#39



Ex Eye
Ex Eye

We are ten down. The next tier has started.

Frownland gets the credit of telling me about this. Everybody's favorite gigantic sax player Colin Stetson leads this band which also features Zs's Greg Fox on drums, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and synth who has played with Secret Chiefs 3, and unknown to me Toby Summerfield on guitar. A WHO'S WHO OF PEOPLE FROWNLAND MASTURBATES TO AND WHO I THINK ARE JUST AWESOME.

So Colin is basically as big a superstar a modern saxophonist can get nowadays. The dude is turning out great work on his own or is part of some really cool projects, including this one. While never really coming off like a dude who "should" be in a metal band, Colin Stetson has always had this sort of aura about him that I always felt needed some noise and brutality behind it. I feel like he should hook up with my boys in Kayo Dot because I think that team would destroy minds. Until then we have this album. It's a f*cking whirlwind. Blast beats over crazy circular breathing sax blasts give this album a very unique sound and something that can be dissected for a while. Very technical while also stopping once in a while to breathe.

This thing has a lot of things to digest. It builds soundscape walls of free improvisational jazz sludge and has it come crashing down at times where I want to f*cking scream or punch something. These are good metal album traits. It's funny because Colin is the lead on this thing. You have this cacophony of noise led by a crazy man on a bari sax. That's f*cking rad. This whole album is rad.

Highlights include the opening buildup to chaos in Anaitis Hymnal; The Arkose Disc and the pretty much every single second of Opposition/Perihelion; the Coil.

This will not be the last we see of Colin Stetson on this list.