IDEAS OF REFERENCE

Ideas Of Reference is the debut album from american tech metal band Psyopus. I´ve already listened to and reviewed their second album Our Puzzling Encounters Considered. Our Puzzling Encounters Considered is one of those really rare albums that actually physically hurt to sit through. Constantly dissonant noisy riffing and out of this world complexity not unlike the relentless assault of a band like Behold...the Arctopus. Unlike the instrumental Behold...the Arctopus Psyopus has an screaming lead singer that sounds like he should be commited to a lunatic asylum. Needless to say that I wasn´t too impressed with that album and that the only redeeming thing I found about Our Puzzling Encounters Considered was the technical level of the musicians.

After listening to Ideas of Referance I can say that Psyopus played the same annoying style on this album. If I have to be fair I do enjoy ( boy that´s a hard word to say when talking about this band) Ideas of Reference a bit more than Our Puzzling Encounters Considered but that doesn´t mean that this is music I really appreciate. The only moments I do enjoy ( there it was again) is the more quiet moments like Imogen´s Puzzle. A short acoustic classical inspired piece. To top the album of There´s the ending of Bones To Dust. I hate that. First you get about four minutes of music and then several minutes of silence before we´re put right into some noisy and utterly useless secion. Plain annoying.

It´s funny because I´m usually very fond of extreme metal in any forms and shapes but this is just a bit too much for me. Give me a good Napalm Death, Anaal Nathrakh or Nasum album anytime but my life is simply too short for this kind of dissonant noisy hell.

The musicianship is outstanding on the album and it´s the only reason why I wont give this album 1 star. Dissonant chromatic riffing at the speed of light and complex drums and bass. This is music only for musicians who wants to know if it´s really possible to play these things.

The production is powerful and very good IMO.

I can´t stand this modern approach to tech metal and I would love to give this album 1 star but I´ll aknowledge the extremely tight musicianship and give this one a small 2 star rating. Not recommended if you got anything that resembles ears.