Instrumental (adj.) – A Series Of Disagreements

And so we inevitably find ourselves back at the cross-roads between progressive rock and technical metal. A intersection once lead by bands like Voivod and Dream Theater but in more recent times the leadership has been bequeathed to the likes of Sikth, Periphery, Between The Buried And Me. When the vocal hooks are removed and the music is lead by instrumentation, things get really interesting; as is clear with bands like Animals As Leaders, Lye By Mistake, Trioscapes, and a swathe more.

The latter is where Sydney’s Instrumental (adj.) are wedged, if the name wasn’t implicit enough. One might even call the trio a supergroup of sorts, comprising musicians of SEIMS, The Helix Nebula, and Plini. A Series Of Disagreements, the band’s debut EP, exemplifies their mutual respect for musical chaos. The three track EP boasts deliciously angular chord progressions and frenzied mixed meter mirroring the complexity of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Tigran Hamasyan or Trioscapes. This is most obvious in the album’s magnum opus, ‘The Nightmare Of Adulthood’, where the band push their technicality to the farthest frontier, creating a storm of polyrhythmic abrasive noise that seriously has to be heard to be believed.

A Series Of Disagreements is seriously out there. It’s like being inside a musical hurricane, being bombarded with snare hits, quavers, crotchets and other various debris. Stay safe out there.