Time Signature
Demons in tuxedos...
Genre: avant-garde metal
22 years in the making, Manimalism's debut album was released this November via Adversum, but features material that was written as long ago as 1992. The album itself was recorded in the period 2002-2013, so it's really been a long process.
The music is truly weird without being pretentious. One element that recurs is dissonance, which may or may not own to the members' backgrounds in black metal bands such as Delirium Bound, Ved Buens Ende, and the Konsortium (all of which are kinda avant-garde already). The dissonance works well and, while challenging to the listener, never becomes unbearable. The songs themselves are dynamic in structure and performance, evolving around organic drumming, a bewildering bass, and a round-sounding and, as mentioned, dissonant guitar. The vocals are strangely crooning and are probably a factor in softening up the sound; the singing definitely stands in contrast to the dissonance.
This is weird stuff and might not appeal to everybody, but if you like avant-garde metal which experiments with combining silken texture with darkness and chaos, then you owe it to yourself to check out this album.