(written by Islander)
Your muscles are about to reflexively twitch, your head is about to hammer, your pulse is about to accelerate. Audio worms will slither into your ear canals and take up residence there. Some of your cranial neurons may start spinning, creating visions of fast devils and hulking monsters.
Those are our predictions of what will happen when you see and hear the playthrough video we’re premiering for the song “Synaptic Confusion” by the Ottawa-based death metal band Harvested. It’s an excellent way to rev up your own motor as Harvested rev up theirs.
Album Line-up: (L-R) – Jacob Collins – Drums, Vitto Oh – Guitars, Mitchi Dimitriadis – Guitars, Adam Semler – Vocals, Eric Forget – Bass
Photographer Credit: Kristen Semler
This isn’t our first go-’round with Harvested. Three years ago we premiered their explosive self-titled debut EP, which we described this way:
Drawing influence from the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, and Hate Eternal, Harvested blast their way through five ferocious tracks that combine visceral destructive power, megawatt vocal intensity, and the kind of high-speed technically impressive performances that tend to pop eyes wide open.
Now in 2025 Harvested will be releasing their first full-length, Dysthymia, a 9-track album that delves into the complexities of mental illness and it’s ominous connection to the human psyche. The band introduce it with these words:
This album is an evolution of the band’s sound and showcases our musical abilities more than what we presented with the 2022 EP debut…. It’s a level up in production, songwriting, and musical prowess, so this album will be what Harvested is all about. Heavy, aggressive, in-your-face experience; riffs that hook and engage the listener and keep them wanting more. Lyrically, we wanted to maintain the brutality but with a psychological aspect to it as opposed to exclusively encompassing gore.
And now we ought to turn to the main subject of this article — the video playthrough of “Synaptic Confusion“.
Lyrically, the song describes someone who can’t tell the difference between a dream and reality. Musically, as we’ve already hinted, it’s a groove-monster from start to finish. It’s groovy when the band are moving like cheetahs and it’s groovy when they’re lumbering like pachyderms.
The band do move fast, with spidery fingers flying and kit-work muscles triggering. At speed, the riffing rapidly roils, brazenly blares, and viciously jolts, channeling a violent dimension of madness. In the song’s slower phases (the most compulsively headbangable ones) they create a cold and dismal mood, even as the rhythm section vigorously clatter and throb.
Through it all, the vocals roar like a ravenous bear, and the band also toss in a quick but attention-grabbing solo that ecstatically swirls, adding a different dimension from everything else.
To repeat another point we hinted at earlier: The song is also as catchy as chlamydia. And it’s lots of fun to watch these dudes do what they do, in addition to hearing it.
HARVESTED LIVE LINEUP:
Adam Semler – Vocals
Mitchi Dimitriadis – Guitars
Vitto Oh – Guitars
Eric Forget – Bass
Nick Rodgers – Drums
Dysthymia was produced by Harvested with mixing and mastering by Joe Lyko of Darkmoon Productions, and it features artwork by CJ Bertram. They will self-release it on August 1st, and you can pre-save and pre-order it via the links below.
After the links we’re also including the band’s videos for the new album’s opening track, also named “Harvested“, and a song called “The Infestation“.
PRE-SAVE/PRE-ORDER:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/harvested1/dysthymia
https://harvested.bandcamp.com/album/dysthymia
FOLLOW:
https://www.instagram.com/harvestedband
https://www.facebook.com/harvested666