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Behold... The Arctopus: Skullgrid
07/12/07 || The Duff
I’m really starting to get into my instrumental death metal, what with recent albums from Sleep Terror, Blotted Science and T3h Shred Boiz seriously impressing me by delivering nothing but infectious hooks, graciously executed music and an exclusion of such lyrical beauty as that which centers around corpse-molestation, raping Catholics and nailing Jesus to a cross. I felt I would dig a little deeper into something that seems to be getting gradually more popular amongst even the more closed-minded metal cliques. Conversations of at least two of the aforementioned bands usually entails mention of Behold… the Arctopus, a band I’ve noticed does not get favourable recognition around these parts, but then again, fiddly tech death rarely does. However, this is certainly not traditional complex death metal, even if you take into account the absence of vocals. Behold… the Arctopus revel in the thoughts that they are math metal by nature, death metal by heart, and spinning out twenty different time-signatures and one hundred notes every five seconds makes you a musical pioneer. As a result, things can get very tedious if your attention span isn’t accustomed or simply wishes to avoid being subjected to a bombardment by something very musically jarring and not particularly fun to listen to, ever.
The more I conduct research into this band, the more I do feel it’s a whole “intellectuals only” deal, which immediately makes me want to dislike it. When I see videos of the bandmembers performing live, and the crowd responding to a break in the music with applause, I think – “But this isn’t musical”; and it really isn’t. This is something that may sound cool to those looking for something novel, but what Behold… the Arctopus have done is take the free-form style of jazz and make it redundant – there is no life to this music, just a series of notes that have been strung together so that when they do finally finish a song, the listener can breathe a sigh of relief and think “Wow! That was amazing. How do they remember all this shit?”, only to realize this album’s lack of any other worthwhile merit. Do you really want to waste your time trying to remember half an hour of jumbled notes, only to listen to something devoid of all things that make metal great (with the exception of notable drum work)? I don’t feel dumber for “not getting this”, because as intricate as the music is, there isn’t much to get, and what value this may have just a little pointless. There are bands out there having difficulty making ends meet writing quality riffs, and so for me to dump praise on these guys for running through an impressive array of warm-up exercises would be irresponsible of me as a reviewer whose opinions may well be flawed, but still carry an obligation to do good by all metalkind in communicating that such music is to be avoided.
Oh, and Mike Poggione phoned; he wants his bazooka back.
2 musicians doing too much acid out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Metal Blade
- Website: Metal Blade Page
- Band
- Mike Lerner: guitars
- Colin Marston: bass
- Charlie Zeleny: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Skullgrid
- 02. Canada
- 03. Of Cursed Womb
- 04. You Are Number Six
- 05. Some Mist
- 06. Scepters
- 07. Transient Exuberance
