UNSIGNED AND UNHOLY: THE ANTI-DJENT INSTRUMENTAL EDITION

We’ve been trucking away on the Readers’ Choice column for over a year, and I’ve come to realize that I’ve been using it to write primarily about unsigned bands which wasn’t necessarily the idea in the first place. So, welcome to Unsigned and Unholy, a column devoted exclusively to the unsigned bands of our readers, their friends, and the bands in their local scenes.

There are just way too many fantastic unsigned bands out there today to ignore. The truth of the matter is that the only thing that differentiates signed bands from their unsigned counterparts is that they haven’t autographed a contract. Gone are the days when record labels were the sole gatekeepers of good music; the playing field has been leveled. So, without further ado…

• Odyssey: Another band from the growing list that subscribes to the notion that the bass is an instrument that should be prominently featured in the mix, which I can wholeheartedly get behind. Proggy and technical — but not too much of either — instrumetal that doesn’t fall into the trappings of any currently hot sub-genres (read: no metalcore, deathcore, djent, thrash or even plain old death metal).
• Soul Cycle: Kinda like Killswitch Engage without the vocals if KsE hadn’t started writing the same album over and over starting with End of Heartache. But I say “kinda like KsE” because it is only sorta “kinda”… they’ve definitely got their own sound.
• Ypres: These guys describe themselves as ambidjent, but I beg to differ. There are trace elements of the djent sound, but there’s really so much more in the way of plain old instrumental metal. Their new album Returning We Hear the Larks is a concept piece about World War I… in whatever way an instrumental piece can be conceptual. [Thanks: Dan Wolfson]

-VN