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The Best Djent / Math Metal
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Filled with beautiful melodies, amazing piano interludes, expressive atmospheric passages and moving crescendos, Origins is an elegant album that connects with the listener through sweeping torrents of emotion. Though lacking a vocalist, Bend The Sky are able to communicate complex, abstract narratives simply through intricate instrumental interplay and this is quite a feat indeed.
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One of the original instrumental djent bands, Chimp Spanner released another masterpiece in 2012 called All Roads Lead Here. Mixing typical djent sounds with a more mature approach to guitar virtuoso progressive metal with ambient leanings, All Roads Lead To Here is an intellectual journey through complex compositions and elation-inducing atmosphere that is sure to please all fans of instrumental metal.
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Imagine Vildhjarta with a keen sense for pop melody and the result is Glass Cloud, a band that is just as apt at creating temporality-bending djent as they are at weaving emotionally moving alternative metal melodies. With vocals that alternate between nimbly soaring over ambient soundscapes and brutally propelling forward some of the most ruthless riffs of 2012, The Royal Thousand is an embodiment of what djent is all about and a must-hear album for anyone interested in the genre.
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Mixing rap with the convoluted rhythmic structures of djent seems like such an obvious idea and yet nobody has tried it so far, or at least nobody besides Hacktivist. This EP is more than just an experiment though, as the British band is more than capable at delivering memorable and unique djent that has the listener constantly wondering what new and exciting passage comes next.
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Hypno5e is a modern math metal band that has more genre diversity than is the norm on the djent scene. With detours into evocative prog and synaesthetic ambient, this French foursome sure does know how to arrange music in such a way that makes their vicious, irregular djent all the more cognitively dissonant and mind blowing. Aided by production that appropriately alternates between lush and raw, this album is definitely among the most impressive math metal releases of 2012.
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Now part of a very busy scene, the pioneers from Meshuggah won't allow all the new blood to leave them behind. Their claim for dominance is solidified with Koloss, an album that features all of the classic Meshuggah patents that we love, along with some interesting new experiments. Heavy and intelligent, Koloss is an album worthy of this band's legacy and a must-hear for anyone into complex, technical and unique metal.
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Event Horizon is an ambitious album filled with abstract instrumental djent, adventurous detours into electronica and a few tracks with vocals. Mindplotter is definitely pushing the envelope here and taking djent into unexplored areas on the fringe of what one can typically hear in the genre. The result is a surprisingly consistent release that always astonishes with new takes on technical, mathematically minded metal and belongs in the list of must-hear releases in this category for 2012.
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Grabbing the opportunity to make a strong statement on their debut album, Skyharbor defy logic and send chills down our spine with Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos. The extravagant grandeur and instrumental exquisiteness are only as good as Dan Tompkins (ex-Tesseract) emotions expressed through his voice and they make us fall into a dream where we experience continuous convulsions. The essence of this album, which so poetically explores and conjures up opposites, could not be better described as the title itself: prepare for illusion and chaos.
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The Safety Fire are masters of subtleties and introspective atmospheres. They are also capable of an instrumental ingenuity reminiscent of Animals As Leaders and cover so much ground on this album, from djent to a more progressive core. Their considerable dexterity coupled with a free flowing and memorable communication between clean vocals and screams is the highlight of this remarkable piece. Grind The Ocean is a massive debut from these British newcomers. Remember their name because this is one of the most promising bands out there.
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Sometimes simplicity is the best approach and Chains Of Plato is an album that proves this truism also applies to djent. The Weakening are not a band that try to reinvent the wheel with every riff and they also don't want every song to be more complex and convoluted than a quantum physics textbook. Instead, here is an album that uses relatively simple riffs and a raw production to achieve some of the best grooves heard in this genre in 2012.
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