SKULLGRID

This band is utterly ridiculous,from the band name to the music, and is one of my favourite recent discoveries. I originally looked this band up because I saw the name and thought it was ridiculous. Then I listened to the music, and it blew me away. The music is essentially a cross between extremely technical prog metal, jazz, and classical, though the classical presence is more of an influence on the music than the arrangement. Speaking of the arrangement, It's insane how three people manage to create this much chaos. Behold...The Arctopus consists of a guitar, a drummer, and a Warr Guitar, the instrument made famous by Trey Gunn of King Crimson fame. The music consists of a constant barrage of technical riffs and runs, and the listener is barely given a chance to break. If you're into more melodic bands, I wouldn't recommend this, as there is little semblance of traditional melody, but if you can take bands like Dillinger Escape Plan this could be just right for you. I starts off with the title track, a short ditty that gives us only a small hint of what is to come. From there, it just explodes with Canada and rarely slows down for us to catch up. It's a good thing it's so short though, because I think an hour long of this album would just wear down the listener. Also of note, Jordan Rudess does an excellent continuum solo on the final track, Transient Exuberance. Not quite a masterpiece, but one of the better modern prog metal albums and certainly one of the most original. It'll be interesting to see what this band does in the future. I'd like to see a bit more melody and harmony thrown in just to make it less tiring on the ears. Other than that, great album, great musicianship, this could be one of the next big bands, at least in the prog metal scene.