NEW MUSIC ROUND-UP: ANIMALS AS LEADERS, EXMORTUS, ELECTROQUARTERSTAFF
Lots of other stuff happened in the metal world while a WWF-style drama unfolded on MetalSucks last Friday, yes? So let’s get right down to it and take a listen to new music from Animals as Leaders, Exmortus and Electro Quarterstaff.
We’ve been hearing live bootlegs of “Isolated Incidents” for months now so the release of the official album version of the song isn’t as much of an OMG moment as it might otherwise be, but it’s great to finally get to hear this new Animals as Leaders song in full, proper, crystal-clear sound. Some of the guitar work is absolutely stunning, as you might expect from our #2 ranked Top Modern Metal Guitarist. It goes without saying that we’re all very, very stoked to hear what the rest of Weightless — out October 18th November 8th via Prosthetic — has in store. Pre-order that jim-jam in a number of different shirt / hoodie / CD / vinyl / etc configurations and combinations here.
Last we heard from Exmortus was all the way back in January at which point these deathy thrasters said to expect a new record “later this year.” Exmortus sure took advantage of that statement by letting things get right down to the wire as 2011 draws to a close, but we’ll finally be getting Beyond the Fall of Time when it hits stores on October 4th via Heavy Artillery. I’m listening to the new track “Crawling Chaos” over at Noisecreep and thinking to myself “I don’t remember the vocals sounding like this,” and it turns out I’m not imagining things: vocalist-guitarist Balmore departed the band in Spring 2010 and guitarist Conan stepped up into a new role. While this new track is pretty sweet, Exmortus 2k11 does seem to be leaning more thrash and less death — part of which has to do with the vocals — which is not exactly what I would’ve hoped for from these guys. Perhaps the rest of the album has more of the death metal influence that made their debut In Hatred’s Flame so awesome.
Electro Quarterstaff CDs should come with a sticker that reads “For Big Prog Metal Dorks Only.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that! “Descent by Annihilation Operator” is the second track we’re hearing from Electro Quarterstaff’s forthcoming new album Aykroyd (stream the other track here), and it’s another slice of challenging, zany, off-kilter instrumental prog-metal from these wily Canucks. If there’s any East of the Wall fans reading this, Electro Quarterstaff are basically what the latter would sound like without a vocalist but with a small dose of LSD. Aykroyd comes out on October 18th via Willowtip.
-VN
