Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning

Ah, a Behold The Arctopus release with some level of cohesion. Harmonies, patterns, melodic ideas even. Much more obscure and unconventional than most of course, but at least there is a context in which the instruments are being played - something this band would later abandon. I love complex, crazy music. But if the music is completely unraveled into an abstraction from what could be called music: not cool.

Fortunately this album is not that far off the deep end.

There is actually melody here ... really good use of harmony, too. Lots of bass tapping. The bass is very prevalent in the mix, and important in the over all sound. There are sections in Sensory Amusia and Exospacial Psionic Aura with tapping on bass and guitar, with well placed delay - very, very cool riffs. I wish the band would release a whole album of it. The drums are insane, almost like a constant fill, some blast beats, many rapid time signature changes, and tempo fluxes. This is of course still complex in the extreme, but I can see the relevance of a riff in relation to one that preceded it, unlike the later material of this band.

About as crazy as music gets while still being coherent - which is funny, having cited the last two albums (Skullgrid and Horroscension) as clearly being on the other side of this proverbial fence. There is still some clusterfuck moments on this album that don't do it for me, but over all it's quite listenable, and a fun listen at that. Understand that if you approach this album, you had better put your big boy ears on; because this is not easy listening.

I'm a big fan of music that makes you go "...what the fuck did I just listen to?" on the first few times through. If nothing else, Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning certainly accomplishes that. It's a decidedly ambitious debut for the band, featuring some truly chaotic math-metal that goes through more time shifts and stylistic turn-arounds than you'll know what to do with. That said, the chaotic nature of the band at times borders on the nonsensical, with such constant shifts in meter and feel as to preclude actually making any musical sense. The result is an album that is a few parts innovative and crazy, and a few parts random and disorienting.

But first, the good: This is NOT an album that you can fall asleep to. The whole thing is full of high-octane riffing and insane 'look at our two handed tapping!' style walls of sound. Though the band is only a three-piece, they don't let that stop them from constantly plowing forward with very dense and full song arrangements. The bassist in particular proves to be adept at providing an unending stream of notes in what can only be described as a marathon all-of-the-fretboard-at-once performance. Towards the end of the EP, the band does slow it down a bit, but even when not in complete pedal-to-the-metal mode, the songs tend to remain either fairly energetic (see: the slower parts of You Will Be Reincarnated as an Imperial Attack Spaceturtle) or fairly sinister (see: the beginning of the second track which has a longer name than I care to type).

Aiding the intensity of the album is the fact that all three members of this group are very skilled at their instruments. There's no fumbling or hesitation anywhere in this EP, and between the previously mentioned bass calisthenics, the nimble and at times face-melting guitar work, and the legitimately impressive drumming, the entire band holds its own weight. What's more, the group is very precise and tight, proving that there is nothing random going on here. Everything is meant to sound as it does, and the whole EP was clearly rehearsed for quite some time before facing the studio. What's even scarier is that the live tracks are every bit as tight as the studio versions, which is no small feat to behold.

Unfortunately, there are some downsides to this release. The songs, though obviously meant to be chaotic and shape-shifting, are occasionally completely random sounding. Consider the middle of the intimidatingly-titled second track: it is so chock-full of shifts in feel and meter as to be a complete non-sequitur. It's a shame, because when they reign themselves in a bit, the results are amazing - consider the third track, which evolves from a completely hip jazzy section into a full-on harsh noise bit, all in a way that actually makes sense and feels 'right'. When they're being lightly schizophrenic, the result is wonderful. When they're in full-on naked-homeless-dude-in-new-york-screaming-nonsense-at-passers-by mode, it's too much.

That said, this is still a great EP. Behold The Arctopus have a truly unique sound going on, and they provide a great contribution to the sometimes stagnant tech-death genre. I definitely recommend that everybody check this release, because there's tons of awesome stuff within it - I just hope that the band matures with future works, and is able to get better at walking that fine line between fairly crazy and completely over-the-top insane.

I'm going to quote my hero, videogame reviewer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, and say "I don't believe that a complex opinion can be adequately expressed numerically". Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning is one a whacked ass little EP that exemplifies this quote to the fullest extent. I really wish I could just leave the score box blank and ramble on about all of the conflicting qualities of awe and irritation. I wish I could leave a nifty ENTER YOUR OWN SCORE HERE! function and watch the madness unfold. I wish lots of things, and like most wishes, they don't come true. So I'm left with a feeling of confusion and insecurity with any score I attach to this piece. I somewhat high rating feels unjustified and I feel like I'm giving credit purely for technicalities as opposed to songwriting and simple things like making your music listenable to more than ten people. A somewhat low score feels unjustified and I feel like I'm not giving enough credit to their skill and creativity, despite the other shortcomings. And a score of 50 right in the middle feels like a cop out as a critic.

New York's three most fucked up young men decide to start a band. One of the most pressing questions that would confront a new band would be what kind of music would they play. They apparently couldn't decide what they liked more... metal, progressive rock, mathcore, jazz, or ambient. In the end, they apparently just said "fuck it" and threw any random quality of any random style of music into a bag and picked out pieces with reckless abandon. Every section is done extremely well, but BtA seems to have forgotten the simple fact that they are not Mitch Hedberg. They simply lack the charm and wit necessary to string hundreds of completely unrelated pieces in a way that is entertaining and wholly enjoyable. The insanely technical and dissonant Dillinger Escape Plan styled sections of chaos take up the majority of the record, with the rest being occupied by a slew of random progressive rock and chilled jazzy stuff. I can understand completely when people throw out comments like "I cannot fathom somebody enjoying random noise", but at the same time I can understand people praising them for throwing convention out the window and doing something as artistically bizarre as they have done.

Let me reiterate something I'm sure I've mentioned before, SikTh is one of my favorite bands. Their brand of super tech mathcore mixed in with some of the more bizarre vocals in music (which I have lovingly dubbed "roostercore") and their unnerving sense for melody beneath chaos earns them a special place in my heart and raise them up so that they become the band by which I judge all similar bands. I don't care if Dillinger Escape Plan was first or better, they will forever be compared to SikTh in my eyes. And as such, Behold... the Arctopus will inevitably be shadowed by the Watford born psychotics. The difference between the two bands mainly boils down to BtA's relentlessness and unabashed dissonance. Where SikTh sits down and churns out haunting melodies over the chaos or produces beautiful piano tracks to break up the madness, BtA rarely lets up. There are sections like the intro to Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program and the middle break of Sensory Amusia that are obviously slow jazzy parts, but the difference remains that the uncomfortable feeling of the album never goes away, even on those parts.

And that's the thing, this EP gives a feeling of discomfort. It's almost as if the band is purposely trying to irritate the listener. The entire thing just... confuses me. I don't know whether to abhor or cherish this. For every reason I can come up with to claim this as masterful, I can find another reason to shit upon it. For every cool part like the section about a minute and a half into You Will Be Reincarnated as an Imperial Attack Spaceturtle (I guess I should mention I have the 9 track reissuing), there is the totally incoherent mess that is the three minute mark of Sensory Amusia. For every interesting and creative run, there is a frustrating segment nearly immediately after. These guys don't know the meaning of restraint. Perfection is not constant a barrage of night-and-day musical acrobatics. Perfection is not jagged dissonance, nor is it blasting incoherence. Perfection is an entirely subjective concept, and not even I know for sure the qualities and ingredients that make up this mythical perfection, but I sure as hell know what it isn't made of, and Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning is chock full of imperfection.

Sometimes I'll hear an album that I want to praise to the skies, except there's one problem.. I didn't really enjoy it, basically. It may be a strange, demented drone album, it may be some slightly left-of-field album.. Often, it will be something that I feel has lots of integrity, and from an artistic standpoint is quite excellent, but would I listen to it? Well, no.

This is one of those albums.

It's pretty obvious from this album that dudes in this band are pretty amazing on their instruments. Most of the jams on this record aren't that fast, but unlike most technical bands, the jams are unrelenting- these guys must have a crazy amount of stamina. Nonetheless, while unrelenting technicality is probably a turn off to most people (including me) these guys do have a good sense of melody. The first song is a great example.. After a frenzied first two and a half minutes, the drums cut out, and there's some beautiful (yet still totally tech) guitar and bass interplay. There's more of this melody in a few other places.. There's the gorgeous slow jam at the end of the first song- very blissed out and atmospheric sounding, sounding a bit like a very technical Nadja/Jesu thing. The second song starts off in a similar vein, and it's also very solid, if not quite as good. Sensory Amusia has a great break half way through too. Yeah, when these guys apply melody, it sounds really good.

So, there's technical stuff here, and there's some mellow stuff here too.. So why aren't I giving this a high rating? Because, to put it simply, I don't enjoy it. I can last a few minutes on simple appreciation of how damn well it's being played, but let's be honest here- there's no structure and not that much melody. Isn't that what makes music good? Bear in mind I'm not talking about verse-chorus-verse deals here, there's no structure at all, and this definitely suffers as a result. Note how the best moments I listed are where these guys get melodic? Well, it would be good if there were more of such moments. You can be melodic and technical at the same time!

I definitely don't hate this band. They have a mastery of their instruments that few people will ever get close too, and there's plenty of moments where you're just 'wow, what a guitar line' and the like, which is half the point of this music. But that's the only feeling you get from this album.. The impression that these guys are really good on their instruments, but except for a few nice, mellow fusion-esque moments, there's nothing here that you'll really enjoy. Perhaps I shouldn't review stuff that's not my kind of music. Regardless, I kind of like this, in very small doses, but I probably wouldn't buy this album.

edit: Getting rid of all the extra italics.. not sure why they where there?

To come up with a recurring time signature in this music will give you constant headaches. Needless to say, attempting such a thing will be a stupid thing to do, as Behold... The Arctopus bring out some of the most interesting instrumental work yet.

The opening of the first track "Exospatial Psionic Aura" pretty much sums up what you're going to be hit with during the EP. Fast instruments...but not constantly fast. They know how to slow things down. Take the end of the aforementioned song...the last two minutes or so break down into a slow guitar rhythm with drum fills that aren't much faster. Ordinarily slow music of this length would be boring, right? Well, not here. The difference is that Behold... The Arctopus know what to do with slower riffs without making them sound like filler. That song lasted over 7 minutes, and none of it was boring.

That song fades into the next track "Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program." Weird title, and even weirder introduction, with over two minutes of ambience with bass (from the monster warr guitar) and some drum hits here and there. Again, this SHOULD be boring. But it's not. Then it kicks into the song with speed and technicality. How these guys remember these songs, with no constant time signature, blows my mind. This songs' strength, though, is the end. The drum fill at the end is one of the coolest things on the album...especially when it slows down. Fucking killer stuff.

The next track...unfortunately is not as good. "Sensory Amusia" is definitely the weakest track. The wall of noise effect in the middle part doesn't do any favours for the track, and sounds a little off. However, despite it's weakness, it's still not god-awful. Still plenty of technicality displayed there.

I have the 2006 re-release of the EP, containing two bonus tracks, "Alcoholocaust" and the epic "You Will Be Reincarnated As An Imperial Attack Spaceturtle." Phew. More unusual song titles, and the production is not as good, but the songs themselves are awesome, with the same sort of (random) structure as the first 3 tracks.

The EP's production adds marks as well. Nothing is overloud or too soft...everything is equal in what they do. None of the band members are trying to show off, as everyone gets an equal part in the music. Vocals would've killed this EP, as the music tends to speak for itself. Plus the music is so unorthodox that vocals wouldn't be able to fit anywhere.

So, with that said, this instrumental is probably the second best I've heard (behind Spastic Ink's "Ink Complete"). Apparently a full-length is scheduled for around September-October 2007, so I will definitely pick it up when it is released. If it's anything like this EP, they have a future ahead of them.

Best tracks: Exospatial Psionic Aura, Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program, ...Attack Spaceturtle

True to the album title, what you essentially have here is three superhero musical cyborgs who have been summoned from some future technological utopia with the sole mission of completely redefining the present world's perception of what technical metal is, along with the stale boundaries that constrict the genre itself. They manage to do this throughout the course of an album that is approximately 17 minutes long, though the pacing and density of the music found within is such that albums four times as long may seem empty in comparison. In fact, the music on Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning is so dense and frenzied that even the guys who created it were initially unable to play it - that's right, the songs here were conceived on a computer and had to be extensively practiced by the band before they were able to recreate the madness live. Some may scoff at this, but hey - if the tools are available to you, why not use them? As far as I'm concerned, the end result more than justifies the means in every way imaginable.

The centerpiece of this show is the Warr Guitar, a 12-string monster of an instrument that covers the range of both bass and guitar and is primarily played by tapping. Colin Marston, also of Dysrhythmia, handles this thing in commendable fashion (especially considering that the thing is almost bigger than he is). However, the real wonder surrounding this is not the fact that this instrument is rather atypical for metal, but the manner in which it is played. The fret runs that are performed on this thing compounded with the sheer frenetic speed of the music and the possible range of tones make the performances simply stunning.

There's also a typical electric guitar played by Mike Lerner, who spends most of his time shredding and tapping at triple digit BPM speeds like a frenzied chimpanzee, though occasionally he brings down some impressive riffs or goes into groove-mode and lets Colin take the stage. Drummer Charlie Zeleny, quite simply, demands respect... and sympathy. Not only does he manage to keep up with the remainder of his band in terms of pure speed (which is a mammoth accomplishment in and of itself), but he also plays polyrhythmically and maintains diverse and constantly shifting patterns that never descend into trite double-bass abuse... or maybe he just hits random drums and cymbals as fast as possible. Whichever it is, he holds his own throughout. Fun fact here - Behold... the Arctopus were originally known as We Need A Drummer because of how hard it was to actually find somebody insane enough to play their music.

The songs themselves are instrumental flurries of high-speed freestyle metal complemented by bursts of noise, forays into acid rock and stoner groove, touches of free jazz, moments of doomy ambience, and even vast expanses of blissful atmosphere. The opening track, "Exospacial Psionic Aura", is probably the best thing on here and is also a prime example of everything mentioned above. It instantly slams you in the face with furious noise before taking on some semblance of a followable rhythm; then, around a quarter of the way through, Colin takes the forefront with a regretfully brief and gorgeous piece that sounds like two guitars and a bass playing different melodies at the same time; the song continues on in quite a schizophrenic manner before collapsing into a mess of noise at around 5:20 or so. At this point, Colin puts out a deep bass slide that explodes into the most unexpected thing - a 2+ minute long stretch of dense, atmospheric guitars and a flowing, dynamic, and expansive drum performance from Charlie that should leave your jaw on the ground (or if it doesn't, will at least make you say, "Fuck, that was awesome!"). The track ends with a splash of dissonance, and fades into "Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program". Nothing too exciting going on here at first - a few minutes of ambient doom-like noises, and then the band comes in with quite an irregular beat. The real beauty of this track is towards the end, where the guitars drop out and Charlie comes in with a solo spot that begins with an unspectacular series of high-speed rolls, but gets interesting real quick as he gradually slows the pattern down more and more, eventually to the point where you can distinctly and easily tell apart each individual drum hit that makes up the overall pattern. It's a very cool approach that I've never heard from any other drummer in the past, so that was a huge plus for me.

The last track, "Sensory Amusia", has another unexpected occurrence around half-way in, where spastic metal suddenly lapses into a stretch of soothing jazziness not unlike what you might hear on a Bela Fleck and the Flecktones record. Very beautiful interplay between bass, guitar, and drums. Doesn't last very long before collapsing back into noisy mayhem, though.

This is quality. Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of insanely technical, eargasmic, impossibly dense, instrumental avant-metal. Many of the tech bands around these days can take a few lessons from these guys.

I'm eagerly awaiting a full length.

Behold...The Arctopus is one of the most exciting musical acts in the metal scene, and as usual, they don't disappoint. Behold...The Arctopus's EP titled "Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning" combines three talented musicians with a pile of influences that shows a pure blend of creativity and intelligence.

The guitar work done by Mike Lerner is pure magic. Lerner is always pulling off complex riffs and solos that consist of an assortment of notes and time signature changes. There is never a repetitive moment with his riffs. Every couple of seconds, the riff will shift into something completely different and unpredictable. Colin Marston also contributes a good deal of guitar playing on "Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning." Marston plays the warr guitar, which has a distinct sound and is a signature attribute of Behold...The Arctopus's music. For those of you who don't know, the warr guitar is a twelve string guitar that can sound like a bass or an electric guitar. Marston uses the warr guitar to the band's benefit by enriching the music with crazy bass lines and solos. Just like his band mates, drummer Charlie Zeleny has a stellar performance. The drumming adapts to the never ending change just as well as the guitars do. Every couple of seconds, Zeleny will change his pattern into something perfectly fitting to the music. The best part of his drumming is during the final seconds of "Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program" when he ends with an incredible drum solo. Every band member pulls his own weight to make a fantastic CD.

The influences portrayed in "Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning" impact the album immensely. Standing aside for the progressive and avant garde tone, there is a little bit of doom metal, stoner rock, thrash and even a touch of hardcore. The most noticeable examples are on the opening of "Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program,"which has a strong atmospheric vibe and a slight doom metal opening while "Exospacial Psionic Aura" is covered with frail stoner influence. These are just small examples of all the influences that are poured into this album.

Words cannot explain how stunned I was after hearing this. Never in all my days as a metalhead have I heard anything so unique and crazy as this album. "Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning" is an excellent album that defines the limits of technical music and shouldn't be ignored by anyone.

This review was orginally written for: http://www.Thrashpit.com

This truly is a gem. Off all the places, I found this EP sitting right there in the open on a shelf at my local Border's. Very strange. Having heard some good things about the band, I picked up the album, went home, popped it in, and was blown away. What we have here is a mindblowingly skillful tech-thrash band with a guitarist/bassist combo that any band would die for. They manage to go from crazy thrash to laid-back acid rock, to almost progressive emotional guitar solos, to Fantomas-esque crashing riffs that just smack right into you. The latter are probably the worst kind of riffs on this album. Unfortunately the second song has quite a lot of this. Anyway.

The opener starts with a band, tells you to wake and Behold...THE ARCTOPUS! (I had to). Anyway, it begins with mind-numbing speed and technicality. At 2:21 it goes into a great acid-rock bass section. Otherwise it blasts along at 1000 BPM with some great melodies but most of all amazing chops. Think Necrophagist without vocals and with more interesting guitar parts. At around 5:24 it heads into a great keyboard-driven portion with some excellent emotional guitar and solid drumming. It's very atmospheric. The song ends like that and simply fades into the next song.

The next song starts slow with some foreboding sounds and whatnot before launching into more craziness about halfway through. Not a strong offering compared to the first song. It pretty much seems like the guys from BTA blew their load on the first song with no steam left for the rest. Fortunataely the third song proves this wrong. It blasts out, goes crazy, does cool stuff, more great guitar work, then busts out into an awesome acid rock section with soem nice jazzy guitar. Then it kinda starts blowing up. This next section makes it feel like the album is blowing up. It's a bunch of heavy, foreboding Fantomas-esque eerie riffs with all sorts of discord for a little while. Then they fall back near the end and go crazy and it's over.

So basically, this is a brilliant display of technical ability with the occassional ear for excellent and powerful songwriting, but it seems like occassionally BTA got lazy and kinda decided to play around with some discord and sound effectas. It varies things up a bit, but more keyboard driven stuff like the end of the first song would be cool. Oh, and the drummer isn't quite up to par with the rest of the band, but his stuff works. Of course, kudos to hi mfor keeping up with the other two in the first place.