(I got sort of caught up in all the year-end Listmania we’ve been feeding you on this site, and am therefore late in publishing this guest opinion piece by Jesper Zuretti of The Binary Code. Check this out and let us [and Jesper} know what you think.  Are we putting too much emphasis on recording quality?)

We Are the 3%: Recording Quality v. Song Quality
a novice attempt at history, psychology, and temptation

Many people hearing music in this day and age tend to put the quality of the recording in the forefront, even ahead of the quality of the composition and music. But how much does the music-hearing individual really understand about the quality of the recording they’re listening to? Should they need to understand anything at all? Should music be over-scrutinized and classified into the depths of genre segregation, with fine-tuning into multiple combinations of classification?

The best part about music, in my opinion, is the freedom you have with it, and yet people are probably pickier about music than they are the food they eat. The history of music proves to us that recording (although it's the conduit to our musical stream) is but a small aspect of music’s place in the entirety of human existence. I’m no certified musicologist (although I’d like to think I am), but maybe we’ll open some minds – just bear in mind that I’m a long-winded typist! Stay with me:

Human beings have been making music as long as the species has existed. The human voice is considered one of the first instruments we ever used to make music. And beyond that, Humpback whales also spend a great deal of time creating music (and by "great deal of time," we’re talking Frank Zappa amounts of time). So it’s very safe to assume that music was being created even before mankind came into existence. On that assumption, if you subtract the amount of time during which humans have actually captured music on recordings from the length of time whales have been on this planet (speculated to be 54 million years), you end up with less than 3% of music’s supposed development time dedicated to recording.

When was the first recording of music ever created? Music history books will tell you that Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville created the phonautograph in 1857. It  was essentially a horn used to capture the sound, which was directly attached to a diaphragm and bristle that vibrated inscriptions onto a hand-cranked cylinder. The song recorded was “Au Clair de la Lune”, a children’s song/story that I’d be willing to bet most children from the 1980’s forward (including me) haven’t even the faintest recollection of.

Now, you can imagine the quality of the phonautograph, as compared to Pro Tools 10 with hundreds of thousands of dollars of outboard gear and analog tape machines. The quality might be different, but does the latter really tell a story, set a mood, or bear a tone in a fundamentally better way? Keep in mind, 1857 was the first time humans were capable of hearing playback music. Since that time, each era of music has had its top-notch producer. A shitty recording in 1960 may very well be the best recording of its generation. With the progress of technology, we need to understand that the quality of the engineering and recording at any one moment may not stand the test of time.

The first time I heard black metal, I was instantly turned off by the lo-fidelity quality of the music. (Mind you, I “heard” black metal; I didn’t “listen” to black metal. But we’ll diverge into the differences between hearing and listening to music a little later on.) The quality of the musical composition, emotion, story-telling, and just about every other aspect outside of the Audiophile’s Guide to Music, were all completely disregarded, based on the final production value of the recording. Same goes for the drone genre: all I was hearing when I first clicked Sunno))) on mp3.com in 2001 was rumbling, low-end, changing pitch every 25bpm meter.

Contrastingly, the first time I heard a band like, say…Meshuggah, the quality of the recording was obviously leaps and bounds beyond something that would have come out of the Inner Circle in Norway. But now, with all of the recording tools we have in our modern musical era, it’s very easy for a band to obtain a “high quality” recording. But as many wise men have said, “You can’t polish a turd.”

Hearing music versus listening to music, what’s the difference? First and foremost, when you hear something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you fully paid attention to the sound. As a matter of fact, we hear things all the time without paying any mind to them whatsoever. This is often the case for the average, common, simple, music-hearing individual. Music to them is in the background of their lives; the lyrics, the creativity, the uniqueness, the meaning, none of that has any effect on what they’re listening to.

Of course, we all can admit that when we listen to music, we don’t always sit in a windowless room with a prospectus of musical rules and regulations, checking off each line as the song plays on. But I tend to give heavy music fans more credit than the average human when it comes to scrutiny.

When you listen to music, you’re doing just that: LISTENING. When your parents yelled at you about things as a teenager, you were just hearing “rarr rarr rarr rabble rarr”, not listening to the advice (most often disguised as demands) they were giving you. Now, as a grown-ass human, you should be able to look back in retrospect and realize that you weren’t listening. You just heard their words, in one ear and out the other.

Now, when a person listens to black metal or drone (and, for the record, I’m not here to convert anyone into black metal or drone fans – they're just often overlooked genres of music), they should hear more than the 4-track tape recording quality. I’m sure there are hundreds upon thousands of reasons why black metal still just doesn’t do it for some folks -- I’m not saying that people who don’t like black metal and drone aren’t listening to it correctly. I’m simply saying that it’s almost border-line teenager for someone to avoid a genre based on the quality of the recording.

I hope I'll be able to delve into this topic a little bit more in the future - so leave questions, comments, concerns, and I'll make sure to keep them in mind with my next guest piece. Thanks for reading!

- Jesper Z.

PS: For those interested in checking out some black metal or drone that have interesting and unique qualities to the recordings, please check out: Xasthur – Portal of Sorrow, Leviathan – Massive Conspiracy Against All Life, Deathspell Omega – Paracletus & Fas – Ite, Meledicti, in Ignem Aeternum, Sunno))) – Monolights & Dimensions.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Check out Jesper and his band the Binary Code @  http://www.facebook.com/thebinarycode , and by all means, if you've got an opinion about the topics Jesper explores in this piece, leave a comment.]

[ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: Jesper and I have figured out that we are pursuing the right career paths, instead of one that requires . . . math proficiency. The correct percentage for this post is not 3%, but .000003%, which is roughly the percentage of the time since whales came into existence that human beings have been recording music. But we're sticking with 3% anyway. Call it literary license.]

(As part of our series of posts on the Year in Metal, we invited musicians from some of our favorite bands to tell us what 2011 albums made an impression on them. Today, we hear from Jesse Zuretti, the talented guitarist and song-writer from The Binary Code.)

Although I’ve assembled a top 15 list, I highly encourage you to check out my honorable mentions down below. There were too many good releases this year.

1. Talib Kweli – Gutter Rainbows

This album, albeit non-metal, is packed with nostalgia for me. Hearing Ed Lover’s voice on this album was icing on the cake. Talib Kweli is one of the most well-versed rhymers of all time. His music is passionate, original, powerful, and adventurous. Listening to his lyrics is like hearing someone you look up to tell a story about something you relate to, and just exceeding your expectations with the outcome.

Why is this album number one for me? Because this is the first album of the entire year that made me say, “HOLY SHIT!” out loud. I’m not a man of uncontrollable, Tourette Syndrome-esque outbursts at the drop of a note from an artist – be it metal, hip hop, jazz, etc. Those “HOLY SHIT!” moments are generally found when something along the lines of a Pat Metheny solo rips into gear, or when Dennis Chambers flails into a comet trail of fills and ghost notes over a Victor Wooten tune. Talib Kweli handcrafted sound, lyrics, and power into a unique and TOLERABLE hip-hop album in the grand year of 2011. Fuck-all rare if you ask me, considering the amount of cocky-yarble these pretend gangster womanizer rappers have been pooping out into our wretched youths’ ears. Take a minute, pop on this disc (or WINRAR your Mediafire link) and let it roll.

2. Tombs – Path of Totality

I remember when I first heard about how sick this album was via an old-fashioned game of telephone (months and months before it released) from our then traveling bassist Brett Bamberger (of East of the Wall/Argonauts) who heard the description of the album from Dave Witte (of Burnt by the Sun/Municipal Waste/Argonauts/every good band ever). To say that the album exceeded my expectations is an understatement. Elements of shoegaze, black metal, hardcore, post-metal, and punk shine through this album in the best ways each genre has ever offered up.

This is definitely the kind of album you should listen to in reverse track order. Listening to an album back to front, and front to back has a great impact on the listener. This makes you feel the entire album instead of hearing just a few songs and not understanding the vibe the artist was going for. It’s also important to point out that Thomas Hooper created the album artwork, and he is one of the most brilliant and prolific artists I’ve ever seen. Contrary to popular belief, album artwork is another way to dictate the emotions behind the music. This album is the package deal!

3. Textures – Dualism

Amazing album. I play “Burning the Midnight Oil” on repeat at some point almost every day. That fact that 9 years ago or so I never thought I’d ever see this band live, let alone become friends with them, and later play a show with them, blows my mind. To me, this band is up there in the same realm as Metallica for some folks. All bias aside, Textures will never disappoint me.

4. Northless – Clandestine Abuse

It’s safe for you to assume that this is the HEAVIEST album of 2011. In all aspects, tonally, emotionally, and instrumentally. This album would be #1 for me if I verified said heaviness via their live show (which I had to miss due to an injury). It was reported that they are heavier live. There is NO HEAVIER ALBUM THIS YEAR! Mark my words!

5. Elitist – Fear in a Handful of Dust

Elitist from Portland, Oregon on Season of Mist Records (there is a band from Texas or something with the same name playing some kind of form of deathcore) is by far one of the meanest sounding bands I’ve heard this year. And by “mean”, I’m talking about a band that could frighten ghosts back into their dimension with the sheer ferocity and fright instilled in every syrupy note played from the opening track to the end of the album.

6. Defeatist – Tyranny of Decay

Okay, this album is pretty pissed off sounding, too, but…the groove is what makes it too much fun to be considered angry! The d-beats this band pumps out are Skitsystem’d out! Unrelenting, fierce ferocity! Put this album on and work out to it at your local ‘roid & tan gym and you’ll end up with an aggravated assault charge for beating the piss out of every man and woman in the building involuntarily.

7. Virus – The Agent That Shapes the Desert

Another Dave Witte recommendation. Groovey, dissonant, surf-rock from the deserts of Mars, featuring sci-fi stories told by David Bowie. In a perfect world, David Bowie would bring these guys on tour with him as an opening act, and later perform all of Outside. It’s very likely that Virus is a band sent to us from the future as a result of the Hadron Collider creating a wormhole. Their world and the time they came from is something like that of the movie Dune. Get into it!

8. Ulcerate – The Destroyers of All

The Isis of death metal, if you ask me. Ulcerate is the most organic-sounding death metal band out there, fusing elements of post-metal (see Isis, Neurosis) with extreme metal (see Nile, Hate Eternal), but with the mindset of a doom band (see…Profound Lore bands). Their music is the soundtrack to barren wastelands in post-apocalyptic New Zealand.

9. Junius – Reports from the Threshold of Death

One part the Cure, one part the Deftones, and you have one of my favorite “post” bands out. I’ve been waiting for an album with songs as powerful as “Hiding Knives” for quite some time. Well, they did it again, but this time, every song seems to holster that very power that drew me to them in the first place.

10. Drive Soundtrack

First off, the movie was amazing. Secondly, “Nightcall” is one of the heaviest songs of the year, and it’s not even metal! The Daft Punk-esque heaviness of the robot vocals over the NIN-style beat wreaks havoc on my emotional strings. It’s a perfect accompaniment to the movie, and to driving your car at night.

11. Phurpa – The Sound of Dakini Laughter

You’ll need to look this one up, because I’ll bet my bollocks to a barnyard dance that you would have no idea what I’m talking about if I described to you what I’m hearing when I listen to this stuff. If you’re into Tuvian or Tibetan throat singing, but you also like bands such as Portal, check this shit out immediately. I dare you to masturbate whilst listening to this group of super-humans. When I get back into meditating again in the near future, I plan on spinning this throughout to take me into the right frame of mind.

12. Mastodon – The Hunter

This is the first time since Remission that a Mastodon album has made my year-end list! I can’t find a single thing wrong with this album. At all. Exceeded my expectations.

13. Uneven Structure – Februus

I’ll give credit where credit is due: No Clean Singing’s very own Israel (TheMadIsraeli) turned me onto these guys. I’m not a fan of the “djent” wave per se (I dig a few of the bands doing it well), but I can say that this band has one of the best singers I’ve heard in YEARS! The ambience mixed with the beautiful vocals and very carefully restricted drum-work makes this disc repeatable. I want to see them live.

14. Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore

Wrest is one of my favorite black metal musicians. It’ll be hard to convince 99.9% of you new-found audiophile djentaholics to give black metal a try, so I’ll leave it short and sweet. This album will make sense to you when you realize how ugly this society we live in really is. That’s when all black metal will make sense to you.

15. Craft – Void

Another black metal album you won’t get (whoever you are, reading this). Make yourself a time-capsule with only an iPod with this list of albums, bury it in your parents back yard, email yourself directions on how and where to locate it, and dig it up in 10 years. I promise it’ll make more sense then. If it doesn’t, you already started digging, might as well make it big enough for your body. If you do get black metal, go check out this album, and then refer to Fuck the Universe, their previous release. I’m positive this album could make a Buddhist monk assault a newborn duckling.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Harms Way - Isolation

Ghost – Opus Eponymous

Disma – Towards the Megalith

7 Horns 7 Eyes – Convalescence

Dominic – 7”

Maruta – Forward Into Regression

Rivers of Nihil – 2011 Single

Century – Red Giant

East of the Wall – The Apologist

Fallujah – Harvest Wombs

Mournful Congregation – The Book of Kings

Blut Aus Nord – 777-The Desanctification (Debemur Morti)

True Widow – I.N.O.

True Widow – As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth

Wolves in the Throne Room – Celestial Lineage

All Pigs Must Die – God is War

White Arms of Athena – Astrodrama

Yob – Atma

40 Watt Sun – The Inside Room

Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire – Visceral EP

The Black Dahlia Murder – Ritual

Converge / Dropdead – split 7”

The Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction/Ghost

Fair to Midland – Arrows and Anchors

Boris – Heavy Rocks

Aosoth – III

Last Chance to Reason – Level 2

Red Fang – Murder the Mountains

Rotten Sound – Cursed

Trap Them – Darker Handcraft

Weedeater – Jason…the Dragon

Neuraxis – Asylon

Crowbar – Sever the Wicked Hand

Motörhead– The World Is Yours

Rot in Hell – As Pearls Before Swine

Leprous – Bilateral

This post is devoted to the third of the songs I heard this morning that caused me to shout “FUCKING GOOD PANCAKE!!”, which caused my cat to spontaneously evacuate his bowels, undoubtedly because he is not conversant in Google Translate renditions of Finnish idiom into English. The fact that he is almost 20 years old and now seems prone to spontaneous evacuation may also have something to do with it. However, just to be safe, the next time I hear a song as hot as these three, I plan to whisper fucking good pancake.

This last, but not least, part of my morning discoveries is the latest pre-production track to be posted for listening by The Binary Code.  My admiration for this band goes back to a time when both NCS and the band were in their infancy, so to speak — though The Binary Code never seemed to take baby steps. In their music, they were fully mature from the outset, whereas I’m still breast-feeding.

Although we have written about The Binary Code frequently, reviewing all of their musical output to date, it’s been a while since we checked in with them. They haven’t exactly been sitting still since the release of their Priest EP last summer (reviewed here). Yesterday, they added to their Facebook band page the third of three new pre-production tracks. The latest song is called “Dark Meditations”, and it is indeed a dark, heavy, atmospheric instrumental. Part ambient cloudscape, part jolting, pneumatic riff-fest, part progressive guitar exploration, it’s just fucking good pancake from beginning to end. Cool bass line in this song, too.

Check it out after the jump, and we’ll throw in the first two pre-production tracks for your listening pleasure, too. Both of them are tremendously good. By the way, these may be pre-production tracks, but they sound pretty fucking finished to me. In fact, they sound like The Binary Code’s best work to date.

First, here’s the newest release — “Dark Meditations”:

Next up, a song called “Unexist”:

And finally, here’s “Trees 100 Feet Underwater” (which includes dreamy, clean vocals, for which we’re making an exception to our usual rule):

If you like what you’re hearing, go show The Binary Code some love at their facebook page.

A few years ago my day job took me to Spokane pretty regularly. It’s in far eastern Washington, near the Idaho border. Culturally and politically, it’s a world apart from Seattle. The town itself is not much to look at, but you drive 20 minutes in just about any direction, and you’re surrounded by physical beauty. I also liked every person I met there — every one.

There’s metal in and around Spokane. Every now and then a group of us will make the drive east to catch a tour that inexplicably hits Spokane but bypasses Seattle, and there’s usually a good turnout of headbangers. But for new bands, it’s probably not an ideal place to launch a career. Not that we really know what we’re talking about — it’s just a guess.

So our dog-like ears perked up when we saw a Facebook post from the always-interesting Jesse Zuretti (The Binary Code) recommending that his friends check out a 3-piece Spokane band called Odyssey. Not something we could resist, (a) because of the source of the recommendation, and (b) because of the band’s location.

Odyssey has just released a new 4-song EP called Schematics, which follows on the heels of their September ’09 hour-long debut album, Objects in Space. It’s the EP that we’ve now heard, and it’s very strong. No clean singing on that EP, or any other kind of singing. It’s an instrumental brain scrambler that’s completely engrossing. We’ll try to explain why . . . after the jump.

With only four songs to consider, it might not be tedious to write about each one — at least so we hope.

“Schematics” is one hell of an introduction to the band’s music — pulsing, darting guitar leads, and twittering solos that bounce back and forth between the left and right channels, with prominent bass riffing and a bit of a breakdown near the end. The first impression is that these dudes are technically very skilled, and very serious about construction of their songs.

“Fractured Dimensions” turns out to be 11 1/2 minutes long, but it’s a fascinating journey — one that starts with a slow, doomed, methodical introduction and then moves into Meshuggah-esque bass-pounding and flickering guitar rhythms. Plenty of stuttering rhythms and schizoid time signatures follow, and almost halfway through, the pace slows dramatically and a prog-metal meditation begins, which includes a very cool, fluid guitar solo. But the song ramps up again, with nimble bass arpeggios and shimmering guitars.

“Requiem” is the shortest track on the EP, with the band’s jazz influences right on the surface. It includes a silky guitar solo laid over an extremely infectious rhythm.

The closer is “Peripheral Aspects” — and this one is heavy, with distorted, down-tuned riffing, rolling drums, and hammering bass. The guitars peal like interdimensional bells and swirl like white water in a Snake River rapids. The song progresses through increasingly hypnotic bursts of beat and song, pulsing and crashing.

For every two-dozen new bands that  string together three chords and jump on the latest bandwagon, whether it be deathcore or something else, maybe you’ll find one that tries seriously to construct intricate music that engages the emotions and the mind at more than a superficial level. And the ratio of bands that can attempt that and pull it off successfully is even smaller. Odyssey is one of those bands.

So, we’re left musing about this question as we finish this post: Just how good do you have to be to play instrumental metal in a town like Spokane and get noticed? Do you have to aspire to the technical chops and songwriting inventiveness of dudes like Tosin Abasi and Navene Koperweis, or Jess Zuretti and Umar Fahim, or Chris Letchford and his comrades in Scale the Summit? Would we even know those names if they had started out in Spokane instead of the larger metroplexes that spawned them?

We will find out, as we watch what happens to Lukas and Jordan Hilker and Jerrick Crites — the promising talent in Odyssey.

Here’s a song from Schematics. If you’re feeling a bit bored with your existence at the moment, this shit will wake you the fuck up. If you like it, you can stream all the songs at Odyssey’s Bandcamp page and download the whole EP for $4.  For more info about Odyssey, their MySpace page is here.

Odyssey: Peripheral Aspects

The subject of today’s post is an interview of Jesse Zuretti, the guitarist and co-creator of the musical juggernaut that is The Binary Code (whose new EP we reviewed here).

If you’re like me, when you see the word “interview” on a metal site, you sub-vocalize the words “Fuck that shit” and click away as fast as your fast-twitch muscle fibers will allow your finger to work. Why is that? If you’re like me, there are two reasons:

First, most interview questions are stupifyingly inane. Even when the interviewer actually has a functioning brain, many of them are just fucking lazy. So they ask questions that involve no thought or effort, and they get repaid in kind with the answers.

Seriously, if I were a musician and had to answer one thoughtless, cliched, repetitive, dull-as-dishwater question after another, year after year, I’d be sorely tempted to pull an Ernest Hemingway and put a 12-gauge Boss shotgun in my mouth.

Second, a person can be an extraordinarily talented artist but still be inarticulate or simply uninteresting as a conversationalist — even when the questions are halfway decent. Being really good at one thing doesn’t mean you’re really good at everything else.  To step outside the realm of music, when’s the last time you read an interview of a pro athlete or a movie star that you actually found interesting, that made you think, that opened your eyes to a new idea?

That’s not intended as a put-down. It’s just a fact. Being a talented artist doesn’t automatically make you an innovative thinker or a fascinating raconteur, just as being a diehard metal fan doesn’t make you an adept interviewer. Many people who train and work hard as professional reporters still don’t make the grade as good interviewers, so why should we expect that just being a devoted fan is enough?

Why, then, should you read this interview? Is it because I’m an extraordinarily good interviewer? Well, fuck no. All I can tell you is that I tried to think of questions that weren’t the usual dreck. Whether or not I succeeded is something you should judge for yourselves.

No, the main reason you should read this interview is because of Jesse Zuretti. He’s one of those rare people in the metal scene (a) who is a naturally gifted musician and songwriter, (b) who listens to lots of music and thinks seriously about it , (c) who thinks a lot about things other than music, (d) whose opinions and ideas are unorthodox for this scene, and (d) who can express what he thinks in words that are worth reading — and that make you think. Also, even when my questions were retarded, he was patient and serious in his answers.

Well, at least that’s my opinion.  You can judge all that for yourselves too — but you really shouldn’t miss this. Naturally, we start by talking about the new EP, but things go off in other directions after that.   (after the jump. . . .)

INTERVIEW

NCS:  Hey Jess, thanks for carving out some time to answer our questions. The Priest EP is in the front of my head right now, so let’s start with that. A lot of time passed between the recording of “Suspension of Disbelief” back in November 2008 and “Priest”.  Lots of time I suspect you and Umar [Fahim, The Binary Code's drummer] spent listening, thinking, and playing. I’m curious about how you would characterize your musical progression between the two releases (if that’s not too broad or vague a question)?

JZ:  The progression from the Suspension album and the Priest EP took place before the release of Suspension. We had a majority of the song “Priest” written before tour with Revocation back in January of this year. We actually played half of the song on that tour (we opened with it). Since we recorded Suspension in 2008 and released it in 2009, there was plenty of time to grow during the interim.

When we got home from tour, we said we’d start writing as soon as we came back from a mere week-long break from playing. Two weeks after being home from the road, we finished up the song “Priest” and started work on “Encircled”. “Encircled” was actually written in about a day and a half worth of work. “Ocean of Light” was written before tour.

At this point, we’re already another new EP deep, and then some. I would say we’re not progressing in the same way you do when you learn something in school, but more so in a branching out kind of way. We keep digging into our influences more than anything. That’ll become more and more prevalent as the years go by.

NCS:  Compared to the creative process behind Suspension, was the songwriting process or approach that you and Umar followed for the songs on Priest different?  And did you find that the process was easier or faster, with more experience behind you?

JZ:  The process of coming up with riffs and ideas is always easy. We can come up with a songs worth of riffs in a matter of one session. The writing process takes a while. We have a way of doing things, and it works for us, so I don’t see us every straying from that approach.

NCS:  Did anyone else contribute to the songwriting/creating process besides the two of you?

JZ:  For the most part, Umar and I write everything. The lyrics are a collective effort sometimes. When we were getting the newer songs ready for the tour with Revocation, Todd [Stern] (played rhythm guitar on tour with us), and Brett [Bamberger (East of the Wall] helped with the structure of a few parts in “Priest” and “Ocean of Light”.

NCS:  For people who are familiar with Suspension of Disbelief, the biggest surprise on the EP is likely to be “Ocean of Light”.  You guys backed off the pace on that one, and it’s got a crushing, moody, “post-rock” sound.  Sounds like atypical guitar-tuning for you, too. What turned your heads in that direction?

JZ: I’m a HUGE fan of Cult of Luna and many of the other post-metal/rock bands out there. You’d actually find me looking for doom, post-metal/rock bands to check out before you’d find me looking for death metal or thrash or something. I respect a lot of the bands getting a majority of the spotlight shown on them, but I’m really not a huge fan of death metal or anything in the extreme realm. When I do find a band playing death metal or something extreme, it’s usually something with a lot of musical enthusiasm, so to speak. Like new Defeated Sanity or the most recent Suffocation album. I’d expect plenty more “Ocean of Light” style songs from us, with more detail and structure. We already have a few new tracks in the works similar to that style.

NCS: The EP’s title track is as technical as anything on Suspension, if not more so, but I also thought it was catchy as hell, and both your playing and Umar’s sound almost improvisational.  I suspect you guys are capable of playing just about any style of music you put your minds to (as I think “Ocean of Light” shows), but when you wrote and selected the songs for Priest, did you have in mind trying to solidify a “signature” sound for The Binary Code (which I would characterize as a blend of tech-death, prog, and improv)?

JZ:  We based “Priest” off of the opening riff. It pretty much demanded that we write the rest of the song by flowing from one riff into the other, one by one. It ended up being our new “Ghost Planet”, so to speak. “Ghost Planet” had the same turn out, in my opinion. Improvisation didn’t really have anything to do with it. We are very calculated in our attack when we write a song and record it. The only thing that ever ends up being moderately improvisational are solos or leads.

NCS:  While we’re talking about “Priest” (the song), I have to say I nearly busted my gut laughing when I first heard the “Nintendo version” of the song at the end of the EP.  It really does sound like the “tunes” on the first Mario Bros. game on that 8-bit Nintendo console.  What in the world put the idea in your heads to create that Nintendo version of the song?

JZ:  It was actually an idea conceived by our manager, Ben. He thought it was a cool idea to have something extra for people.

NCS:  Although I laughed the first time I heard the “8-bit” version, the more I listened to it, the more I realized that it’s almost a note-for-note replica of all the instrumental tracks on the original version of the song – including little retro electronic versions of Umar’s double-kicks and blast-beats and cymbals.  Who transcribed and transformed the original song into that 8-bit version and how the hell was it done?

JZ:  Whenever we finish writing a song, I always transcribe everything I can to the best of my abilities using a tabbing program, like Guitar Pro 5 or Tabit. It helps me get to know the riffs and the numerical aspect much more when I do this.

I’m a frequent poster on the SMNnews forums (been a member since 2004). I’m actually a “moderator” on the Between the Buried and Me forums (where the majority of my posting takes place). There are a lot of really in-the-know dudes on there posting super sweet stuff, ranging from movie recommendations, music recommendations, and other cool stuff, like…the program to transfer MIDI to an 8-bit sound. A dude named Pwnsauce on the forums posted a link to download the program, I believe. That’s how I remember it at least!

All of those guys collectively rule, as lame as it may sound to be so into a forum. They are always supportive of what we’re doing (as a band), and even me as an individual. I wouldn’t recommend passing off the opportunity to get involved with a forum filled with people with a lot of similar interests in just about everything.

NCS:  Do you think 8-bit mixes of metal songs have a future?

JZ:  I doubt it. I hope not! I think it’s a cool thing to do if you can, but not as a tool to market your band. I’m not sure how I feel, actually. HAHA

NCS:  The third song on the album, “Encircled”, is different again from the other two, though in its style it reminded me of parts of “Suspension of Disbelief (Part II)”. It has the same kind of swirling guitar lead that eventually kicks in – I don’t mean the same melody but the same technique – plus on “Encircled” it’s joined by a second guitar track that I can only call an anthem. Since I know almost nothing about guitar technique, could you describe what the hell you did on this song to generate all the diverse sounds?

JZ:  To be honest, since I’m not exactly sure as to what you mean by “swirling guitar lead”, I don’t think I can actually answer that to my fullest potential. If you’re referring to the tapping part of the song towards the end, I can try and explain it.

Essentially, I start the tapping part of the near ending of the song on the lowest string of the guitar (we’re tuned DADGBE, so on the low D string). I’m tapping triplet groupings of notes, middle finger on the picking hand, pointer & pinky on the fretting hand. Tapping in a series of triplets, grouped three notes per repetition.

Towards the very end of the song where the lead guitar kicks in, I am tapping the triplet patterns on three strings, one string into the next highest string, into the final higher string of the progression, and back down. Those strings would be, again, the low D, the A, and 4th string, the other D (in the middle of the string order). It’s a pretty common technique, as far as I know.

NCS:  The solitary piano melody that rounds off the ending to “Encircled” fits the rest of the song, at least to my ears, though it’s not an obvious way to end at all. Who is playing the piano? Who wrote the melody? And, if you remember, how did you guys conceive of finishing the song in this way?

JZ:  I played the piano parts. I wrote the melody as well. I felt the song should end that way. I wrote the original progression with all of the tapping based around the chord progression first. So the progression actually came last. I felt the vibe of the song ending without some sort of dynamic change would be selling the song short. We’re really happy with how it ended. Has a… “less cool” Faith No More vibe to it, I think. Certainly not influenced by them for that particular part, but it has a similar sound to it, I guess.

NCS:  You mixed and mastered Priest yourself.  Would you do that again?  Was it fun or a big fucking headache? Do you see any advantages in doing it yourself (apart from saving the money you’d have to pay someone else to do it)?

JZ:  It was not my favorite thing to do, that’s for sure. I also can’t take full credit, because Paul Cutri did a lot of the early mixing. I kind of worked with him to get to the middle point, and then I just finished up after a month or so away from the songs. I had to stop listening to them in order to refresh my ear from the fatigue you can undergo from listening too much. I highly doubt this will happen again the future, unless it’s a personal recording done by myself outside of Binary Code.

There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is the money aspect. And you also get to personalize what you hear. The disadvantage is most certainly the bias you create. You need to be able to objectively hear your music. I see it as a disadvantage more than anything.

We’ve been recording ourselves with Paul’s assistance and generosity for a few years now. I think we’ll be outsourcing next time around. I’m completely unschooled when it comes to recording and mixing. I don’t own gear, and I don’t work for a studio. I simply learned what I know from recording numerous times over the course of 7 years. That’s all I have to offer, haha.

NCS:  I’ve read more than once that you guys count Genesis as an influence. I think the Genesis albums that were made before Peter Gabriel left the band are just amazing (the ones after aren’t bad either, but they weren’t as revolutionary as the ones before).  I must have listened to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway a hundred times – in a row.  Do both you and Umar count Genesis as an influence, or is it just one of you, and why do you count that band as an influence?

JZ:  I’m mostly a fan of Duke, which is post-Gabriel. That’s not to say the pre-Gabriel stuff was not amazing. I’m a huge fan of what those guys had to offer. Duke is an amazing exploration in experimentation, in my opinion.

Phil Collins is a very talented guy, with amazing song-writing abilities. I can sing pretty much everything on that album, front to back. I’m not that sweet with lyrics usually, but the music demanded I memorize the words. Umar, from what I can tell, has no interest in Genesis. I haven’t discussed them with him before, and we discuss music more than anything.

NCS:  Now a couple questions that are a bit off-topic.  I follow what you write on Facebook.  You said in one recent comment that there aren’t many metal bands in your Top 10 list of albums for the year so far, with Defeated Sanity being an exception.  (I would sure as hell agree that Defeated Sanity is a massive kick in the head.)  I don’t want to put you on the spot and ask you to fill out the entire balance of your list, but tell us two other albums you would put in your Top 10 of the year so far and why.

JZ:  I love the handful of metal bands that I do actually make a point to listen to, but I’m not the biggest metal fan out there, by leaps and bounds. I find myself searching for music outside of extreme, heavy, and fast music. But I still do fancy myself some death metal when the band is right.

It took me a while to understand what the big deal was about Defeated Sanity, but it certainly kicked in hard this year with their newest release.

My Top 10 Contenders (in the heavy realm, save for Jaga Jazzist, which is a sure top spot): East of the Wall – Ressentiment; Jaga Jazzist – One Armed Bandit; Ihsahn – After; Mantric – the Descent; Yakuza – Of Seismic Consequence; Kruger – For Death, Glory, and the End of the World; Xasthur — 2005 Demo; and Castevet — Mounds of Ash. Maybe Ion Dissonance or The Acacia Strain.

I almost wish I could go back to 2009 and add Blood Oath by Suffocation to my top 10. That album RULES!!!

NCS:  One more question I have to ask based on your Facebook posts. You seem to have a fairly poor opinion of humankind in general, even fantasizing about making human existence cease to exist.  Where does that outlook come from?  And do you think it enters into the music you create?

JZ:  I absolutely hate human beings. It’s undebatable, and completely worthless to ever try and change my perspective. Unless something extroardinary happens that proves me wrong, I’m adamant in my disposition.

I simply understand that life is what it is, and I have to deal with how society has made things for us. I would not invest a single ounce of confidence in the human race, from the beginning of time to the day it all comes to an end for us (if it does). I’m an all-or-none kind of guy when it comes to this perspective.

I don’t want a handful of people to suffer, only for other humans to continue existing. If we need a social climate change, I would prefer it to be every single one of us. I include every man, woman, and child into this equation.

I have no compassion for humans as a whole. As we all do, I find there to be certain humans worth  investments. As I age, this number will probably plummet. But for the most part, I am very pleased with the humans I keep in my life right now.

I plan on living my life through my own eyes. I’m a happy guy, but I’m also very angry about a lot of things. I’m very happy to be alive, and to  experience life for what it is, but I feel it’s all at the convenience of innocent organisms trying to exist peacefully without tyranny brought on by selfish, materialistic, dogged humans.

My intention is to continue my life to the best of my abilities, and deal with it. This won’t stop me from expressing my feelings, and hopefully opening some eyes. I’m not very good at hiding my feelings about this towards most humans. I think we’re an infection, and I really don’t want to hear otherwise for that matter, until it’s proven to me that we serve more of a purpose beyond human-benefit. I plan to write more about my philosophies on the matter at some point.

NCS:  I know you think beyond the next week or even the next six months.  So let me ask you one of the really nasty questions of the hour, which I’ve been thinking about a lot since I read Ryan McKenney’s post on MetalSucks earlier this week:  How do you see being able to continue
doing what you’re doing, when most of the people who hear your music don’t pay for it, when touring may — I say may – only generate enough scratch to pay the expenses, and when the kind of day job that accommodates the unpredictable life of a touring musician pays peanuts?

JZ:  Honestly, if you can’t deal without having the “finer things in life”, don’t try music as a profession. I’m a pretty bare-bones guy at this point. I’ve had my bouts of materialism and frivolous tendencies, but those days are long gone.

I loved being on tour, and I’m willing to live like a homeless person if I have to do so in order to continue doing that. If it ever gets to the point where it’s more comfortable to tour, that’s just a bonus. But for the most part, you can be a successful band when it comes to touring.

East of the Wall should write a fucking book on that. Those guys are the most professional bunch of musicians I know personally. Brett [Bamberger] is one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life, and he lives life to the fullest, whilst maintaining a job, paying mommy & daddy-sized bills, and touring the country almost 75% of the year. If you can find a band like East of the Wall to model your business aspect of your band after, you’ll be fine.

********

The Binary Code’s new EP Priest will be officially released by the band on August 10. You can pre-order Priest here as a digital download, or as a download and t-shirt package.

We’ve made no secret about our admiration for The Binary Code. We thought their 2009 debut album, Suspension of Disbelief, was a remarkably accomplished work, both in conception and in execution (our review of that album can be found here).

In an interview that accompanied our album review, we found the band’s guitarist and co-songwriter Jesse Zuretti to be an unusually thoughtful and engaging dude. And when we finally got to see The Binary Code play live, as part of the METAL AS ART tour in January, we were blown away by the band’s maturity on stage and the intensity of their performance (as we said here).

So with all that, it should come as no surprise that we’ve been eagerly awaiting the band’s new EP, Priest, which is scheduled for official release on August 10. We’ve now been lucky enough to get an advance listen to the three songs on the EP (and a bonus “alternate” version of one of those songs that’s also included).

Our confidence in this band’s future was not misplaced. Priest represents another step forward for a band that was already bursting with talent and exceptional creativity. The more we’ve listen to Priest, the more we’ve found in it, and the more impressed we’ve become. This is the kind of music that engages on both a visceral and a cerebral level — it kicks like a pissed-off mule and makes you think at the same time.  (more after the jump . . .)

We find ourselves in a place similar to where Suspension of Disbelief left us — not wanting to review this release song-by-song (which is usually an exercise in tedium) but not knowing of any good way to sum up the music as a whole without sacrificing the fascinating variation that makes the release so noteworthy. At least this time there are only three songs to be addressed separately.

Priest begins with an instrumental called “Ocean of Light”. For anyone familiar with Suspension of Disbelief, it will be a surprise.The band has eased up on the gas pedal but added monolithic, down-tuned weight to the sound. It begins as a massively heavy, ominous slab of post-rock pounding, enlivened with a recurring melodic lead — and then it comes to a dead stop, followed by a second of complete silence, which serves as a bridge to a completely different rhythm and riff, only to be followed by the return of the original dreadnought avalanche.

The title track follows, and it’s more in line with the style of Suspension, except even more assured and cohesive in the songwriting. The song is built around a few dominant riffs —  including a memorable 5-note, minor-key passage that reappears often enough to anchor everything else that happens. Once those foundational riffs are announced at the outset, the rest of the song progresses through one improvisational variation on those themes after another, accompanied by an equally inventive progression in Umar Fahim‘s drum rhythms and fills, and Meshuggah-esque start-stop hammering in the bass line.

There are vocals on this song and the one that follows, and Mike Apprich belts them out in tight coordination with the polyrhythmic tempos. His mixture of deep growls and penetrating shrieks adds an element of chaotic violence to the tightly coordinated instrumentals.

The third song is called “Encircled”, and it’s even more technically over-the-top than “Priest”. The first two and a half minutes are a tour-de-force of constantly shifting riffs and head-swirling drums, and then the rhythm changes and the guitar lead begins to swirl, backed by a fascinating new drum line.

We don’t know enough about what causes a guitar to make this kind of swirling sound, but the technique is reminiscent not only of passages in “Suspension of Disbelief (Part II)” from this band’s first album but also the technique (though not the melody itself) employed on the memorable lead in “Oroborus” by the awesome Gojira. However Jess Zuretti makes that sound on his guitar, it’s fucking addictive.

As that swirling sound continues, a second guitar track joins in, voicing a slower, anthemic melody — until all the instruments give way to a contemplative piano solo that carries the song to its conclusion. That piano melody doesn’t have a tacked-on feel, as is so often true of instrumental outros. As dramatically different as it is from all that comes before, it still fits. It’s the final step in a cohesive musical progression.

One song left: The last track on the EP just made me laugh out loud, until I listened a few more times. It’s an electronic version of “Priest” that mimics the musical sounds from first-generation video games like Mario Bros. that debuted on the 8-bit Nintendo game console. It’s an amazingly accurate reproduction of the instrumentation on the original song, right down to Umar Fahim’s double-bass kicks, blast beats, and cymbal crashes — except it’s Mario Bros. tonality. It’s almost like a simplified blueprint of all the complexity built into the title track, aurally sketched with a kazoo.

Who knows what prompted this screwball variant of a compelling song? About all we can say is that if anyone were to wonder whether Jesse Zuretti and Umar Fahim have a sense of humor, the Nintendo version of “Priest” is the answer to that question.

With the songs on Priest, The Binary Code are once again walking through genre walls as if they weren’t there. Priest is powerful, punishing, technically complex, compulsively groovy, wildly inventive, and absolutely engrossing. Its only flaw is that it’s too damned short.

Our usual practice when we review an album is to put up one song for you to hear. But in this case, MetalSucks is currently featuring an exclusive stream of the EP’s title track, and we ain’t gonna fuck up that arrangement. You do owe it to yourself to check out the song — but you’ll have to follow this link to do it.

Priest will be officially released by the band on August 10. You can pre-order Priest here as a digital download, or as a download and t-shirt package.

One final word: We will have another interview with Jesse Zuretti to post in the coming days, so watch for it. If it’s anything like the first one we did with him last December, it will be worth your time.

We have seen the future of extreme metal, and it is bright!

The METAL AS ART tour featuring Hypno5e, Revocation, and The Binary Code is one we’ve been waiting for with bated breath for months. We’ve been curious about Hypno5e and huge fans of Revocation and The Binary Code for a while now (we’ve written about our admiration for Revocation here and The Binary Code here and here).

On January 26, the wait ended as the tour rolled into Seattle’s Studio Seven, with support from local band 7 Horns 7 Eyes — which was the biggest revelation of the night — and two of your NCS Authors were there.

This was, bar none, one of the best shows from end to end that we’ve seen in many moons. These are young bands that are capable of carrying the future of extreme metal on their shoulders.  If merit counts for anything (and unfortunately, it doesn’t always), these hard-working dudes will find a place in the vanguard and the kind of widespread notice they deserve.

For our detailed review of the performances and a big collection of our amateurish photos, continue on after the jump . . . .

This tour had the misfortune of landing in Seattle on a Tuesday night, with no bands on the line-up that have yet become household names in the community of extreme metal. The unfortunate result was a pathetically small crowd. But those lucky souls who made the wise decision to turn out for it were eye-witnesses to something extraordinary.

And the bonus for us was the opportunity to shoot the shit with guys from the first three bands on the bill as they joined the audience following their sets. Not only are all these dudes enormously talented musicians, but they’re also bright, friendly, knowledgeable people who are completely dedicated to their craft and to their fans. They played as if their audience numbered in the thousands instead of in the dozens.

Another bonus from the sparse crowd was the chance to get a front-and-center perch in the balcony bar at Studio Seven, which afforded a good vantage point for photos (and we’ve added a bunch to this page down below the verbiage).  Now if only we had a decent camera and knew what the fuck to do with it . . . .

THE BINARY CODE

This band from Jersey dives deep into the technical/progressive side of death metal, with intricate song structures, frequent tempo shifts, unexpected atmospheric guitar soloing, and occasional jazz-flavored interludes.  It’s the kind of music that demands a high level of technical skill and complete integration among the performers. We loved the band’s recently released full-length debut, Suspension of Disbelief, but really wondered if they could carry off their high-wire act in a live performance.

Well, any such doubts were erased at Studio Seven: These guys delivered a virtuoso set of music. At least to our ears, the playing was impeccable — and the sound quality was so good that the contribution of each instrument (and the vocals) was clear and distinct.  In other words, no place to hide mistakes or sloppiness.

The instrumentalists played with assurance and tremendous energy. It was particularly impressive to watch all the fingers flying across the fretboards like deranged spiders, anchored by Umar‘s machine-like drum work. And Mike Apprich‘s vocals were equally impressive.  What made this tight performance all the more extraordinary was the piece of news we got from awesome guitarist Jesper Zuretti later that night, i.e., that the two touring musicians in the band (bassist Brett Bamberger and rhythm guitarist Todd Stern) had only been practicing the set with the rest of the guys for a month before the tour started. And speaking of impressive, Bamberger looks like he’s having an epileptic seizure on stage but somehow manages to lay down some shit-hot bass riffs.

One other thing came through in the live performance even more powerfully than on the band’s CD — this music is some stone-heavy shit.  There’s a lot of muscle in the sound to accompany the brainy convolution, and man did that come across.

In short, these dudes delivered a knockout punch. With support from a decent label and more exposure from additional touring opportunities, they’re going to sell themselves big time. (I’m still in disbelief that they remain unsigned. Surely that’s got to change — and change soon dammit!)

REVOCATION

Revocation was the other band that drew us to this tour, and after the strong start from The Binary Code, we were in a right good mood as these Bostonians took the stage.  They wasted no time, launching directly into high gear and delivering the tech-infused death/thrash for which they’re already making a big name for themselves.

As was true of The Binary Code, these tech-heavy thrashers were as tight as could be. All the parts meshed together in well-oiled syncopation, and the sound was clear enough to focus on each piece of the instrumental machine. Again, no hiding from inspection – their playing was all out there on naked display, and these dudes really delivered.

David Davidson‘s shredding was particularly memorable. He was blazingly fast and creative, and he really captured the spirit of what this brand of music is all about. We also really got into the trading of vocals back and forth between Davidson’s higher-pitched shrieking, and bassist Anthony Buda’s deeper gutturals.

This was some high-energy, in-your-face headbanging fun from some guys who are finally getting the recognition they deserve after years of hard labor.  A kick-ass performance!

HYPNO5E

I feel genuinely conflicted about this French band’s set. On the plus side: Their show was extremely polished and immensely entertaining. The music is an accessible blend of avante garde experimentation, technical tempo-jumping, tribal rhythm (a la Gojira), prog metal, melodic ambience, and heavy, headbanging riffage. Veering between hypnotic mood music and crushing grooves, Hypno5e creates some very interesting noise

And as for the production quality, it was Las Vegas-comes-to-Studio-Seven: a fog machine working overtime, sophisticated lighting, a video screen displaying haunting images, superb sound quality managed by their own technician, interesting use of electronic samples and pre-recorded choruses, and constantly entertaining stage antics — including the bass player’s cavorting through the crowd, darting up the stairs to the balcony-bar, and dragging his bass down the stairs, all the while continuing to pump out the rhythms as the rest of the guys played on stage.

But here’s the rub: To be brutally honest (and that’s the only kind of honest we know how to be at NCS), we’re pretty sure frontman Emmanuel Jessua was lip-syncing. We don’t know how else to explain it when the vocalist-guitarist steps back from the mike to dig into a riff and his voice continues to come out of the speakers as if nothing had changed.

Don’t know for sure if it was just that one song or all of them, and we don’t want to go overboard about it because maybe there’s a good reason we’re unaware of. But if there isn’t, it hurts this band and it disrespects the other vocalists on this tour who are putting themselves out there, doing the hard work under pressure every night instead of taking the easy way out.

Jessua seems like a good dude, and we do dig the band’s music, so we’re hoping there’s a good explanation. And if there isn’t, we hope the fucking lip-syncing stops.

UPDATE: In response to the above comment about lip-syncing, we received the following message from a person associated with the band:

I caught you posted some coverage on the Seattle show – thanks for spreading the word. I wanted to ask where you got the lip syncing impression from though??  Emmanuel doesn’t do any lip syncing.  The band does play to a click track so their music is in sync with the video projections and samples, but no lip syncing involved whatsoever.  I understand it all comes down to personal opinion, but I really don’t want any false rumors going around.

If we misunderstood what we were seeing, we stand corrected.

7 HORNS 7 EYES

(Revelation 5:6?)

As Studio Seven sometimes does for its weeknight lineups, it saved the local band for the last slot of the evening. I had a ridiculously early morning ahead for my day job and nearly left before these dudes played their set — and man, would that have been a tragic mistake! This is a Seattle band, and I should have known better, but I didn’t.

Fortunately, I stuck around — and was completely blown away. “Epic” is an overused word in our community, but it truly suits the music that 7H7E delivers. The music is atmospheric but technical, with a crushing low end from the bass and drums serving as the platform for a combination of melodic guitar soloing and dissonant riffs and a layering of recorded melodic synthesizer tracks at strategic points.

It’s some mesmerizing shit! Think of the stylistic characteristics of Meshuggah, Swallow the Sun, Textures, and Animals As Leaders melded together. We’re not saying this band is quite yet a full member of that pantheon, but they play some original music and play it extremely well.

This quintet (which includes two pairs of brothers) has a 2007 EP to their credit (which I need to check out) and they’re working on a debut full-length for 2010. That’s one album we’ll be eagerly looking for. This is another band in need of a label, and we gotta believe they’re gonna get one!

And now, feast your eyes on our collection of photos from the January 26 show in Seattle:

THE BINARY CODE

REVOCATION

HYPNO5E

7 HORNS 7 EYES

Here at NCS, we’ve been putting a different spin on year-end listmania. Ours isn’t a list of the best metal full-lengths of the year. It’s not even necessarily our list of the best individual extreme metal songs of the year. What we decided to do was create a list of the most infectious extreme metal songs we’ve heard this year. We’re talking about songs that produce involuntary physical movement and worm their way into your brain to such an extent you can’t get ‘em out (and wouldn’t want to).

We haven’t ranked our list from #10 to #1 because that would be too much fucking work (and your co-Authors would still be arguing about it this time next year). In addition, when we started naming our entries on this site, we hadn’t yet figured out the whole list. So, we’ve been dribbling them out one at a time, in no particular order.

Of course, only after naming the first 9 entries did it dawn on us that we only had one spot left. If only our tiny brains hadn’t been hard-wired with the decimal system we could have made this “The Fourteen Most Infection Extreme Metal Songs of 2009.” But you reap what you sow. With only one spot left, and still lots of songs on our collection of candidates, picking #10 proved to be especially vexing for your Authors. But now it’s done.

Our list heretofore:

1. Asphyx: Sorbutics

2. Mastodon: Crack the Skye

3. Amorphis: Silver Bride

4. Goatwhore: Apocalyptic Havoc

5. August Burns Red: Meridian

6. Pelican: Ephemeral

7. Scale the Summit: Age of the Tide

8. Daath:  Wilting On the Vine

9.  Molotov Solution:  The Harbinger

And to see our tenth and final entry on the list, continue reading after the jump.

We started this list with a band that’s been around, more or less, for two decades (Asphyx). So it’s fitting that our final entry is a group of young dudes who made their first really big splash in the metal pond here in 2009. Actually, “splash” is a real understatement — it was more like a tidal wave.

Revocation‘s September release Existence Is Futile has garnered the kind of critical notice and acclaim most bands can only dream about. Existence has appeared on an astonishing number of “Best of 2009″ lists and has drawn high praise from lots of seasoned, discriminating observers of the metal scene. To pick one example (because he’s one of our favorites), Cosmo Lee wrote “they could be the next great metal band”:

“They have songs, not just a sound. Their songs are identifiable within seconds. They have memorable riffs and rhythms. Their chops have soul. David Davidson’s solos are amazing tightrope walks of speed, hooks, and bluesy swagger. The last metal guitarist to do that was Dimebag Darrell.”

Being critically acclaimed wasn’t a qualifying criterion for our Most Infectious list. Bands like Cobalt, Coalesce, and Converge (the three C’s) deservedly received lots of critical adulation, but their 2009 albums weren’t exactly what you’d call infectious (or at least we wouldn’t apply that adjective). But Revocation is a band that both merits the discriminating artistic praise it’s received and produces the kind of infectious tunage that we were looking for — the kind of songs that stuck in our heads and brought us back for repeat listening.

Like Daath, Revocation is a band that resists genre classification, and its sound varies almost song by song — but it is the sound of Revocation. The death and thrash influences are evident, but the songs on Existence are distinctively different and original. And apart from the superior songcraft that makes the album so memorable, it’s filled with displays of jaw-dropping technical virtuosity. As other critics have rightly said, these dudes play as if they were hitting the peak of their career after a decade of refinement instead of near its starting line. Revocation is ambitious, brash, and bound for great things. We are super-stoked to see them when they play Seattle (with The Binary Code and Hypno5e) in late January.

Existence is filled with sonic gems, but we could only pick one to finish off our Most Infectious List, and it’s “Dismantle the Dictator.” By a happy coincidence, the band just released a video of that very song.  Check it out:

Yesterday we frothed at the mouth over The Binary Code, its just-released full-length Suspenson of Disbelief, and the kick-ass “Metal As Art” tour that The Binary Code is about to launch with Hypno5e and NCS favorites, Revocation. In the course of preparing that post, we put a few questions to the band’s guitarist and co-songwriter Jesper Zuretti, and the dude was good enough to indulge us. Yesterday’s post was so damn long that we didn’t want Jesper’s answers to get lost in the rest of our verbiage, so we deferred publication of the interview til today. If you’re already a Binary Code fan or just beginning to get curious about the band, there’s some interesting revelations in there. Read our interview of Jesper after the jump:

NCS:  Is it true that Todd Stern from Abacinate will be touring with you on the Metal As Art tour? If that’s right, can you give us a hint about how you intend to integrate a two-guitar attack into the band’s previously released songs?

Jesper:  Todd will be touring with us. It sounds monstrous with Todd filling the void during solos and what not. For the most part, he’ll be playing in unison. It allows me to improvise a little bit as well. Which is very cool.

NCS:  I read that Suspension of Disbelief was recorded more than a year ago and that you’ve been working on new songs since then. Do you plan to play any of the new ones on the tour?

Jesper:  We will be playing 3 new songs live. We have a pretty long set, so we’ll change it up every night. We’re actually stoked to play this stuff since some of it was written collectively or with structural contribution from [bassist] Brett [Bamberger] (East of the Wall) & Todd.

NCS:  How would you describe the ways in which new songs you’ve been working on differ from what we hear on Suspension?

Jesper:  One of the new tunes is a doomy, post-metal song. We use a weird tuning for that particular song, which is cool. The other songs are a result of musical expansion and maturity. We stepped it up and backed it down in some areas. One of the songs we’re most excited to play is a very technical song. I know most people think we’re already playing technical music, but in comparison to anything else we’ve written, this one far surpasses the technical extremity found in our previous material.

NCS:  Completely random question (which I ask solely because I grew up in Texas): I read that you were born in Santa Fe.  How long were you there before you moved to NJ?

Jesper:  Actually, I was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, but raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico from the age of 2 until 1998 (12 years old). We moved to Tampa, Florida in 1998, and then I moved up here to Rochelle Park, New Jersey in 2002 (16 years old). Few years later (2004), Binary Code formed. How’s that for lineage? Haha!

NCS:  I also read that both you and drummer Umar Fahim studied performance jazz at one time (and I can definitely hear that influence in your music).  Was that in school? What caused you to shift your musical performing interests into metal?

Jesper: Umar studied performance longer than I did. I didn’t get too much performance study in while I was in school. I was still getting a lot of my prerequisites out of the way. But, Umar has studied performance for a while now. He studied with Chris Pennie (Dillinger Escape Plan, Coheed & Cambria, Return to Earth) for a long time. He also studied most recently with Jay Dittamo (Frank Zappa, etc). Personally, I’m more of a self-taught musician.  I was in school for Jazz performance at a moderately well-known jazz school, but didn’t get to delve into it too much. I got the theory & history aspect of things down pretty well through my schooling though. I’ve only been playing guitar for about 7 1/2 years now, so when I moved to NJ I really had just begun playing. When I heard Between the Buried & Me’s self-titled debut in 2001, I was so moved by it. Same goes for Dillinger Escape Plan’s Calculating Infinity. Shortly after, I knew I wanted to play guitar.

NCS:  In previous interviews, you’ve identified bands that have been influential to you.  Are there any particular guitarists you especially admire, who’ve influenced your own style of playing?

Jesper:  Pat Metheny is my biggest multi-influence. He is responsible for writing more than just his own guitar parts in Pat Metheny Group. His music moves me more than anything else I’ve ever heard. Fredrik Thordendal from Meshuggah is a huge influence on my lead guitar work. He’s basically an improvisational soloist, but he has different pieces of solos set in stone. I try to do the same thing. I’m influenced by Allan Holdsworth in a “I’ll never be able to play like you” kind of way. But I can pretend! The guitarists that have played in Extol are a huge influence on my chord progressions. Stone Temple Pilots are a huge influence on my chord vocabulary building.

[Editor's note: If Pat Metheny happens to be a new name for you, educate yourself here.  And if you want to know who Allan Holdsworth is, follow this link.]

NCS:  Is there any breaking news you’d like to share with our readers? Or any other thoughts you’d like to share about life in general?

Jesper:  We have a $5.00 debut 10 song album we’d love to see people give a shot. We’re still a DIY, unsigned band, so proceeds aren’t going into the pocket of a label just yet. We’d love to see people come out to our dates on the tour we’re doing with Revocation & Hypno5e. We also love meeting fans of our music, and make it a point to converse with anyone whom has anything they’d like to talk about. So come out, message us on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, whichever!

[Editor's note: if you got $5 to burn, you can (and should) download The Binary Code's full-length CD here.]

Last week we put up a brief, rushed post about the one-day-only streaming of The Binary Code‘s December 15 full-length release on MetalSucks.net — brief and rushed because we wanted to give our readers the chance to listen to Suspension of Disbelief before the stream evaporated into the ether. But now it’s time to explain why we thought that alert was worth doing.  And tomorrow, in Part 2, we’ll also share with you our e-mail interview with The Binary Code‘s guitarist/songwriter Jesper Zuretti. Trust me, it’s worth coming back here to read that.

First, the explanation of why we care about this band.  In three words:  shitloads of talent. At all the levels that count. Prodigious technical instrumentation; complex, beautifully structured song-writing; the ability to dive deeply into the technical/progressive side of death metal while at the same time incorporating compulsive grooves and elements of jazz; an abundantly evident creative intelligence that promises future growth. All that and more make Suspension of Disbelief a very impressive full-length debut and The Binary Code a band worth watching closely.

As a reader, I usually lose patience with album reviewers who feel compelled to offer observations about every last track on an album. But there’s so much going on in Suspension of Disbelief that I don’t know how else to fucking do it. So, here goes:

The album begins with a powerful, genre-defying one-two punch. “Suspension of Disbelief (Part I)” is a furious, pummeling, riffage-and-blast-beat-filled onslaught that showcases the band’s technical talent. And then without warning, the music shifts gears into “Suspension of Disbelief (Part II)” — a prog-metal influenced, largely instrumental track that begins and ends with down-tempo atmospheric soloing with high-intensity riffage packed in between. “Mechanical Seas” is tech-death with a groove, but punctuated with melodic synth interludes. “Ghost Planet” is more blast-furnace death metal, featuring a mix of deep gutterals, high-pitched shrieking, and chants; screaming guitar interludes; and some awesome syncopated interplay on the low end between bass and skins. And then there’s a “what the hell?” moment: The closest label I can affix to “Void I” is metal-infused progressive jazz.

Following a brief musical interlude, the band then launches into “The Story,” another genre-bending, technically complex piece with multiple tempo changes, jazzy interludes, and even more vocal variation (including flashes of clean singing). Following another brief instrumental interlude, the band explores the “Human Condition” — more unexpected tempo changes, brutal vocals, crashing riffs and machine-gun bass-and-drum work alternating with more episodes of progressive jazz. “Awaiting Necropolis” is another foray into tech-death territory with probably the most head-bangable rhythms on the album. And then, to finish off this mind-blowing collection we come to “Void II,” another melodic, jazz-influenced number.

There are other bands on the scene that self-consciously force together an eclectic blend of technical styles in what can only be described as pretentious showing off. What saves The Binary Code from that abyss is a truly remarkable level of technical skill coupled with a superior approach to song-writing that somehow makes all this craziness fit together in a satisfying whole.

Guitarist and principal song-writer Jesse “Jesper” Zuretti was once asked which bands he would like to tour with, and he named Sikth, Textures, Scarve, A Life Once Lost, Meshuggah, Extol, Cult of Luna, Cave In, He is Legend, Porcupine Tree, Portal, Soreption, Katatonia, Converge, Lewd Acts, the End, the Ocean, Decapitated. Pretty cool list, huh? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have picked out those particular bands as influences on Suspension just from listening to the album, but having read the list, I can hear something of almost all those bands in the mix — hard to imagine, but check it out for yourself. (MetalSucks has ended the free streaming of the entire CD, but the album is available for download at the bargain price of $5 at this location.)

What’s even more wild is that Suspension of Disbelief was recorded more than a year ago, in November 2008, and Jesper tells NCS that the band’s sound has continued to evolve since then (some details about that tomorrow).

Amazingly, The Binary Code is still unsigned, but I have a feeling that state of affairs won’t last much longer.

TOUR NEWS

The Binary Code will be touring with French metallers Hypno5e and the awesome Revocation on the MetalSucks-sponsored “Metal As Art” tour, which kicks off in NYC on January 6.  This is going to be a kick-ass show.  I haven’t yet checked out Hypno5e, but Revocation’s 2009 release is just amazing, and the chance to see them and The Binary Code on the same bill isn’t an opportunity to be lost. Jesper also tells us that the band will feature a second guitarist on the tour, Todd Stern from the band Abacinate. Can’t imagine what this band will sound like with a two-guitar attack, but we’re damned sure looking forward to finding out.

We’ll be there in force with this tour hits Seattle in January, and we’ve got the full list of dates and places below. But first, check out the band performing two songs live in NYC last month.

Here’s the full list of dates/places for the Metal As Art tour:

January 6 Brooklyn, NY Knitting Factory
January 7 Allentown, PA Crocodile Rock
January 8 Buffalo, NY Broadway Joe’s
January 9 Akron, OH Annabell’s Bar and Lounge – FREE
January 10 Mt. Clemons, MI Hayloft
January 11 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle – FREE
January 12 St. Louis, MO Fubar (w/ LYE BY MISTAKE)
January 13 Fayetteville, AR George’s Majestic Lounge
January 14 Oklahoma City, OK Conservatory
January 15 Dallas, TX The Lounge on Elm
January 16 San Antonio, TX Zombies
January 17 Austin, TX Red 7
January 18 Amarillo, TX War Legion
January 19 Gallup, NM Juggernaut
January 20 TBA
January 21 Los Angeles, CA Ultraviolet
January 22 Ramona, CA Ramona Mainstage
January 23 Santa Cruz, CA The Parish
January 24 Sparks, NV New Oasis
January 25 Portland, OR Ash Street Saloon
January 26 Seattle, WA Studio Seven
January 27 Spokane, WA The Cretin Hop
January 28 Boise, ID Gusto’s Bar
January 29 Salt Lake City, UT The Outer Rim
January 30 Denver, CO Old Curtis Street Bar
January 31 Lawrence, KS Replay Lounge
February 1 Des Moines, IA Vaudeville Mews
February 2 Kansas City, MO Riot Room
February 3 Nashville, TN The Muse
February 4 Cincinnati, OH Dirty Jacks
February 5 Baltimore, MD Sidebar
February 6 Trenton, NJ The Championship