With my last surge throughout the bowls of Sludge Metal, i guess it was time to talk about Kylesa, they play a more by the numbers form of Sludge, truer to the purest form of Sludge, mixing in some way Doom Metal, Hardcore Punk and Stoner Metal, with a couple of twists and turns in between. So what “Time Will Fuse Its Worth” is all about?

After a smallish “Intro”, you get right to the heart of it with “What Becomes An End”, shouting vocals, dual guitars, and the weird production, it sounds and feels like hardcore punk, nevertheless it shifts and turns into something else, more like instead of playing straight Sludge, they play all the genres in separate, because even though I’m trying to fit this into a genre, they are crossing a lot of them, musically speaking it’s quite well played and interesting, “Hollow Severer” is one groovy track, starts and works its way in with shouting vocals and sludge like riffing, great track, “Where The Horizon Unfolds” starts a bit slow, but when it gets on going, it gets going (almost in a Mastodon kind of way), solid track.

“Between Silence and Sound” is what i could call a pseudo-intermission, it’s a short instrumental/short music, it’s actually a good mix, then you get “Intermission” and it is what it is…a intermission, mostly a drumming workout, not bad and not too big, but after the last one it’s kind of weird, “Identity Defined” is a speedier track, opening up to a … experimental doom track, with some psycho guitar work, just like in the 60’s, Stoner Metal all the way, and not bad at all, “Ignoring Anger” and “The Warning” are straight to school, sludge metal, another pair of great tracks, building up to the finisher “Outro” that just shows off the double drumming.

Well, it seems they do have 2 drummers, not to put it down, but the single Mastodon drummer, brings more speed, twists and turns, more overall quality and originality, I don’t understand very well the 2 drummers thing, i hope its not to just show off (or i hope not), since i wouldn’t classify the drumming as one of their stronger features, being those the shouting 3 way diverse vocals and the guitar work, oh well its a interesting album nevertheless, but if i had to choose, i would put Mastodon and Intronaut first, but if your into Sludge you might want to check them out.

Official Site Kylesa

Kylesa – Where The Horizon Unfolds

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Oh God Oh God Oh God, another tech/jazz band, sweeeet, well this is me after a couple of minutes of ranting after listening to “The Design”, like i said 2 seconds ago this is another one ranging the rabid seas of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Norma Jean or maybe Psyopus, mixing, Punk, Hardcore, Metalcore, with strange time signatures and all those jazzy whatnot’s we all love (or maybe it’s just me ^^), this is their first full length album, and what a treat it is.

The Album goes forward in a very straightforward way, their sound seems more sided to the Punk/Hardcore vein, tradding a more diverse pallet with aggression, even thought this is some serious technical shit, it does tend to stay on the same place, by place i mean the normal chaotic mesh that these bands weave tend to be more, how can i put it…. ample, Into The Moat, seem to take their name much too seriously, and go for a all out “quick in the head back stabbing teeth grinding headbanging mosh” than the other bands i associated them with, anyway they seem very guitar focused, much like Psyopus, and that is all good, no point talking music by music since they all sound pretty much…fucked up … in a good way.

Oh Yeah Baby Gimme Some More!!!, well its a great album, loads of frenzy guitar work, actually i think overall everyones musicianship is top notch, again i just feel it comes a bit short, not in time, since the 32 minutes are more than enough, just like Pig Destroyer, the frenzy being refreshing at first does tend to become tiresome, when the album is over i don’t feel that “oh my god i can’t believe how sweet this is” on my nut sack, i just feel hangover and dehydrated, so this one is for the fans of … let’s call it Chaos Music or Mathcore and not really for public consumption.

Into The Moat – Dead Before I Stray

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Uhh the mad boys are back…well halfway, this is their latest release, but its just a mix of their best tunes from 1997 to 2004, why do this? well maybe because their back catalog isn’t that rich so everyone can save a couple of bucks and just by this one, these japanese boys play a form of electro/punk so the songs are not really part of anything, so albums tend to be collection of songs ratter than something with a beginning, middle or end, anyway i like the mad capsule markets, their use of drum&bass/jungle, so… heavy hitting electronic with the violent overtone of punk/hardcore/thrash, and this mix actually works quite well.

Since like almost all punk albums, tracks come short and fast, “1997-2004″ is a big album, with 19 tracks, so instead of going 1 on 1 i’ll just highlight my favorites ^_^ hehehe, well “Crash Pow” is new to me, i don’t have all their catalog, but really good hardcore/punk almost no electronic, then “Pulse” i already know, heheh high drum&bass meets punk, this is the shit, that and the “Blink 182” type catchy lyrics in a japanese pronunciation, ohhh it’s so much funnnn, “Godd Girl” for the rock breakbeats and happy happy lyrics, “Midi Surf” its almost 100% drum&bass/guitar work, very punk in feeling with everyone screaming along.

“Chaos Step” with the house samples and the almost Pitchshifter feeling, rock meets electronic, “Gaga Life” this one just screams Mad Capsule Markets, it has all the things they are good at, Punk Music over Electronic beats and of course catchy chorus (probably my favorite), “Bit Crusherrrr” for it’s ridiculous/funny lyrics with the nu-metal feeling (like they are making fun of the sound…hell they are screaming Bit Crusherrrr some 30 times), “Fly High” is like “Gaga Life” all over again, ohhh so sweet, and that’s about it.

Anyone with a moniker like The Mad Capsule Markets, should be funny, well the musics have a lot of punk, they mix and mash, but the underlying feel and play is punk, the high use of electronic and samples, just enhances their music, and makes it stand apart from the crowd, i’m not much of a punk fan, but i do enjoy the mad capsules, because they do bring something new to the table, and i do love from time to time some nonsense music just because it’s fun, so if you like punk or wanna listen to something a little bit odd, then give this one a try, you won’t regret it.

The Mad Capsule Markets – Fly High

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I had an eye on Dillinger, ever since they released the chaotic metal meets hardcore meets punk meets experimental jazz of “Calculating Infinity”, difficult to ear at first (much like Meshuggah) after a while you start to see the underlying structure and all the little nuances you can always find in these kind of music, “Calculating Infinity” wasn’t without flaws, it had a kind of abrasive void about it, even in all the chaos it was still punk/hardcore and it had all the bad and good things punk and hardcore have, rough and aggressive songs, one dimension vocals, it goes on and on, well “Miss Machine” is here, so let’s have a look see.

First track and first single “Panasonic Youth” you get almost a “stop go” like riffing, that give pass to a mellow passage, to a almost hardcore breakbeat, then another short passage, to a metal meets hardcore finish, this is all intermingled with random riffing and drumming, i won’t try to “analise” more musics, because they are so diverse and sprawl so many genres it’s difficult to pinpoint “what is what”, so i’ll just give highlights, and you’ll decide for yourselves, next “Sunshine The Werewolf” as all the makings of “Panasonic Youth”, although at the same time it’s completely different, the seeming chaotic approach just gets friendlier with every passing moment, common jazz like smoothing passages to highlight the more hardcore/punk chaotic riffing, so i check the rest of the album and you have more industrial metal variations on “Highway Robbery”, “Unretrofied” and the toned down “Phone Home”, to more chaos hardcore from “Van Damsel” and “The Perfect Design”, and of course you have the more calm or as i like to say “contained chaos with calm passages so we can make a video for mtv” tracks, like “Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants” or maybe “Baby’s First Coffin”.

So is “Miss Machine” any good? Well i think so, even though all tracks on “Calculating Infinity” were unique and the same thing happens here, i like to think that this case of music you should always try to branch out as far as you can, anything less would be to limiting, and it seems Dillinger did that and some more, sure there are some tracks that could have been “zapped” with a little more juice, but hey you can’t drink orange juice all day long, or can’t you?

The Dillinger Escape Plan – Panasonic Youth

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Hell, since i’m in this aquatic mood (yeah with wales and seas and leviathans), so why not talk about The Ocean newest release “Aeolian”, The Ocean, plays a metal/hardcore hybrid, mixing different stuff, sometimes sounding closer to The Dillinger Escape Plan punk aggression, other times the more rock/metal of the likes of Mastodon, any way let’s see what the album has in store.

It all starts off with “The City in the Sea”, slow grinding start, that converts into a …. almost “stop go”, bouncy, metal sequence that goes through the music, to a more simple rock finish, uhhh that’s a nice mixture and a fine tune indeed, lets head out to “Dead Serious and Highly Professional”, punk driven song, ok and “Austerity” uhhh a almost mastodon stoner rock , although nothing especial, how about “Killing the Flies”, nice breakbeat, very similar in style with the first track, bouncy “stop go” like music, with a good clean chorus, and interesting guitar work, now we get into the more simplistic part of the album, with the narrow minded “Une Saison En Enfer” and the very cheaply made punk “Necrobabes.Com”, then we get on track with “One With the Ocean”, again with the same bouncy groove, next we have “Swoon”, very straight to your face metalcore, again “Queen of the Food-Chain” gives the best “metalcore” song on the album, combining the bouncy groove they tend to use on this album, with their more aggressive metalcore vein, and they finish the album with “Inertia” a metal/punk fusion.

So how as Aeolian survived my scrutiny, well a bit on the downside, as you can see on this review, i tend to talk more about their adventures on the realms of metal/rock than talk about the musics themselves, since they are proficient in combining different genres, complexity and diversity is not a question, the problem here is how everything fits together, and it doesn’t fit that well, even though it’s diverse they tend to use the same song structures and always or go for short punk like inspired tunes or just create 5 to 10 minute songs with long song breaks to try and build up songs, it just kills the pace, they are good with the groove oriented metal and the metalcore, but they are a little narrow minded with the punk rock thing, so overall its a good try but it’s only an average album, and as such, it’s better to buy the good ones on itunes than to buy it all on cd.

The Ocean – Swoon

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