Joshua's Top Ten "Metal" Picks for 2010
#5 of 10
Year: 2010
Genre: Progressive Polymetric Metal
Label: Sumerian
TRT: 71:26
This album has been in the works for more than 5 years. Fighting through multiple line-up changes, most notable a veritable revolving door at the vocalist position, this labor of love was finally released. And it comes off in a bit of a "we're just going to get this fucking thing out there and move on" sort of way, mostly because every song on the album has been online in one form or another for years.
Be that as it may, this album kicks much ass. Thick, mean, and impeccable executed, the music sounds better than ever. Unfortunately, The vocals are another matter, but since they released an instrumental version of the album too, I'm going to give Spencer Sotelo a pass on this one. He came into the recording process with a very short period of time to learn lyrics and vocal parts written by previous singers with different styles, and did the best he could at the time. Since then he's grown substantially as a performer, and I look forward to seeing what he can do in his own right.
Having said that, I would recommend getting the instrumental version (though both are provided here). Listening to the
version with vocals first, and then a few weeks later listening to the instrumentals, it was like listening to the album for the first time all over again, because so much of the nuances and subtleties are masked or obscured by the often distracting vocals. They do grow on you after a time, but if you're only going to get one, get the instrumentals.
01
Insomnia
02
The Walk
03
Letter Experiment
04
Jetpacks Was Yes
05
Light
06
All New Materials
07
Buttersnips
08
Icarus Lives
09
Totla Mad
10
Ow My Feelings
11
Zyglrox
12
Racecar
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