Fresh Frets
THEY ARE an equally operatic and eruptive five-piece from Melbourne, whose monolithic records make even the most destructive riffs feel elegant. To put it succinctly, they’re the future of Australian prog-metal.
THEY SOUND LIKE a blindfolded ride on the world’s most unpredictable rollercoaster. We have a theory that when people with synaesthesia listen to Acolyte, they’re able to see colours that don’t actually exist – the quintet will them into existence with the sheer might of their sonic volatility.
YOU’LL DIG THEM IF YOU LIKE Karnivool, Porcupine Tree, Devin Townsend, and hiking your way to the top of a mountain to stare in awe over the horizon, astonished by the widescreen beauty of the natural world... Then racing back down to thrash away in the mosh at a sweaty, rampageous metal gig.
YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT the band’s powerful and polychromatic second album, Entropy, which landed back in May to a stream of hard-earned acclaim. Five years in the making, it’s a fearless and futuristic journey through the ups and downs of prog metal in all its splashy, mottled beauty. The guitars on this thing are truly mind-bending, stacked start to finish with prickly noodling, riotous solos and catastrophic breakdowns – but it’s these glassy, wailing synth pedal solos that steal the show, sounding like something out of DoctorWho if Steve Vai was a Dalek.