Uncured Channel Progressive and Groove Metal on Promising Debut
One of the things I enjoy most about following young, up-and-coming bands is the way their influences are filtered (or not) through their own experience with metal up until that point. Us old farts are too jaded — we’ve heard it, seen it, done it all — to experience music at its most pure level, to let it take us over with the full force and passion we do when we’re younger.
And that’s what I’m loving so much about listening to Uncured, a quartet of New York upstarts who are currently out on tour opening for Katatonia. With 45+ years of metal history to chose from, which of the genre’s many, many niches and sounds resonated with these young mens’ brains and manifested themselves through their fingers?
On the band’s debut album Medusa, which came out earlier this month, it’s a synthesis of all manner of melodic, progressive, technical metal — Dream Theater, Opeth, et al. — mixed with a groovy, almost tribal approach trafficked by ’90s stalwarts like Sepultura and Fear Factory. Have those two genres ever been mixed together before? Probably, somewhere. Have they ever been mixed together before with such finesse and originality? Certainly not.
Uncured have a little ways to go before they completely hone in on what “the Uncured sound” is, but they’re well on their way, made all the more impressive by the fact that Medusa is just their first release; it takes most bands a minimum of three albums to get there.
Stream Medusa in full below, order it here, follow them on Facebook and catch remaining tour dates with Katatonia at the bottom of this post.
03/28 Mesa, AZ – Club Red
03/29 Los Angeles, CA – El Rey Theatre
03/31 Pomona, CA – The Glass House
04/01 San Francisco CA – Slim’s
04/03 Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre
04/04 Seattle, WA – Studio Seven
04/05 Vancouver, BC – Venue
04/07 Calgary, AB – The Gateway
04/08 Edmonton, AB – Starlite Room
04/10 Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex
04/11 Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall
04/12 Lincoln, NE – Bourbon Theatre
04/14 Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line
04/15 Chicago, IL – Metro
04/16 Detroit, MI – Majestic Theater
04/17 Toronto, ON – The Opera House
04/19 Montreal, QC – Club Soda
04/20 Philadelphia, PA – The TLA
04/21 New York, NY – Irving Plaza
