Listen to Slice The Cake

Let’s add another name to the growing list of technical metal prodigies: Slice The Cake. I only discovered the band at the beginning of the year, but they released TWO full-length albums in 2012 alone, and have hinted on Facebook about their potentially upcoming material.

Confectionary references aside, Slice The Cake play seriously heavy music.  Grooves mesh with just the right amount of ERG thunder, with songs that border on breaking it down but which never cross that unforgivable threshold. A glimpse into their composition reveals frightening technicality – Jonas Johansson & Magero Richardson fluidly manipulate tempo and rhythm, and incorporate enough shred to make guitar nerds ecstatic.

Slice The Cake are progressive, too; tracks like “Kow Otani’s Castle In The Sky” feature gorgeous melodic passages, and the monstrous twenty-one-minute “The Man With No Face” experiments with orchestral progressions, while managing to hold our attention for its entirety. Vocalist Gareth Mason solidifies the brutality with impressive range and stamina (check out his twenty-six-second eruption at the close of “Rational Thinking, Logical Future”).

The only downside to the band? Slice The Cake can’t tour: the whirlwind of drumming is courtesy of Johansson’s programming, though you’d never guess from the rich sonic textures and crystal clear production.

Recommended tracks:

“City of Ghosts”

“Nebulayer Cake”

Check out The Man With No Face and Other Slice if you have even a passing interest in death metal.