Customer Reviews

Nano Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

(Instrumental Proficiency 6 stars)

Holy.....!? Well, I don't really know how to start this one. This band and album would probably not appeal to about 98% of the music-buying public out there, but it is simply incredible. If the band's name and album title weren't enough to give you the impression that these guys simply aren't interested in commercial success or pop appeal, wait until you get a load of the music. Whew! I am exhausted just thinking about it. Behold the Arctopus play an unbelievably intense brand of experimental/progressive/metal/post-rock/ambient/funk/techno/trance/fusion/whatever that will instantly appeal to any musician by sheer force of it's ballsy, I-can-play-better-than-anyone-youv'e-ever-seen brashness. Insanely convoluted, technical, original, and just plain weird, this album is worth checking out, especially for anyone who likes displays of virtuoso musicianship. Plus, the new Metal Blade reissue version contains live versions as well, proving that they can pull this stuff off live. Progressive jazz-metal on Ritalin. Since these guys are now apparently signed to a relatively big label which releases a lot of super heavy music, it should be interesting to see what they do next. These guys can play.

If Frank Zappa and King Crimson birthed a schizophrenic, demonoid love child it would resemble this band. Its dark and chaotic, but unique and grotesquely beautiful. An oxymoron, yes. Does it describe the music aptly, possibly. This cd is noisy but exact. Its a compilation of their two previous cds, which only consisted of 3 or 4 songs each, plus a live set. Yes they can reproduce these songs live, they are not just studio productions. Quite an accomplishment for the old school power trio. It helps having an astonishing bass player, who technically plays a Warr Guitar. For those that don't know, a Warr giutar is a seven to fifteen stringed guitar/bass like instrument with the range of both a guitar and bass that is usually played by touch or tapping the frettboard using both hands but can be played other traditional ways as well. Thus giving this band a unique sound. The drummer is insane and flows through each tempo change naturally and the guitar player (standard guitar) plays counter-point to the warr guitar franticly, like a Larry Lalonde (Primus) on meth. I can't wait for a full length cd of original material from these guys. Until then buy and enjoy this cd. Keep an open mind. This is hardly for the average music fan.

Progressive mind blowing insanity. A must have for fans of Dysrhythmia, Colon Marston never fails to amaze.

This is my first experience with the Arctopus, and I'm sure it won't be my last. Behold...THE ARCTOPUS have a great combination of technical metal/jazz metal going on; Sometimes it will rend and flay your head and upper torso into a steaming pile of fleshy tissue, and at others it will sound like very laid back, melodic type of Jazz/Jazz metal. They Kinda remind me of "Cynic", That is If Cynic lost the keyboards and robo voices, and shot themselves up with steroids and Caffine.

This touch guitar stuff is crazy, its got me very interested in finding out more about the instrument, as I have never heard of them before. And another amazing thing about this band is that it is a three piece. I could swear that they have 2 guitarists and a bass going sometimes. The only thing I have against them is that the guitarist is prone to go into wild shred-fests every now and then, which can get on my nerves sometimes.

But everything else about this EP is top-notch stuff. It might not be very long, but when you listen to it, every second feels like three because of the insane complexity of it all. But also not to be overshadowed are the beautiful mellow passages like in Sensory Amusia...Man its so relaxing and peacefull, you could listen to that in a cafe...although 60 seconds down the line you might listen to it at a destruction durby, or at a construction site.

The arctopus has also recently signed to Metal Blade records,(Home of Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia murder, etc)
So If you enjoyed this Ep like I did, Im sure that even better material will be coming from the Arctopus in the very near future. Keep Your eyes on these guys.

I haven't been this blown away by a new release in years! Both the chops and compsition on this disc are way over the top. Although they are often described as progressive metal, I agree with reviewers who point out that the don't play any of the "routine" metal stuff you hear on alot of other CDs in this category. The closest musical comparison I can make is with King Crimson. Infact I find there music satisfying in some of the same ways. However, they maintain a level of relentless intensity that I've never heard on a Crimson record. Think what it might sound like If Buckethead recorded an album with The Ruins and you might get the picture!

BEHOLD THE ARCTOPUS - Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning.
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This is 3 piece instru-metal Act, which takes influences from such Tech-Metal greats as Death, Atheist, Cynic, and Voivod. And even some influence from the Larks Tongue or the Discipline-era King Crimson days. They employ the use of a Warr Guitar which to my knowledge has like 10+ Strings and is about as big as a Ford Focus. (Essentially it is a bass and a guitar and so much more all in one.) Then they use another regular guitar and, of course, the drummer. Sound wise it is incredible and only further gives the band a sense of originality. This EP alone puts them up with the musicianship of modern greats such as Dillinger Escape Plan or the, also instrumental, Canvas Solaris.

As amazing as this album I do cite 2 minor flaws:
1.) The production does not give this band the justice they deserve (probably due to budget constraints... which leads to point #2)
2.) They only made like 800 copies... Which is a sin, a band this talented deserves more way recognition.

The potential these guys is through the roof - Honestly any fans of insanely technical yet smooth flowing music should keep their eyes and ears out for this fine young band.

Favorite Songs: There are only 4 Tracks and they are all equally amazing!
-4.5 Stars


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True to the album title, what you essentially have here is three superhero musical cyborgs who have been summoned from some future technological utopia with the sole mission of completely redefining the present world's perception of what technical metal is, along with the stale boundaries that constrict the genre itself. They manage to do this throughout the course of an album that is approximately 17 minutes long, though the pacing and density of the music found within is such that albums four times as long may seem empty in comparison. In fact, the music on Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning is so dense and frenzied that even the guys who created it were initially unable to play it - that's right, the songs here were conceived on a computer and had to be extensively practiced by the band before they were able to recreate the madness live. Some may scoff at this, but hey - if the tools are available to you, why not use them? As far as I'm concerned, the end result more than justifies the means in every way imaginable.

The centerpiece of this show is the Warr Guitar, a 12-string monster of an instrument that covers the range of both bass and guitar and is primarily played by tapping. Colin Marston, also of Dysrhythmia, handles this thing in commendable fashion (especially considering that the thing is almost bigger than he is). However, the real wonder surrounding this is not the fact that this instrument is rather atypical for metal, but the manner in which it is played. The fret runs that are performed on this thing compounded with the sheer frenetic speed of the music and the possible range of tones make the performances simply stunning.

There's also a typical electric guitar played by Mike Lerner, who spends most of his time shredding and tapping at triple digit BPM speeds like a frenzied chimpanzee, though occasionally he brings down some impressive riffs or goes into groove-mode and lets Colin take the stage. Drummer Charlie Zeleny, quite simply, demands respect... and sympathy. Not only does he manage to keep up with the remainder of his band in terms of pure speed (which is a mammoth accomplishment in and of itself), but he also plays polyrhythmically and maintains diverse and constantly shifting patterns that never descend into trite double-bass abuse... or maybe he just hits random drums and cymbals as fast as possible. Whichever it is, he holds his own throughout. Fun fact here - Behold... the Arctopus were originally known as We Need A Drummer because of how hard it was to actually find somebody insane enough to play their music.

The songs themselves are instrumental flurries of high-speed freestyle metal complemented by bursts of noise, forays into acid rock and stoner groove, touches of free jazz, moments of doomy ambience, and even vast expanses of blissful atmosphere. The opening track, "Exospacial Psionic Aura", is probably the best thing on here and is also a prime example of everything mentioned above. It instantly slams you in the face with furious noise before taking on some semblance of a followable rhythm; then, around a quarter of the way through, Colin takes the forefront with a regretfully brief and gorgeous piece that sounds like two guitars and a bass playing different melodies at the same time; the song continues on in quite a schizophrenic manner before collapsing into a mess of noise at around 5:20 or so. At this point, Colin puts out a deep bass slide that explodes into the most unexpected thing - a 2+ minute long stretch of dense, atmospheric guitars and a flowing, dynamic, and expansive drum performance from Charlie that should leave your jaw on the ground (or if it doesn't, will at least make you say, "Damn, that was awesome!"). The track ends with a splash of dissonance, and fades into "Estrogen/Pathogen Exchange Program". Nothing too exciting going on here at first - a few minutes of ambient doom-like noises, and then the band comes in with quite an irregular beat. The real beauty of this track is towards the end, where the guitars drop out and Charlie comes in with a solo spot that begins with an unspectacular series of high-speed rolls, but gets interesting real quick as he gradually slows the pattern down more and more, eventually to the point where you can distinctly and easily tell apart each individual drum hit that makes up the overall pattern. It's a very cool approach that I've never heard from any other drummer in the past, so that was a huge plus for me.

The last track, "Sensory Amusia", has another unexpected occurrence around half-way in, where spastic metal suddenly lapses into a stretch of soothing jazziness not unlike what you might hear on a Bela Fleck and the Flecktones record. Very beautiful interplay between bass, guitar, and drums. Doesn't last very long before collapsing back into noisy mayhem, though.

This is quality. Without a doubt, one of the crowning achievements of insanely technical, eargasmic, impossibly dense, instrumental avant-metal. Many of the tech bands around these days can take a few lessons from these guys.

I'm eagerly awaiting a full length.

I don't know how long i've been waiting for this...ever since becoming a fan of them about two years ago when I came across their website. This is...tech-metal perfection, and I love the more melodic parts that they added to their songs...when I first heard them they made my jaw drop. Colin, Mike and Charlie...I love you guys...as long as you keep cranking out the music, i'll always be listening. Seriously, this is some technically ferocious,orgasmic,cranium crushing instrumental prog metal and will be loved and coveted by musicians and metal/avant-garde fans everywhere!

I'm writing this review after having just heard this album (multiple times) for the first time this week. Unfortunately, this CD comes off as good - not great - with not much replay value. There's no doubt these guys can all play their instruments, but production leaves a bit to be desired. This is avant-garde instrumental metal and it is indeed done well, but it has been done much better by others. It's very technical in nature but really fails to grab my attention like I was waiting for through the whole CD. It just never quite crossed the threshold for me that makes music like this interesting and fresh. Then again, my, "standard" for this type of technical instrumental metal is the likes of Ron Jarzombek's projects, Spiral Architect (not all instrumental, but the music is very complex), Sleep Terror, Exivious, etc.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying this is bad music, nor am I saying it's a bad album! I rated this 3 stars because of the point in my musical life that I have discovered this album. Perhaps if this album came along prior to me hearing the bands I listed above, I would had been a bit more floored. Between that and me being a technical musician (guitarist) myself, this album just doesn't keep me interested. If you're a die-hard fan of all technical instrumental metal, by all means, snatch this album up. If - by chance - you're no stranger to the realm of technical instrumental metal, you may not find this as enjoyable for you as the other reviewers have found it. Good music, talented musicians, but just came along too late for me to appreciate it like I would have a few years ago prior to hearing bands who do this better.

Having said that, this music *is* interesting enough for me to check out the latest works from these guys just to see where their music lies, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Are you kidding me??? This is music is SO far ahead of its time. Take Canvas Solaris and Dysrythmia, throw in DragonForce with a dash of King Crimson and KTU and yes Hendrix too and you may sort of get the idea of what this band has in store for your brain cells. NO words can describe it!! Just buy it and Behold....the Arctopus. Now I am off to fix the roof and get a new dog. I highly recommend removing your pets from the listening area as they may never be the same. I know I am not after listening to this MASTERPIECE Jazz/Fusion/Metal onslaught!!!!