Dysrhythmia - ‘Psychic Maps’
‘Room Of Vertigo’ and especially ‘Festival Of Popular Delusions’ are all a musos’ wet dream...
Posted Wednesday, 15 July 2009 in ,
Rating: 7
Those following
Dysrhythmia for a while have probably noticed the sonic changes the band has undergone since welcoming tech-metal gadfly,
Colin Marston (
Behold…The Arctopus,
Krallice,
Indricothere,
Byla and, both he and guitarist
Kevin Hufnagel are part of the reformed
Gorguts) into the fold three years back. On early releases, the instrumental trio spun listener’s heads with
Hufnagel’s angular guitar work and
Jeff Eber’s pocket protecting drumming, but underneath the flash there always seemed to be a focus on trying to squeeze song writing diamonds out of bits of scattered tech-indie-metal coal. Arguably, they were most successful on 2003’s ‘Pretest’ with the still-recognizable ‘Bastard,’ ‘My Relationship’ and ‘And Just Go’ leading the charge. 2006’s ‘Barriers And Passages’ lost itself in finger gymnastics and oddball time signatures. As one might expect, ‘Psychic Maps’ locks itself somewhere in the middle. ‘Room Of Vertigo’ and especially ‘Festival Of Popular Delusions’ are all a musos’ wet dream, but do work a structure beyond riff-riff-riff-next riff. There are fewer moments where the band forgets which side of the highway they’re supposed to be driving on, but there are far fewer speedbumps for those listeners who don’t know their Phrygians from their Mixolydians from their bungholes, but appreciate music played and constructed with some thought behind it, vocals or not.
Kevin Stewart-Panko
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