Ever since we got Candiria's 300% Density back in stock a few months ago, I've been going back through their albums and doing a bit of re-discovery. Their 00's output on Century Media and MIA is pretty tight, but I still think that their first two albums, the primal blasts of creativity that were Surrealistic Madness and Beyond Reasonable Doubt, still hold up as the band's most out-there, mind bending statements. Based out of Brooklyn, NY, Candiria's sprawling urban fusion sound brought together brutal metalcore, hip-hop, fusion jazz, funk, and avant-electronica into a surreal street vision, equal parts ultra-technical Meshuggah math metal crush, supreme 70's style Return To Forever/ Mahavishnu Orchestra fusion jazz, and dark, Wu Tang/Kool Keith-esque hip-hop. Now, normally I like to keep this sort of chocolate far away from my peanut butter, as I have an extremely low tolerance for anything that remotely sounds like """"nu-metal"""", but Candiria were the one band that could combine hip-hop and metal elements into something that was far more cerebral and sonically adventurous than pretty much anything else that was coming out of both 90's metalcore and then-burgeoning nu-metal scene. Vocalist Carly Coma spit monstrous death metal grunts and fluid rhymes seamlessly. Guitarists John """"Be-Bop"""" Malonti and Eric Matthews issue ridiculous stop-on-a-dime riff arrangements worthy of a Naked City performance. The amazing rhythm section of bassist Mike MacIvor and drummer Ken Schalk shift through a dizzying array of time signature changes. So intense and jazz-damaged and BRUTALLY HEAVY when the band is full-on crush-it mode, and when they suddenly switch into the fusion parts, it's mesmerizing. Massive metalcore breakdowns are taken over by lush horn fanfares. Lopsided deathcore grinding gives way to trancey hip-hop flow. Songs are bookended by evocative fields of urban ambient sounds.

1997's Beyond Reasonable Doubt shows the band honing their formidable chops even more, this time back up by a small army of guest vocalists from NY Hardcore outfits Shutdown and Merauder, various underground hip hop artists, plus a guest drum performance from Dave Witte (Discordance Axis/Melt Banana)! The album has an even denser feel than the debut, and weaves in and out of crushing deathcore/jazz fusion hybrids like 'Faction', the handdrums-and-metalchug of the trance-inducing 'Tribes"""", and pure free-improv ('Lost In The Forest'). Eleven tracks, totally mindbending.This is the original release on the now-defunct label Too Damn Hype, sporting Coma's bizarre techno style album art and design - we found some of the last copies of this floating around at one of our distributors, so once these are gone we won't be getting any more.