metal show, but on the occasion of this geekfest, they were the perfect headliners.

Dysrhythmia—Barriers and Passages (Relapse)
I thought Pretest, this number-crunching instrumental trio's debut for Relapse, was a bit drab, but this follow-up triumphs over it in all aspects. I don't know whether the catalyst was their new bassist, Colin Marston (also of Behold...the Arctopus) or the switch to producer Martin Bisi (who captures the action in near-pornographic detail), but they've really ramped it up here. Like Don Caballero, they're working with guitar/bass/drums in the Mule-approved tech-punk-avant-prog manner. Their playing is more ensemble-based, though, with the emphasis on punishingly tight unison passages. No instrument is emphasized over the others—the guitar spazzes out, the bass grinds away, and the drums snap-crackle-pop. Opening track "Pulsar" is a moody overture to introduce "Appeared at First," where we get a true picture of the 36-minute assault on restraint and musical politeness that awaits. The rest of the album rains down in a storm of jagged grooves and micro-sections, pieced together carefully enough to avoid the unmusical rut-digging to which lesser bands with equally advanced chops might succumb. For every "Seal/Breaker/Void"—the album's centerpiece that fuses punk/noise/postrock/black metal (!)—there's a "Kamma Niyama," which could almost be a TV theme tune, given its wickedly abrasive take on the type of hooky melodicism that Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet peddled. The dissonant guitar drones of "Sleep Decayer" are what Bisi's old clients Sonic Youth might sound like with a less sleepy rhythm section, while "Luminous" offers a calming ambient antidote—just guitars tolling random notes amidst echo and gentle feedback. "Will the Spirit Prevail" races to the album's finish with more breakneck action. Dysrhythmia are smashing old barriers, blasting new passages, and making towering art out of the splinters and the rubble.