(Given our DGR’s proclivities in musical taste it was just a matter of time before he got around to reviewing the debut album from Unaligned, which was released by Transcending Obscurity Records in September. And now’s the time.)

Fireworks are pretty much illegal in the glorious nation of California. Something about the state being a massive tinderbox in the spring and summertime thanks to our brand new, shiny, and totally not climate change related weather pattern of atmospheric river into complete and utter drought means that even the slightest butterfly fart has the risk of igniting Santa Monica and reducing it to ash. That’s not to deny that the appeal isn’t there, and a brightly colored explosion is immensely and undeniably fucking cool, to say the least.

But, if we cannot have our yearly culling of hands and other extremities by some of the less bright among the shedful of lightbulbs that is our populace, we can seek other ways to chase after that high. What about musically then? Perhaps that is why even though it has long ossified into its own form of genre, tech-death seems to hold on out here. From any source, all across the nation, we will more than happily absorb that wall of notes and pyrotechnic instrumentation. We are the one of the homes of the big ramp of the X Games after all, and what is tech-death if not the musical idea of lining up a whole bunch of fireworks all in a row, setting them off at the same time, and then launching yourself across a forty-foot gap while attempting to land some sort of trick?

Tech-death is the very existence of “why can’t it just be the big ramp all the time”. With subtlety now strapped to a rocket and launched into space, tech-death itself has been a vibrant home to foster all sorts of wild musical showmanship, and surprisingly, it still shows no sign of slowing down. The latest evidence of that comes to us from all the way across the country in Florida’s Unaligned and their September-released album A Form Beyond. Continue reading »