WE ARE BUT MORTAL SOULS, LEFT TO DIE

I was given this record one day, took one look at the back and almost dismissed it immediately when I saw the Victory Records logo, "great, more ______ core from Victory with some guys trying to be Metal". I decided to play it anyway and, well, "this isn't really...Metal...what...yaaaargh". I don't even know how to describe what you'll hear. If you're familiar with Dillinger Escape Plan then you probably know what it's like to be attacked by a psycho with a firehose. Now while these guys don't really sound like Dillinger they're sort of coming from the same place in the sense that they look like annoying jazz school guys and that I can't figure out how they write their songs.

I'll say this, if a bunch of vikings went on a fishing trip this would be the soundtrack. That's my description.

The song "All Bodies" is from the album Alaska which was released last September and it's all over the place. As I've said before I tend to lean more towards heavy stuff that can carry a groove as opposed to something like Dillinger which can be a bit too much. Something it seems that even they realized on their most recent CD 'Miss Machine' which does cross over into some more mellow material that somehow comes off sounding like Downward Spiral era NIN. Anyway, I'll have to break it down by section because I can't think of any other way to do it.
ALL BODIES
:00 - ok, apparently we're getting right to the point.
:28 - :40 - this is getting weird, what are they doing?
1:20 - I sense moments of glory coming up.
1:45 - Glory arrives in the form of...Immortal?
1:57 - Glorious GLory arrives with a fleet of pirates carrying brooms and begin swabbing the decks with grandeur. Yo ho ho.
2:25 - Electro blast beat mayhem
2:53 - The brooms commence sweeping with fury.
3:28 - 3:45 - Heavy
3:47 - 4:13 - HEAVY
4:14 - 5:01 - A computer composed this section using various equations and viruses.
5:04 - 5:29 - HEAVY
5:30 - 5:31 - ...riiiight.
5:32 - 6:14 - After a long battle the chanting begins and all is well on the high seas.

Rarely have I heard such mayhem come together so wonderfully. The entire record is like this only sometimes the pirates make it ashore and have lovely tender moments with maidens only to have their guts spilled out seconds later. This is triumphant stuff.

I saw these guys with Dillinger which is probably why I associate them together and while I preferred BTBAM to DEP they did have a few lessons to learn from them. Watching Dillinger is like watching a Royal Rumble on stage and these guys were like watching Stonehenge. The singer was awesome though and he did double duty on the keyboard parts which is cool. If you get a chance to hear the record look out for the song Selkies: The Endless Obsession, it's like the bastard children of Rush going crazy. If you want you can also listen to Selkies on their MYSPACE.

Sidenote: As mentioned in the MAYhem post they're on tour. Go see them.