Behold...
The Arctopus
Arctopocalypse Now... Warmageddon
Later - 3"CD
ESS004
Tracks:
Alcoholocaust
You Will Be Reincarnated As An Imperial Attack Spaceturtle
This is the first release in our 3" Complexities Series,and fuck it all if this isn't one of the most brain damagedly complex recordings ever. Arctopus is the new definition of tech, go look it up buddy. A blender full of scrap metal swirled around in a whirlpool, then shaken up in a snowglobe. Totally insane structures, hyper-surreal speed and dexterity will have you tossing your Breadwinner and Dillinger records out the locomotive you should listen to this on. Featuring Colin Marston, ala Infidel? / Castro! on the twelve string tap guitar, the Arctopus have given Epicene a very special thing here, and an unebbing desire to maintain this level of quality for future Complexities recordings.
REVIEWS
Disagreement
What
the fuck is an Arctopus??? And who the fuck are Behold... The Arctopus???
If you are into really, really weeeiiiird music, then this is definitely
something for you. BTA are one of those bands I would never even had noticed
if it weren't for Colin Marston, also of Infidel Castro fame. Infidel
Castro play cinemascopic experimental avant-soundtrack stuff and are in
no way comparable to BTA who are METAL. But don't think any kind of sword
and sorcery metal, but something much more in the vein of what used to
be known as techno metal back in the mid-Eighties when WatchTower reinvented
a whole genre by themselves
BTA's influence are metal revolutionaries like prog-groove-metal gods
Cynic, insane shit like Spastic Ink, crazy black death thrash à
la Theory in Practice, math-core geniuses Dillinger Escape Plan and icons
like King Crimson, and if these names not only mean something to you,
but actually give you an emotional hard-on, then BTA is exactly what you
are looking for.
It's hard to explain their music: it's fast, instrumental and totally
complex and complicated. Colin plays a 12-string super guitar which you
need to see to believe that an instrument like that exists in real life.
The songs are certainly not easy to remember, but the songwriting is done
in a very intelligent way: instead of just layering guitar solo over another
guitar solo, BTA mostly play with complex rhythms and at times very doomy
stuff, reminding at what Slayer would sound like if they jammed with Tool
in a progressive mood.
The monumental title of the CD - Arctopocalypse Now... Warmageddon Later
- and the insane song titles (Alcoholocaust, You Will Be Reincarnated
As An Imperial Attack Spaceturtle (pt 1)) show also that even though the
technical aspects of the music are very high, the band's sense of humour
doesn't come to short. For now I only hope that there will soon be a complete
album of these up-and-coming prog gods. If you really want this shit now
(and I hope you do), then you can visit the band's website or their site
at MP3.com where you can download the 2 tracks of this cute-looking 3-Inch-mini-CD,
or better even order it, it's not expensive and totally great!
Aquarius Records
The
3" CD format is perfect for this band's music, as their ultra-technical
instrumental metal is so intense that it could easily compact itself into
an "infinitely hot dense dot" and I guess a 3" CD is the
next closest thing! Two songs, 11 minutes is plenty really 'cuz when it's
over you'll just want to hit play again and again in order to absorb fully
the head-jarringly complex and crazy compositional mayhem these guys crank
through with seemingly effortlessness. The interestingly named Behold...
The Arctopus is a trio featuring Colin Marston on "hyperfutureguitarbass"
(or, the 12-stringed instrument known as the much maligned Chapman stick),
Charlie Zeleny on "lead drums," and Mike Lerner playing the
"nuclear yellow guitar" whatever that means. He sure knows how
to play it anyway. We Know Colin from his other band Infidel? / Castro!
and here he proves that the hints of prog-metal we thought we heard in
that rather more experimental, electronic group weren't just our imagination!
This is chopsy progressive metal taken to a ridiculous extreme, like Tony
Macalpine vs. Melt Banana in a computer simulation of WWIII. Definitely
not for everyone, but if you enjoy such bands as Watchtower, Dillinger
Escape Plan, Theory In Practice, and if GIT (Guitar Institute Of Technology)
and PIT (Percussion Institue Of technology) aren't bad words for you,
you'll probably consider the purchase of a Behold... The Arctopus disc
to be six bucks well spent. It's the first in a series of 3" CDs
on the Epicene imprint devoted to "complex, difficult" music,
and we imagine it's gonna be a hard one to top.
