Album
Type : Full Length
Date
Released : 18/3/2013
Label : Century Media
Habitual Levitations, album tracklisting:
1. Killing Birds With Stones (8:04)
2. The Welding (6:01)
3. Steps (5:43)
4. Sore Sight For Eyes (5:30)
5. Milk Leg (6:46)
6. Harmonomicon (6:31)
7. Eventual (6:44)
8. Blood From A Stone (3:05)
9. The Way Down (8:57)
Bio
Los
Angeles post-prog masters INTRONAUT return with their 4th and most impressive
full
length
album to date; “Habitual Levitations“. Once again yielding thunderous, tribal
drum
beats,
hypnotic bass patterns, angular guitar riffs and the trance-like vocals of
Sacha
Dunable,
INTRONAUT pick up where they left off on 2010’s Valley of Smoke, though this
time
around, see the songs a bit more refined and cultivated. The band toured
heavily in
support
of Valley, including a stint opening for Tool in the US, which may explain the
more
polished
sound. INTRONAUT has always teetered close on being a jam band. With one of
the
greatest rhythm sections in music (drummer, Danny Walker and bassist, Joe
Lester) it
would
be hard not to just light up and see where those two take you. Experimenting on
stage,
knowing exactly where each band member is going in the song and thus really
becoming
one as a band is what INTRONAUT has achieved and what producers John Haddad
[Exhumed,
Phobia] and Derek Donley [Bereft] managed to capture perfectly on the new
album.
With a US tour supporting Meshuggah and Animals as Leaders set prior to
Habitual’s
release,
INTRONAUT will surely continue to mature and solidify themselves as one of the
best
metal bands around.
Line up
Sacha
Dunable – guitar, vocals
Joe
Lester – bass
Dave
Timnick – guitar, vocals, percussion
Danny
Walker – drums
Review
A largely dynamic affair, Habitual Levitations frames helter-skelter
outbursts around floating peaceful moments.
Intronaut invade serene dimensions, introducing dollops of Kirby-esque
chaos with odd metre timing, until all that stands falls down and all that
which floats, plummets this way and that.
Polyrhythms and gusty close harmonies
dominate from the outset as stoned post-metal and experimental insanity grips
the listener. Eardrums are flipped
upside down as quiet contemplation engages in a power struggle with intense
flashes of tough-as-nails, chest-beating skull-fuckery. In many ways the album plays out like a
Batman villain: charming, distinctive, spontaneous and totally
unpredictable. The only characteristic
the album doesn’t share with a figure from the Dark Knight’s rogue gallery is
that Habitual Levitations is not
malformed and hideous. In most aspects
the album contains a bestial beauty, a streamlined elegance due in large part
to those blow-your-hair-back vocal harmonies.
Clear your mind of all thought and
expectation when approaching this record, it’s far preferable to let the band
guide you through it. Don’t expect
anything to be straight forward. Nothing
comes easy. Each song does its own thing
and travels its own path. They’re like
your buddy giving you a lift from point A to point B but making a million pit
stops along the way, and never in a straight line. These drivers will have you zigging and
zagging across town and back. That’s not
to say, either that the material here is slapdash or without reason or
purpose. It’s just that, while the music
is directed, it’s directed by the feel and specific circumstance that each
melodic fragment provides. In other
words, it’s a jigsaw puzzle. When all
the elements come together each song paints a comprehensive picture, the album
itself duplicates the process on a larger scale, like a fractal. In this way it’s more like a panoramic jigsaw
puzzle than a Rubik’s cube.
Swallowed whole, this may not be the
heaviest of records in the land but it’ll get your blood pumping. Intronaut build songs up, shining a bigger
spotlight on their quieter side, theoretically making those harder edged
moments even heavier and even more chaotic in comparison to the softer edged
moments when that heavy spotlight swings on them. When the band really gets their asses in
gear, they floor it and when it’s time to shred, their polyrhythmic leads melt
faces.
Four and a half minutes into Milk Leg, perhaps the standout track on
the record, the band proves that they can chug and jangle at the same time, all
the while continuously churning a melodic undertow to drag the listener deeper
into the record. I can’t say I’ve heard
anything like it.
When listening to this album I keep going
back to Snail’s record from last year, Terminus,
for a comparable, as that’s about the closest thing, sound wise, to this album. Given that Terminus was a great record and that Habitual Levitations compares well to it, speaks greatly of
Intronaut’s latest offering, I feel.
On this, their fourth full-length record, Intronaut
can lay claim to the title of Pontifex Mathimus of stoned complexity.
As always
show your support to the band. You can buy this outstanding record here and is available every where now. Thanks to Sarah Lees @ Century Media for
hooking us up with this record. Buy this
record, it will blow your mind! Below are Intronaut's European tour dates
