The Contortionist are About to Begin Contorting

This next album is a big one for The Contortionist. They’re coming off an unexpected (unless you’re in the band, in which case wholly expected) wave of popularity following the release of 2012’s Intrinsic, a most excellent album deserving of all the praise it received. It’s not that we didn’t think the band had the talent, it’s just that we didn’t see the sudden surge coming: last we’d checked The Contortionist were still just one of many young progressive bands struggling to make a name for themselves. But we knew something was up when we premiered their music video and the band’s fans crashed our site. Then they sold a buttload of records (by extreme progressive metal standards) and tons of people showed up to catch them super-early on that year’s Summer Slaughter tour. Things were on the up and up.

Now the pressure’s on: can they repeat? More importantly, can they grow? As if that task wouldn’t be hard enough on its own, they’ll be doing it this time around with new vocalist Michael Lessard, also of Last Chance to Reason. Most people seem to think Lessard has a wider skillset than former vocalist Jonathan Carpenter and will an asset to the band, but still, new personalities in the room can always be tough, even if he’s already toured with them.

And so: Heavy Blog reports that The Contortionist have headed into the studio to record the follow-up to Intrinsic, and they’re theorizing that they’re doing it with longtime BTBAM collaborator / producer of many other awesome progressive bands Jamie King. While I haven’t seen that bit confirmed anywhere yet I do agree with HBIH scribe Jimmy Rowe’s assumption that the new album will continue the band’s move towards more clean singing (via Lessard’s wicked pipes) and that this is a good thing. So let’s get to waiting… new Contortionist soon, likely some time this year.