SCALE THE SUMMIT: FOR FANS OF CYNIC, INTRONAUT, RUSSIAN CIRCLES

Not to sound like one of those lame Victory Records album stickers… but, to sound like one of those lame Victory Records album stickers, if you enjoy any of the above bands there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Scale the Summit, a group of Houston progressive metal youngins whose Prosthetic Records’ debut Carving Desert Canyons drops on February 17th. The album is easily one of my most anticipated releases of 2009 — from a new band, that is — and it’ll be certain to get the prog masturbaters amongst you in a tizzy.

The song “Sargasso Sea” from the forthcoming album is available on Scale the Summit’s MySpace page right now; the song’s got plenty of intricate Masvidal-esque guitar noodling, courtesy of 8-string (!) guitar wielder Chris Letchford. While to me the new song isn’t as interesting as the older recordings also on their MySpace page, there’s enough there to lead me to believe that the new album will elevate Scale the Summit to the level of serious prog metal contenders.

-VN