IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ

Hey Djents! 


Just to tell you that I have now moved! 


Musings is now an official website :D 




http://musingsofadjentleman.com/


This blogspot address will no longer be used. So make sure you hit up the new site! 

Interview Time! The Paradoxical Spiral

Wow. Its really late...

I really cannot be bothered to write an article right now. So have an interview instead! 

 

Hey there Mike! Thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at Musings. First of all, tell everyone a bit about The Paradoxical Spiral?

Hey guys! Thanks for having me. The Paradoxical Spiral started out as a simple mini

project on the side, nothing major. I was in a band called "Discordance" at the timeand I used to write things with a drummer in the band who's name isn't worthmentioning at this point, and a guitarist (Joel Jason). Joel Jason started writinga ton of drums for me through FL Studio, and I'd record it with a Roland 30x watt amp directly into my computer haha. Not the best way, But that's pretty much when TPS was born.The name came from my iTunes list, I was scrolling down and I'm horrible with naming things, I just enjoy getting my work done, So The Paradoxical Spiral it was! Ever since then,Joel Jason got caught up with his band "Mother Night" and I decided to understandhow to tab my stuff and write my own drums, and after a bunch of practice and puttingtime into it, It's what it is today! Progressing to be an official band, play shows and do toursif possible, and featuring members from Razing Valhalla (Jared Nicolan - Guitar) and In Dire Need (Josh Conrad - Bass).

You released your first album, Necromorphs, last year. How do you feel your sound has progressed since then? 

It's progressed a ton! Pretty much "Necromorphs" was a Guitar Pro forced album.It's basically when I was getting into tabbing, and understanding drums (sort of)And all the material I was making ended up being one full album. That was recorded with a Line 6 Pod x3 at the time, and most of the songs don't even have bass on the album.It was definitely rushed and all fun haha. Although, The new album is a lot more technical,a lot more melodic, and a lot more heavier to say the least.

You have a brand new album coming out this year, give us a taste of what we can expect? Will it be in the same vein as "Voids Of Rapture" that we released the other day?

 Indeed I do! The name of the album is "An Ancient Prophecy" There will be 14 tracks, and it'll be 43 minutes long.As for the same sound as Voids in Rapture, it's all for you to decide, although in my opinion and what I try to do is,Keep thinks different and interesting, So it doesn't bore the listener.

Are there any ideas in regards to a release date? 

A release date is up in the air right now, but im shooting for early August, but the end of August the latest! We'll have pre-orders of a digitalcopy through theparadoxicalspiral.bandcamp.com The album will be $10.00, but maybe i'll add one of those niftydiscount codes for pre-orders. But like I said, everything is still up in the air. We're waiting on album artwork by Alex Prylewho did the album art work for Encircle, Anthony Digiacomo's project. As for hard copies, we're waiting on that one. Our bassistJosh Conrad volunteered to help out with pressing some.

Are there any plans for merchandise? 

Absolutely! I for one am all for merch. We'll definitely get those started, possibly some band logo t's and maybealbum concept t's as well!

Who influences you as an artist?

A ton of people, But off the top of my head, Guthrie Govan, Ron Jarombek, Tosin Abasi, Allan Holdsworth, Muhammed Suicmez,Mikael Akerfeldt, and most likely a bunch more, I'm really horrible with thinking of names from the top of my head haha.

Is a live show a possibility in the future?

You can count on it. As long as everyone works to their full potential learning it (which everything seems to be going smoothly so far!) We'llhave tons of shows in the future.

As always, we like to offer every featured artist a chance to say something to our readers. So go ahead!

Thanks a lot for reading, and thanks for supporting my music! I hope to see you all at a show once we get everything squared away. Thanks again!

So there we have it! 

Make sure you go hit up my featured artist this week! The amazing, The Paradoxical Spiral. 

Speak soon guys

Announcements Galore!

Evening Djents. 

Today has been a busy one for me here at Musings. However it has also been an awesome day. 

Firstly I would like to let you all know that at some point over the next week, Musingsofadjentleman.blogspot will be no more......

However! Don't panic. While musings will be no more on blogspot, Musingsofadjentleman.com will be born! Yay! 

Yeah basically I didn't like the fact that I was constantly associated with Blogspot. This isn't a bad thing, I just think it would be better if I had my own registered domain name and site. So, I have enlisted the help of a web designer to get me up and running. This would be the awesome Rob Booth. He is an awesome guy and I am very greatful to him taking on this job for me.

I am not sure when the new site will be up, but you will all know about it when its finished! 

Right. 

Now to other stuff happening in the world of Musings. 

As you can see by the above picture, Visions are releasing their début LP in a week or so (As if you didn't all know already). With this in mind, I contacted the awesome people over at Basick records and have managed to grab myself an early copy to review! This is of course awesome. I am hoping to have some more stuff to do with these guys over the next week or so, but I cant say anything yet! Dont want to go making empty promises to you guys. 

Also in the next week, I will have a review up for another awesome band. Mishkin! Their awesome new EP Row Away From The Rocks has kindly been sent to me to review. So I will have that up real soon!

I will be back tomorrow with new stuff, and hopefully an interview. 

Much Love People 

Featured Artist, Exclusives And A Big Grovelling Apology

Woah. Its been a while.....


Lets start today's post with the big apology shall we. I started the blog a few weeks ago with the intention of updating every day with new, cool shit for you awesome people to read. I was obviously not thinking realistically. The past few days have been an arsehole in terms of being able to post, largely due to work and wank like that. It is incredibly frustrating and has not made me at all happy. So, for all of you lovely people who have been checking back on the blog every day since Saturday's post to see if there is anything new, I am sorry. I really do appreciate you continuously looking for new material though, it means a lot to me. I will pay you all back in the future with some more cool, probably free, stuff! 


I would also like to say thankyou to our Featured Guys last week. The Helix Nebula. Remember to go hit them up! 


Anyway, after that, I need to get on to actually posting music related stuff! 

As you can see, I have had a funky new graphic done, which will be used each week for the obligatory "Featured Artist" post on a Monday. However, as I managed to miss that this week, I am going to use it now and announce my featured artist. 

If you have been reading the Facebook page, you will have seen one of my sporadically posted updates from the last few days, this of course has already revealed my artist for this week. However if you haven't seen it, I am wondering why you haven't been on the page?! Naah, I joke! For those of you who dont know, my band this week is none other than Tech overlords The Paradoxical Spiral! 

If you haven't heard of The Paradoxical Spiral, you need to check them out. NOW. Although, when i say "Them", I should really say "Him". This is because The Paradoxical Spiral is the name given to the solo project of shredder, fret wizard and all round nice guy, Mr. Mike Dunn. 

Mike is a guitarist from Massachusetts in the USA and has been making music under the name The Paradoxical Spiral for a while now. He has, unfortunately, remained under the radar of a lot of metal fans and has therefore got a piss poor number of fans. I aim to change this.  

Paradoxical's debut LP was released last year on the bands Bandcamp page. It is a blisteringly technical album. My only flaw with it being that it sounds too obviously programmed and stuff like that. However, the guitars are just insane. Anyone who denies that this man has serious talent is clearly a moron. 


Necromorphs got my attention. Big time. However, I kind of forgot about TPS...... until recently. I was chatting to Anthoney Di'Giacomo (Encircle) about his new album (Which I still need to review because its so bloody good) when he told me about a brand spanking new TPS LP due for release soon. He kindly got me in touch with Mike and after speaking to him for a while, I managed to bag an early copy of the upcoming sophomore release An Ancient Prophecy. 


Shit A Brick. It is fucking amazing. 


I wont go into too much detail now though, as I will review the album later in the week/next week. 


So yeah, go like TPS NOW! Click HERE to go to their Facebook Page. 

Ooooooh.. more nice graphics! I hear you say. Well you aren't mistaken. Here is my second brand new graphic designed by the always awesome, Bryan Shepherd. Hit this guy up for graphics work at amazing prices: Margoloh@gmail.com


Moving on....


As the graphic exclaims, we do have an exclusive here at Musings. We like exclusives right? 


Well, Mike Dunn of TPS has kindly let me share one of the tracks from the brand new album An Ancient Prophecy, with you guys. You can only find it here. Nowhere else. 


The song Voids In Rapture can be listened to HERE.


It is fast, technical and has some serious groove. The melodic parts are also seriously orgasmic. So be careful of those impending Eargasms! 






Phew. Glad that's over with. As I said earlier, seriously sorry about shitty lack of posts. I promise to do better in the future! 


Also, I would like to thank all of you who have liked the page recently, we are up to 250 in just over 3 weeks :D Tell everyone and get us to 500 in the next 3! 


Love you all guys, thanks so much for reading! 

8 Bit, Electro AND Djent? Oh yes.

Good afternoon to you all. 


I woke up this morning after an incredibly late night, thinking to myself "I want to listen to something ridiculously different today". This is what I did. Yeah, I'm that badass. 


After trawling through my incredibly large Ipod library I settled upon a band/project I only stumbled upon a week or so ago. They are a self recorded/produced band from the good old English county of Oxfordshire, going by the name Sky Sanctuary. 

This is another example of a small time band posting on the Musings Facebook wall, me listening and thinking they are one of the best things to happen to the world since sliced bread and then wanting to tell everyone they should feel the same way as me. Of course not everybody will agree but I do hope that some of you will. 


Anyway this isn't a review, as such, largely due to the fact that they haven't released anything. This is more of a promotional post, to help these guys get some more attention from the general community. I know that because you are just awesome people, this shouldn't be too much of a hard task. 


Sky Sanctuary seem to be a band who have gone, "Ya know what, fuck this normal Djent sound. Lets make some sweet ass grooves but add the soundtrack to mario in for good measure" And although it isnt actually the mario soundtrack, its something you would expect to hear from the old 8 bit arcade games. 


Before you turn your nose up, it really works. I mean, I could be called biased because I am a big fan of people who make metal songs 8 Bit. It just sounds awesome in my opinion. So for a band to incorporate that into their sound along side the guitars and drums is like heaven for me. 

From what I can gather after speaking to Joey Cohen, Sky Sanctuary's guitarist, they will have an EP, entitled Insert Coins, out in the near future as well as a follow up full length soon after that. This of course pleases me and gets me even more stoked to hear some more tracks. 


The title track to the EP is already up on the bands Facebook page. It is a typically groovy Djent track with tempo changes galore. However there is a strong central melody well woven into the track throughout. It 8bit, electro synths follow the track through well, providing brilliant accompaniment to the guitars. 


All in all, I am stoked for their new release and I am sure I will purchase it for a review when it does drop! 


Check them out HERE and give them a Like! 


Speak soon guys 

Interview Time! The Helix Nebula

Good evening lovely people. 

I hope you all checked out my new friend Cygnia's first post here on Musings yesterday! He writes about some awesome stuff and I am pleased he will be writing a weekly column for us :D 

Anyway, as you all will know, my featured artist this week is the amazing The Helix Nebula. Seriously, if for some insane reason you havent checked them out yet. Do it. Now. I don't actually think I have posted anything apart from stuff to do with these guys all week. So yeah, find them on Facebook, Like them, download all their music, let the eargasms commence. 

Sorry, ramble over. 

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Jake Lowe, the bands guitarist, earlier this week. Here is what was said......

Hey there guys, thanks for chatting to me here at Musings. Tell us about The Helix Nebula and what you have been up to? 

We started out as a two piece studio project around February this year, between myself (Jake) and bassist/producer Simon. We've known each other for ages after meeting at the Australian Institute of Music 3 or so years ago and it just seemed right that we start making music together! We haven't been at this all that long so the success we've had online so far has been pretty unexpected. We've just been writing new material and putting together plans to take the project live in the long run. With a lot of procrastination and silly antics thrown in along the way!

 Do you set out to create a particular style of music? 

When I came up with the idea for this project I always had a very melodic sound in mind. I'm pretty sure this goes for Simon as well, but I've played in a band or two before that have been pretty aggressive and a lot less melodic so I wanted to give this sort of thing a go and see how well we could fuse melody with technical riffage because that's just the sorta stuff I naturally write. We don't really limit our selves in anyway other than our own personal standards, but there definitely is a certain sound we're going for. 

You have released a couple of tracks in the last year, are there any plans for a full length or EP? 

An EP is in the works!

If so, when? 

We're aiming to have it out well before the end of the Year. 

Who influences you musically? 

Simon and I both have really eclectic music tastes so influences come from everywhere. In terms of music similar to us I'd say bands like CHON, Veil Of Maya, Scale The Summit, The Arusha Accord and The Faceless. Oh and anything Ron Jarzombek does. But we really take influence from anything, I'm massively into Zappa, and Simon and I both love fusion/jazz artists like Alex Argento, James Muller, Adam Nitti, Tom Quayle etc. There's really too many bands and artists to mention. I'm really into Karnivool and Deftones at the moment. 

Are you out looking for a vocalist or do you plan to stay instrumental? 

We are still sorting out a full line up for the live band but we will have vocals. We understand that there are some people who need vocals to get into music, and we love music with both screaming and singing, but we also know there are people who find that vocals ruin some music so we're going to be releasing all our music both instrumentally and with vocals. Hopefully we can please everybody. 

We have a lot of Aussie readers here at Musings, so are there any plans to tour? 

At the moment we're starting to prepare to play live, we've actually entered the competition to play Euroblast in Germany which would be ridiculous if we go the spot! But at the moment there are no plans set in stone to play shows. Unless we get the Euroblast spot we're going to take as long as we need to make our live show as tight as possible. It's also hard because there is not that much of a technical metal scene here so you really have to play with any type of heavy bands you can. We're heaps keen to play with some other great Aussie bands though, Halcyon, Ignite The Ibex, The Schoenberg Automaton and Circles spring to mind. 

Finally, is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

We'd just like to say thank you to anyone who's supported us in the short time we've been around, the response we've received has been incredible. To anyone who has posted us on facebook, or shared our videos, you're the best and we'd be no where without you guys! Keep spreading the word! 

If you guys haven't already, there is an exclusive download of their latest track exclusive to Musings, so go get it HERE

Be back tomorrow peeps! 

And Here Is That First Post.......

Tracklist:


01. Actualize
02. Contraband
03. Currency
04. Altered Perspective One
05. Altered Perspective Two
06. Vertigo
07. The Decline
08. Degenerate
09. Looking West
10. A Climate For Change 


ALONE is the debut album by Evan Brewer (bassist of The Faceless), the concept of which is astounding, and not to mention incredibly ambitious.

The entire album is comprised entirely of bass – no guitars, no drums, just plain ol’ bass.


Now, in no way is this man un-talented.

Anyone who has listened to The Faceless, and has a working pair of ears can back me up on that, but listeners beware, if you go into this album expecting to hear lots of tech-death riffs played on repeat for half an hour, you’ll be sorely disappointed, because what you will hear from this is a wide range of styles and influences, mainly taken from Jazz and Funk.


I know what you’re all probably thinking:
“Jazz and Funk? But where’s my technicality?”

The answer to that question is that it’s still all there, but it appears in a different way.


The first two tracks, “Actualize” and “Contraband” showcase some intense slap-bass skills, which would impress anyone who knows anything about the instrument itself.

The next three tracks, “Currency” and the “Altered Perspective” parts delve into more of a relaxed and chilled style.


People who have paid attention to Evan’s YouTube account would recognize the first and third track as videos that he posted a couple of months back, titled “Slap Bass Evan Brewer” and “Evan Brewer Two Basses” respectively, both of which were clips posted from these songs and used as teasers for his upcoming album.


But I digress, the fifth track, “Vertigo” combines the chilled out atmosphere of the last three tracks with the intensity of the first two, and manages to transition the two ideas seamlessly into one song.


“The Decline” serves as an interlude (filled with some faded in slapping) into the next track “Degenerate”, which once again demonstrates this man’s love for slap-bass perfectly.
The last two tracks on the album, “Looking West” and “A Climate For Change” derive their influences heavily from Jazz music, which becomes more evident on the latter track.


I’m going to end this review with a segment where I’m going to ask myself a question and say:

“Who would have ever thought that the bassist of a technical death metal band could come up with an easy-listening album?”

The answer to that question being “Evan. Fucking. Brewer.”


This man is a genius on this album, and I hope that The Faceless start to use more technicalities in their bass guitar instead of that one opening sweep on The Ancient Covenant.


Evan Brewer’s debut album Alone receives 5 simultaneous bass lines, out of 5.