Existential Animals New EP will Melt Your Face Off AND Dazzle You with Charm

It’s no secret that certain MetalSucks writers are in bands too — how could we not be given our metal DNA? Kip W. has made no bones about the fact that he’s in Family, and Emperor Rhombus’s band Flaming Tusk appeared on NYC Sucks Volume 4, the fourth of our completely free, downloadable compilations highlighting the best NYC’s metal scene has to offer (alongside Family, too). There have been other examples throughout this site’s nearly eight years in existence too, although we’ll leave you sleuths to figure those out on your own. As for me and Axl… your ears are probably all the healthier for the fact that we’re not in bands! [anymore, anyway]

So it is with great pleasure that we share with you Existential Animals, whose new EP Surrealith features the always-eloquent MS review critic Dave Mustein on guitar. I’m absolutely loving “Oneironaut,” the EP’s third track, for its unstoppable face-smashing heaviness and surprisingly complex and unique guitar melody lines. Writing heavy riffs certainly isn’t novel — tons of bands do it — but the fact that Existential Animals are able to maintain that heaviness while playing such complex (and discernible) melodies is what really gets me here, all in a way that doesn’t sound derivative of any one other band. Usually it’s one or the other, but Existential Animals nail everything simultaneously.

Stream “Oneironaut” below and the rest of the album via Bandcamp, where you can also order it. Will Smith of Artificial Brain lends his vocals to the final track of the EP, which was recorded by Max Zigman at Parade Outrageous Studios in Santa Cruz, CA.