I'm just gonna ramble on for a moment about something silly and that no one but me cares about to make it seem like I have a DA profile for a reason:

So there's a style of music called Djent. No, you did not read that wrong. The genre name is apparently an onomatopoeia for the sound that occurs when you rest your palm against the part of the guitar just before the strings emerge from the bridge. It's basically just a style of 'progressive' metal that's so named because of the ridiculous use of the palm-muting technique. It's also characterized by the use of extended scale instruments (8 string guitars as opposed to the normal 6) and digital sound processing in place of physical guitar amplifiers.

Now, here's my bitch about this style of music: There's maybe five bands who get this label attached to them, and you could just as easily call them progressive metal bands with having to sound like you have some sort of condition that causes you to randomly insert nonsense words into your sentences. But, I'm not going to judge the style of music as a whole, apart from drawing ridicule to its stupid name. I am going to make fun of one of the most popular acts to emerge from this style though.


So, I'm specifically ragging on Animals as Leaders here, who basically just sound like Steve Vai on meth with none of the expressiveness, taste, or songwriting ability that would come with actually listening to Steve Vai. I thought we stopped being impressed with how fast someone can play years ago, but this style of music's astonishing spike in popularity has forced me to reevaluate that idea. Don't get me wrong, Tosin Abasi and that other guy in the band are almost supernaturally talented guitar players but it feels like they're doing it for its own sake and that sucks. Part of the problem is that they're an all-instrumental act, and I think having a vocalist taking the spotlight would have helped put a damper on the ridiculousness of this band. Even John Petrucci's lengthiest man-on-guitar masturbation sections are restricted to one part of the song.

My advice to Animals as Leaders would be to take ideas from Russian Circles or Mogwai, if only to learn to restrain themselves.