The 2008 album from Brooklyn metal fusionists Candiria, Kiss The Lie finally appeared four years after their previous album What Doesn't Kill You... and followed a long period of tribulation for the band that included a catastrophic van wreck, major turmoil within the band's lineup, and their break with Century Media and subsequent issues with label Type-A. The album turned out to be their most accessible release of their career, with a soaring, pop-tinged art-metal sound that feels more like Tool or Faith No More at times than the crushing, jazz/hip-hop/death metal fusion of their earlier records. It feels like the band wanted to move beyond the pure aggression of their early work, but by becoming proggier and artier, Candiria's sound has lost a little of what made them so unique early on, with much of Kiss The Lie reminding me heavily of later Cave In and Faith No More. Most of the rough edges have been smoothed away, and the lush, soaring pop elements vastly overshadow the heavier aspects of Candiria's music, the death metal heaviness and jazz fusion now appearing infrequently; and frontman Carley Coma delivers less of his panic-stricken screaming and gruff, narcotized hip-hop delivery, instead largely going for a kind of Patton-esque croon throughout the album. The huge Meshuggah style off-time grooves are still present though, and when the band kicks in to heavy mode, they still crush. Don't get me wrong, it's actually a solid album, just a significant departure from the brilliant Zorn-ified jazz-death-core that made The Process of Self-Development and Beyond Reasonable Doubt some of the forward-thinking metal albums of the late 90's.

The album opens with "Icarus Syndrome (Alternatve, Extended Mix)", where the abrasive and the atmospheric come together in equal measure; the song blends the grim, staccato angular metal and Carly Coma's blunt flow found in earlier Candiria jams with the more atmospheric textures and spacey ambience that's continued to creep into their work over the years, locking into a furious tripped-out space funk groove at the end that reveals an all new side to Candiria's sound. The pummeling angular sludge that starts off "Sirens" gives way to more of these spacey atmospherics, the song becoming a sort of chunky prog-pop, followed by the dark, moody trip-hop of "Reflection Eleven" which delivers Coma's most soulful singing on the album, his velvet croon drifting above the slow shuffling rhythm and sheets of jazzy guitar, some metallic guitar chug eventually rising up from the smoky haze, at the end breaking into chamber strings and piano and shimmering guitar twang. Slightly harder is "The Sleeper / Thorns For The Dying (Alternative Mix) ", where chugging metallic rock and crunchy Kyuss-esque riffing merge with sky-climbing guitar atmospherics and soaring multi-layered vocals on the chorus, then shifts into a crushing math-metal groove, massive stuttering metal riffage over double-bass thunder and Coma's rapid-fire flow, breaking off yet again at the end into dreamy, fusiony space-pop. Female vocals start off "Legion", right before the monstrous doom-laden guitars and drums kick in, and the song drops into a crushing off-time doom dirge that finally brings some serious heaviness, then lurches into a totally CLASSIC whacked out math-metal groove with those freaked out hip hop vocals. The song also works in some more multi-layered clean vocals and spacey guitars, breaking off into strange ambient interludes, then back into the mutant Meshuugah-meets-alien-hip-hop math metal. "Alicia (Alternative Mix)" is pure ambience, an evocative blues/jazz fusion guitar solo blending with electric drones, chimes, and floating amplifier rumble, bits of backwards sound and hissing cymbals sweeping over the twilight glow. "A Rose Dies In Eden" at first take shape as some more Faith No More-esque art metal, but then evolves into a churning tribal math metal freakout, swirling with spacey fx and warped hip hop vocals. "Ascend (Alternative Mix)" starts off all skittery electronica laced with airy acoustic guitar and flitting fx and Rhodes keys, then erupts into a soaring melodic crush, followed by the grooving, crushing mathmetal prog of "It Starts With A Splinter, It End With A Knife (Alternative Mix)". The epic screamo of "Genuine" then leads into the last song, "Omaha Nights", another blissed-out twilight space-fusion instrumental, with jazzy drumming and Gilmour-esque blues leads streaking through the night sky, the band getting into deep improv territory.

This is a proggier, more complex Candiria, and Kiss The Lie does require repeated listens to absorb it all. It's on a similar trajectory as what Cynic and Dillenger Escape Plan has been doing lately, branching off from their avant-garde heaviness into more of an experimental pop/prog sound. Fans should dig it though, and it's definitely one of Candiria's better albums.

Limited to 500 copies. Comes in a full color gatefold package with artwork by Seldon Hunt.