Dysrhythmia "Pretest" CD
[Relapse]
Ahhh, the latest full-length from this killer instrumental trio out of Philly. For those unaware, Dysrhythmia plays jazzy, improvisational progressive rock type material with a good dose of melody and a little bit of an abrasive edge or some math rock-ishness on occasion. It's not overly technical or complex, but they're very competent musicians and their playing is getting tighter with time, as is their writing becoming more fluid and cohesive. There's a sweet emphasis on the bass playing this time out that I really enjoy, and the drums are mixed pretty loud so the fills and accents really make a huge difference. A few standout moments are "And Just Go", which is a bit more melodic and laidback and the guitars are sort of resting on the line between clean and distorted, and "Annihilation II", which starts to break out some nice alternate picking patterns that have a slight Cynic vibe to them, they're just slower and a bit more broken up with unique chord formations and such. "Touch Benediction" runs a massive 11+ minutes that starts out with some forcefully slow riffing that would almost sound like Black Sabbath or something were it not for the discordant note choices and entirely different guitar tone - it actually really brings Engine Kid to mind. As the track moves along things quiet down a bit with some great drum fills and nice ringing clean guitars with dense bass notes held in the background. It's a little more "experimental" than some of the other tracks in a sense, but it's absolutely one of the strongest compositions herein. The production is pretty nice, but the drums are running that show. The percussion sounds fucking phenomenal. Warm, resonant, clear... just fucking perfect. The bass is second in command in my book, harnessing a good amount of low-end but also a ton of definition, so that it's always its own instrument maintaining its own space. The guitars sound good, but something seems a little bit off there. I don't know what it is... I think I'd mainly just like to hear a warmer, smoother, perhaps fuller tone. I don't know... it's a little bit dry, and that makes it hold less weight against the strength of the rhythm section. A hindrance? No, not really. But in the future I think that the guitars might benefit from gelling with the bass and drums more than is the case here. But nonetheless, things sound quite good. The layout's great. Simple, minimal, but highly effective. There's a lot of blank white space with crisp photography here and there, and most of the text is handwritten which works perfectly in this case. In fact, I think it would've looked even better if literally all of text was handwritten. This is another good record from a consistent act. I definitely like this better than their previous efforts. It's not quite different enough for me to really feel much more strongly about it than their last full-length, but they're obviously continuing to get better at what they do, and I'll be very curious to see where they take it in the future. (7/10)
Running time - 52:22, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: And Just Go, Annihilation II, Touch Benediction]
Relapse Records - http://www.relapse.com

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