The latest album of hyper intricate avant-shred metal from the mindblowing trio Behold...The Arctopus from Brooklyn is now available as a combination
LP+CD, courtesy of Black Market Acitivities. It's a bit odd when I think about how long these guys have been at it, but Skullgrid is actually the
bands first real album, as all of their previous releases have consisted of Eps (like the split EP with Orthrelm that was released by Eyes Of Sound and yours
truly at Crucial Blast, and their Arctopocalypse Now... Warmageddon Later 3" CD on Epicene Sound), an elongated reissue of their debut Nano-
Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning EP with additional live tracks added on, and two early demos. So now we've got an actual full length album of new material
from them, and as I expected (and hoped), Behold...The Arctopus have taken their progressive blast metal even deeper into confounding complexity. These cats
are one of the craziest tech outfits ever, combining insane progressive death metal with over the top prog rock and John Zorn style experimentation into an
instrumental attack that reveals passages of immense beauty hidden in their relentless complex compositions.
Opening with the convoluted fretboard gymnastics of the title track, Skullgrid serves up seven tracks of hypertechnical guitar shred played at
lightning fast speeds, over an amazing polyrhythmic percussive attack from drummer Charlie Zeleny that will give you multiple cases of whiplash. Colin
Marston's shreds on his 12-string Warr guitar, weaving dissonant finger tapped harmonies and counterpoint riffs into jarring arrangements, and each song is
filled with spiralling chains of fretboard runs. The band breaks into a couple of awesome passages where it sounds like they are playing some kind of mutant
free jazz (even though all of this stuff is composed down to the smallest detail), or massive alien sounding melodic doom metal dirges, or heavenly ambient
post-rock. These guys blow my mind. You've got to really have an ear for ultracomplex, technical prog to dig Behold...The Arctopus, but if you do,
this stuff is unbelieveable, like Rush, Cynic, Orthrelm, Dillenger Escape Plan, Gorguts, 20th century classical, and Tony Macalpine combined into a brain
warping hyperprog avant death jazz overload. Also of note are the two guest musicians that contribute their own substantial chops to songs on
Skullgrid, Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess and Orthrelm/Ocrilim/Octis guitarist Mick Barr.
Essential for fans of extreme tech metal, obviously. The vinyl comes on awesome looking red-and-black splattered wax, with an insert sheet and the CD in a
plastic sleeve.