Blaro if it weren’t for the fact that bat introduced me to Exhorder and even though I think I had already heard Dark Angel he’s the one that made me realize how completely unassailable they are but outside of that you’re definitely my go to guy when it comes to metal. Bat with metal is kind of like me with free jazz. He loves the genre so much that he might not always be as discriminating as he should be. Everything you recommend shreds. Now, I’m still soldiering through your 2018 top 50 and all the metal you list there is mostly 10/10 or at worst 9/10. 2018 was some kind of year because goddamn was there a lot of great metal AND jazz released. But your 2018 metal picks are all so great because they’re frightening and startling. Just when you think there’s nothing new under the metal sun another band figures out a way to shake you to the core. This album doesn’t hit as hard as those do, however. The lead guitarist seems to be influenced as much by Lifeson and Gilmour as he is by the staple death/thrash guitarists. Unfortunately, he’s not up to that standard technically and it leaves you feeling like they didn’t exactly achieve what they set out to do. Another thing is occasionally they spotlight the drumming but the drummer isn’t freaking me out with the mad skills that you almost take for granted in metal these days like Olympic snowboarding or something. And I know I’m being really persnickety but the jumping around time signatures is very Gorguty. Except with Gorguts there’s this interconnected guitar flow with patterns inside patterns. One thing here that I really like though is the relationship between the vocals and the rhythm guitar. It’s like they put an effect on the vocals that’s also on the less dominant guitar and they blend into one bad ass sound. It’s hard to come up with an effective signature sound in metal but they’re on to something really awesome here. I’m not as enthusiastic as you about this record but I’m giving it a very respectable 8/10.
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