Castevet “Stones/Salts” 7”

Castevet's "Stones/Salts" 7", which I believe is their debut release (on Paragon Records), is one of the most interesting records I've heard in awhile. The label states that the material "reshapes the grim, dissonant riffing and anguished rasp of black metal into a new form that asks questions of the listener before revealing the secrets hidden within its epic structures", but were it not for that description and the label's often black metal-based reputation, I'm not entirely sure I would've made a significant connection to black metal here. There are definitely some surging tremolo picked rhythms with a great sense of dissonant melody, but there are also some math metal sounding arrangements with weird chord phrasings or slower, peculiarly winding takes on black metal's discordance. Plus, the vocals have more of an almost hardcore-ish strained shouting/yelling thing going on, which makes sense to me because some of the music really could be associated with top-notch "metalcore" as well (and notice that I said "top-notch", so I mean the good kind of "metalcore", not the bullshit where 16-year-olds with throat tattoos try to sound like Scandinavian bands with mosh breaks). It's definitely epic, but the blend of influences is pulled off in a way that can't be simply pigeonholed into one genre or another. Whatever you want to call it, it's fucking great, and there's a lot of curious elements at work here—continued by the fact that the visual presentation consists of almost no text whatsoever. There's a two-sided insert with photos befitting of the record's title and a clear vinyl 7" with no labels. The only text present is the label's name/address and a sticker on the 7" bag with the band name/record title. Very cool. I'm impressed, and quite looking forward to hearing more...

Castevet "Stones" (excerpt)

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Castevet
Paragon Records