Search - Behold the Arctopus :: Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning

What the heck is an arctopus, anyway?

Boris Kaplun | Reston, VA | 12/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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, "Damn, 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."

Instrumental Prog-Metal Fury!!!

WelcomeTheAbyss | The Flatlands | 03/19/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I don't know how long i've been waiting for this...ever since becoming a fan of them about two years ago when I came across their website. This is...tech-metal perfection, and I love the more melodic parts that they added to their songs...when I first heard them they made my jaw drop. Colin, Mike and Charlie...I love you guys...as long as you keep cranking out the music, i'll always be listening. Seriously, this is some technically ferocious,orgasmic,cranium crushing instrumental prog metal and will be loved and coveted by musicians and metal/avant-garde fans everywhere!"