It was Crate Excalibur and Uberschall for rhythm..

Sounds pretty tubey though, so I'm guessing it's mostly Uber.

Most likely, it's not like Nihility..

I thought the guitars on Nihility sounded like a wall of mud, so I'm not disappointed.

See, I love that guitar tone in that context..
I think it's snarly, angry bees fucking your shit up.

I had serious trouble figuring out what the fuck Vogg was playing on that album.

Really?
I thought Winds Of Creation was faaaaar worse on that front.

Do I hear a synth on the title track? It's almost... Opeth-y through the first half, but, like, way more br00tal.

The drums are bitchin'. I agree re: the snare compression being a bit much, and the overheads are obviously trying to stay way out of the way of the guitars here- real top-endy, but nowhere near as egregious at that (or the top end of the kicks) as a lot of modern metal. The production actually is pretty damn good. It sounds, for lack of a better word, real. I can hear this and be convinced it was actually played by a really awesome heavy band instead of a goddamn sequencer.

The drums in the sparser sections sound cool as hell. Like... real drums, in a... room?

I can dig this. I like its chuggyness and little bits of oddball dissonant strangeness. It appeals to what I like about metal as a concept- it's totally nuts without sounding like it has something to prove; no "look at me, Mom!" solos, no poppy choruses about girls, no "look at how overtly technical I am" bullshit. The mellower dynamic sections don't feel tacked-on or clichéd, nor do the little effecty-bits.

It is a sonic fist. I like that.

They ARE real drums. That's how fucking awesome Krimh is.


I watched a video on youtube of him playing Day 69 without even breaking a sweat. Dude's monstrous.


And sonic fist is apt.

Or so I've heard. I'm glad it sounds like it, too. And that they didn't try to apply, say, Dream Theater's production values to this, or even the most recent In Flames, or some random metalcore stuff, for example; stuff that's super-smoove-and-shiny. This is big and mean and has a serious attitude. I like that.

I'm quite struck by how well the clean parts and guitar and vocal effects are incorporated into the songs. And the amount of melody going on- melody doesn't have to be consonant; dissonant melodies still count last I checked. These guys aren't just rhythm champs as if metal was a sport; they're a good band.

Werd... they've already proved their rhythm chops with every album before this. It's time for them to experiment, and experiment they are doing.

Alright, finally listening to it.

Snare sucks IMO, but everything else sounds good.

Could also do with less of the vocals in the mix, but that is pretty much par for the course for me.

Krimh is pretty swell. Not all that fancy or nuthin', just solidly 'on it'.

I think even the "bands should never change" metalscenedudes could get behind this. A metal band "experimenting" often means them becoming more melodic or accessible, and this is not the case here. If anything, I think the sonic curveballs actually make them darker, more jarring and off-kilter sounding.

Agreed.