ANIMALS AS LEADERS

Finally giving this a proper listen-thru after who knows how long, this is the 2009 debut by [will-be] Prog Metal group Animals As Leaders, Tosin Abasi then sole member. Animals As Leaders was co-produced with and supplemented with drum programming and other seasonings by Periphery founder Misha Mansoor (he also has writing credits for the whole album). These two, as things seemed to go, were most responsible for bringing the sonic intensity of a not totally nonexistent Prog Metal subgenre--hold your applause--Djent to more ears. Where Meshuggah a decade before mastered a certain rhythmic complexity, Animals As Leaders brought both that and confident, how-to melodicism to their music. In that vein, I find pretty interesting from 'where' Djent literally came for both Abasi and Mansoor: Progressive Metalcore. This can be seen with highest clarity as simply a major part of Periphery's sound. And Tosin Abasi was not only in Reflux prior, but Animals came off the heels of touring/performing with Born Of Osiris. Ultimately, I wouldn't know about AAL until their 2014 third album, The Joy Of Motion, one which I'm most positively anxious to get to some time hereafter.

This debut begins with a most classic track from this era, "Tempting Time". The introductory electronic percussion is very classic Alt Metal to me. Wicked fast track, Tosin coming in with liquid-lightning melodies and expected heavy chugs. Love the bridge section beginning as we near 2:00, there featuring a proper guitar solo. The next section is glassy and beautiful, the sort of Prog Metal melodicism that they carry on throughout their discography. "Soraya" is next, following the one AAL archetype of a predominantly melodic track, which sometimes reads as owing directly from Jazz [Guitar] Fusion. Coming from them, not a track I generally recall. A title I hardly recognize at this point follows, "Thoroughly at Home", which just feels like the sort of title an early-00s Math Rock band would come up with. But this is classic post-Progressive-Metalcore djenting, through and through. Brutal and relentless, my mind is drawn to the fact these drums are programmed; it just sounds so good somehow, not like this is the cleanest possible mix. Plenty of memorable moments feel a tad lost in the general scheme of things, an issue I've had with contemporaries Scale The Summit. The main riff is very cool and the solo of all things is a highlight.

Clean guitar opens up "On Impulse", a light, lightly etheric arpeggio. And here, after a cool 16-bit-ish drum machine fill, we have a marriage of Math Rock and Heavy Metal. And I straight-up hear Scale The Summit in this as we approach the end. Great track, for sure. Whether good or bad, it has felt 'dated'. Next is a bright, yet somewhat wary minute-long interlude of sorts, "Tessitura". I can't say it serves that purpose though, "Behaving Badly" being totally unrelated. The latter track also gave me mathy vibes, darkened in this context, and ever propelled forward by the 'rhythm section'; a defining moment for the album. One I remember well is "The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing", another defined by Tosin's Fusion influences. I feel the modern 808s here in its bridge and elsewhere compliment these styles well. Next is one I was excited to hear with new ears, "Cafo", a surefire modern classic of the genre. Monstrous chugs and tense 8-string arpeggios define this'n. Prog Metal hype song and the solo is delectable.

A perfect choice to follow "Cafo" is "Inamorata", another heavy near-death-blow. Is it Djent or is it Instrumental Melodic Death Metal? The lows are deep, deep lows. Another track where the modern electronic percussion and, later on, chiptune(?) sparkles are coming through with perfect confidence. "Point to Point" is the first of two ~2 minute numbers before the closer. Despite this timeframe, they deliver one of the finest pieces of music on the album, another with distinct (again, glassy and bright) melody, but later with metallic heft. Check it. On the second shorty, "Modern Meat", cleaner still, Tosin's full 8-string sounds(?) acoustic. I think, especially for an approach to the end, this is a fantastic (kind of) choice. Finally, we get the Biblically erotic "Song of Solomon", initially still in that cleaner, even acoustic tone. Once the heavier instrumentation comes in, it is a full blast ahead. Excellent closer.

Great debut, but the best is truly yet to come in my opinion. I'm just happy this was also another learning experience for me, to find out more about a band I've loved for so long and have gratefully seen live.

Animals As Leaders' latest work doesn't shine so much for its technical virtues as for the refinement of the band's style, which had begun on their previous album, and which is now shown to us in a more transparent and effective way. In just thirty-seven minutes and with short pieces, the band has limited itself to composing only the necessary material, thus getting rid of the tendency - present in their first works - to create easily disposable pieces or pieces that were only meant to enhance the technical virtuosity of the musicians. We can also appreciate the work of creating a cohesive album, where each piece interacts with the others to create a sense of continuity and not create isolated compositions (as with 'the Brain Dance' on their previous album). All this without the band stopping exploring its different forms (now is where you can best appreciate how the band uses its technical qualities to create great melodies, rarefied atmospheres and dense grooves typical of Djent) or making its sound more 'accessible' .

The best work of the band so far.

As has been a trend and almost a custom, released by Sumerian and produced by Periphery's own Misha Monsoor, this, Animals' fifth--it's honestly amazing I've been following them for at least three of their releases now--is finally here! Finally arrived onto the stage (I actually literally saw them the other month and it was incredible) and into our earholes after a wait of 6 years since The Madness of Many (2016). This is Parrhesia, from the Ancient Greek which can roughly mean "free speech" and more specifically defined as the seeking of forgiveness for the way in which one said something: we have such timely and pertinent titles toward the end to this effect, such as "Thoughts and Prayers" and "Micro-Aggressions". [Forgive my infantile (in my infancy) leftism/progressivism, if you will, but I can only imagine what sort of things Tosin has experienced as a black man (and likely Javier, as Latino) in Metal at large. He's not the first. He won't be the last. But there will likely always be something in that that I, as a white guy, will never quite understand.] Back to the album: I think my friend who saw them with me was right that it's best to have gotten that live experience first. Tosin and Co. had mentioned, too, that this was the first more or less collaborative album, that the excellent Matt Garstka had written material here specifically. Needless to say, especially after all that, I've been very excited.

"Conflict Cartography" opens with layers and layers from this trio, featuring at times soaring and soft soloing. Very familiar, really. Pretty good opener, but I feel like much of it we've seen from them before. I feel as though 2014-2016 was such a turning point for Progressive Metal (and also a point of reference even still), of course with the proliferation and popularization of "Djent" specifically (out of Progressive Metalcore, I think it's important to recognize). Albums therein that came out at this time include A Dream In Static (Earthside), The Congregation (Leprous), Language (The Contortionist), The Violent Sleep of Reason (Meshuggah), Periphery III: Select Difficulty (Periphery), [the 2013 exception] The Migration (Scale The Summit), and Animals As Leaders' most melodic album, The Joy of Motion. Can you blame anyone for taking this as a point of creative pivot?

What feels new is the brutal assault of "Monomyth" to follow. Always awesome hearing what sort of melodies Tosin and Javier can pull out and place within wild, rhythmically complex and unbelievably heavy songs such as this one; it's just insane. And compositionally complex over just 3 minutes. "Red Miso" is of a different, more feeling tone. More melodic and more rhythmically "natural" (until around 1:30, and even still haha). This song is sooooo pleasing. It becomes more and more brutal, even in its weird effect-laden quirk. Another to start though in a more ambient beauty is "Gestaltzerfall". I'm not sure how to explain the phenomenon of Gestaltzerfall, so definitely look it up and it will hopefully be clearer. What I can say is that it's interesting to have this sort of focus in mind for a musical composition. Could it be that we have, hidden within otherwise simple, straightforward movements, slight variations that can be picked up on when we mentally focus on them? I'm sure that's true of AAL many times over, if any band can accomplish this--and all this to say that I'm assuming I'm understanding the term and the phenomenon itself correctly (again, just look it up haha). Beautiful song though, nonetheless. I love when they're in a more melodic mode (I didn't mention above that Joy of Motion has been my forever favorite from them for this reason).

As for "Asahi", I must say, I'm more familiar with Sapporo. Is that alright with y'all? haha. "Asahi" is a short 2- minute ambient tune, with swelling strings-like padding and clean, reverberating guitar soloing. What a lovely breather. It flows right into the second shortest track, a more electronic number to start, the gorgeous and hypnotic "The Problem of Other Minds", one I certainly remember from their live performance. And it is great when your mind gets stuck into these intricate rhythms that they place in what seemed before a straightforward track. A lot to focus on and I'll definitely have to listen to this one in particular soon (hopefully the whole album, too, of course). There is a familiarity in this, that it is in fact Animals here, but they have found different ways over the years, especially starting with Joy to freshen and mix things up. Up next is the aforementioned "Thoughts and Prayers", which starts off with a very intriguing sort of intensity. Beautiful, now less uncommon soloing here, too. The rhythm is straight-ahead. The melodies are ominous and the tension continues on throughout. A lot more to take in than how it appears on the surface. But even still, I'm not as drawn as to some of the tracks from before. Maybe too familiar? Is that unfair?

We get the second track mentioned above next, "Micro-Aggressions", here in all of its wild and untamed brutality. From the start, this is one of the most impressive things, technically, that I've ever heard from any one of them. Incessant. Complex. Just plain incredible. And then we get a very, dare I say, traditional guitar solo in the middle. And then it's right on back into the crazed battle from the get-go. They have outdone themselves on this one. Finally, we have "Gordian Naught" (aha! haha), which has a very classic AAL intensity, yet somehow a level above, say, what you'd expect from the material off of Weightless or their self-titled debut. I didn't know they could gel any better as a band from before...

True Rate: 4.25/5.00

ANIMALS AS LEADERS, initially the solo project of guitarist / bassist Tosin Abasi sprouted a new life-force when it became a bonafide band soon thereafter and this trio of virtuoso musicians has been at it for 15 years now albeit with a change of cast members. PARRHESIA (which means boldness or frankness of speech) is Abasi's fifth album after a lengthy absence since 2016's "The Madness of Many." Tosin returns accompanied by fellow guitarist / bassist Javier Reyes and drumming powerhouse Matt Garstka. This lineup has remained stable for three albums now and PARRHESIA showcases a fine-tuned jazz-fusion based djent trio in fine form.

As expected PARRHESIA is an all instrumental affair with nine tracks that almost reach 37 minutes of playing time. Steeped in the jazz-fusion ethos of great guitarists such as Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Beck, Pat Metheny and countless others accompanied by the progressive metal twists and turns of bands like Exivious, Shawn Lane and even Cynic, ANIMALS AS LEADERS also has mastered the technical wizardry of legends like Steve Vai as well as the more majestic djent fueled heft of Meshuggah and even the tech death majesty of Death's Chuck Schuldiner but there's really no mistaking the unique sound of ANIMALS AS LEADERS with its classy display of all the aforementioned influencers in a jazz-metal smoothie.

Stylistically ANIMALS AS LEADERS delivers the goods exactly as expected. Chunky jazzified guitar riffs accompanied by precision percussive prowess and hyper stimulating electronica with all those knotty time signature changes and moody atmospheric turbulence. The formula hasn't really deviated from its trajectory ever since the project's eponymously tilted 2009 debut which is a boon for those who are utterly addicted to this style of instrumental jazz-fusion magic with metallic outbursts but a little sleepy for those who would expect the band to put the "progressive" in its prog metal and embark on a more adventurous journey that offers more surprises and unthinkable deviations from the norm.

Well, that's not ANIMALS AS LEADERS is about and while not throwing any curveballs from its regularly scheduled program, does deliver in the technical jazz-metal chops department without missing a beat. Laced with nerdy time signature progressions and whizzing guitar solos fortified with independent drum rolls and bass grooves, PARRHESIA is the epitome of a trio whose three members are comfortable forging their own independent instrumental parts that somehow come together to create a larger sum of the parts. Perhaps ANIMALS AS LEADERS' greatest attribute is a keen sense of dynamics and how to gently nature any given musical tidbit until it climaxes with an explosive crescendo.

Perhaps too metal for the jazz-fusion crowd and not metal enough for the headbangers of the world, ANIMALS AS LEADERS does precariously sit perched in that in-between zone but where the metal is tamped down the beautiful guitar tones teased out into knotty jazz chord progressions is quite serene. Likewise the Meshuggah fueled djent stomps on speed also offer an intricate display of pyroclastic explosiveness that find the two guitarists of the band becoming more adept at blitzkrieg displays of guitar wizardry. Add the interesting keyboard contributions that deliver the perfect counterpoint and orchestrated atmospheric constructs and it's easy to get sucked into ANIMALS AS LEADERS beautiful tapestry of atmospheric jazz metal. Overall there are no surprises on PARRHESIA but if a competent dose of the band's classic style is what you were expecting then you won't be disappointed in the least.

There is no doubt that Tosin Abasi is one hell of a guitarist. Their 4th studio album is no exception in terms of great command of instruments of both Abasi, Reyes and Garstka.

On the other hand this album lacks something the first two albums didn't. It's somehow difficult to explain but maybe it's the lack of a variation and experimentation between songs. I tried to find something new, however quite sadly, the songs sounded like repeating each other (with an exception of 'The Brain Dance'). I did manage to finish listening the whole album on my 3rd attempt.

In terms of songs, I enjoyed 'The Brain Dance' only.

The Madness of Many was quite disappointing for me but of course within the standart for a musician like Tosin Abasi. It's always a joy listening songs from such competant artists. That's way my rating is 3 out of 5.

As some may know, I have a love for instrumental prog rock. This album is totally instrumental, immaculately played, and unbelievably well produced. Tosin Abasi is an absolute beast when it comes down to playing guitar, he is a living legend, and a innovative guitarist as well. Matthew Garstka is also a total beast, his technical abilities behind the drum kit are mindboggling. Travis Stewart isn't an exactly important person on this album even though his atmospheres and sound effects are through the roof. Unfortunately, as well played and well crafted this album is, there is no emotion behind it all. That's my biggest complaint, Tosin Abasi a living guitar legend, he can play impossible riffs, and impossible solos, but he doesn't have soul in his music. His writes totally technical pieces, but nothing that grabs the listeners ear, it's all technique and no emotion. Music is a way to get out emotions, by pouring feelings and soul into your craft, you are able to make beautiful music. This has one of two important factors in prog, ability to play, but no feeling.

This album is impressive to listen to, but I will not be putting on to fit the mood I'm in, unless that mood is me wanting to be impressed by immaculate playing.

The trio of musicians that is Animals as Leaders is arguably the most technically gifted group of musicians working in progressive metal music today - quite an impressive feat when you consider that technical proficiency is essentially a requirement for achieving prog metal greatness. Tosin Abasi, the band's founding member and primary song writer, emerged from the 2000's metalcore scene with an 8-string guitar ready to djent. Of course, Tosin's inhuman playing abilities and impressive musical imagination ultimately made it impossible for him to limit his musical expression to any one sub-genre. He thus turned to jazz and avant-guard metal to breathe a new kind of life into his compositions.

On 'The Joy of Motion,' Animals have crafted an album that is simultaneously brainy and sophisticated but still capable of supplying some more down to earth fun to its listeners. While it is very unlikely this highly experimental and technical form of music would ever find much success in the mainstream, 'The Joy of Motion' still managed to capture an outsized audience for the group.

Animals as Leaders eponymous debut album should be viewed as ground zero for modern progressive metal. Having nearly all the innovations and stylistic variations characteristic of new sounding prog metal released throughout the 2010's, Animals as Leaders set the benchmark for progressive metal greatness in the decade that followed.

For starters, the record incorporated a level of technical complexity in the riffs and song writing previously unheard of outside of the dark underworld of technical death metal. The previous generation of prog metal guitar gods, guitarists like Michael Romeo and John Petrucci, tended to showcase the extent of their technical abilities only in dedicated solos or instrumental passages within the songs or albums while keeping the intros, verses, and choruses relatively simplistic. Tosin not only threw this convention out the window, he demonstrated that making good rhythmic and melodic hooks can be achieved through highly technical playing.

The record also makes extensive use of electronic backing tracks to create more full harmony sections, jazz guitar methods and chord progressions, and djenty-Meshuggah-like riffage. There's a lot more to be said on technical level about what to expect from this music but I believe the items mentioned thus far give the listener enough of a sense of how this record inspired so much of what followed.