Customer Reviews

Pretest

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

 

 

This band has really caught my attention. A very close friend of mine recommended them to me, making the extremely bold claim that they had an almost "new school" King Crimson type sound to them. I'm not quite sure how accurate that comparison is after the fact, but it inticed me to give them a try and I can tell you that having heard this album I definetely know these guys have something alot of other bands don't; foresight and musical expression.

The music is very dynamic and skillfully executed. They remind me a lot of a 60's power band with a very strong metal flavor. Not a single word in any language whatsoever is uttered on this album, it is purely instrumental. I personally love instrumental music, but Pretest doesn't seem like an album where an acquired taste for wordless music is a must. The guitar and basswork are extremely complex and consistent throughout the entire album. Unlike King Crimson however, the time signatures on Pretest, while interesting in their own right, are not as complicated or abstract leading to a much more accessible and transient sound.

Dysrhythmia is definetely something to get excited about. These guys have a lot of talent and a lot of insight. If you have any interest in metal with profound guitarwork you owe it to yourself to give this one a shot.

Dysrhythmia's Pretest is an incredible instrumental album. The first thing I notice when I read bad reviews of this cd is that those listeners are ultimately approaching the album in completely the wrong way.

Some complaints are that this sounds amateur, like it was recorded in a garage, or dissonant and poorly written. You have to first realize that this band has their roots (or at least some type of appendage) in the metal scene. If you are approaching this as a metal fan, the raw production style and dissonant, non-conventional song structures are a big part of the appeal. People who call this music poorly written or unprofessional are simply just looking for a more conventional, polished sound--which they aren't going to get here.

On the other side of the coin are the people who are expecting this to be more metal than it actually is. This band may be connected to the metal scene, but in the actual style of music they play I can hardly find a trace of metal. These are melodic, moody, beautiful pieces of music that I would consider more an outshoot of the post-rock genre with bands like Explosions in the Sky or Red Sparowes. Your typical relapse records fan probably will find this album weak and boring, because in all honesty this is not a metal album. The only metal element I hear on this album is the down tuned, rumbling, thunderous bass. This adds an interesting heavy contrast to the guitars which are generally not "heavy" at all.

Like all ground breaking albums, this lies at the crossroads of many different genres--metal, prog rock, and ambient post-rock to name the influences I see. This very fact make it un-accessible to the more traditional members of each sub-genre who want the band to play inside the lines. If you can listen to this album with an open mind to elements of metal, jazz, ambient, and progressive music you will find a very rewarding album.

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Reading this review again a few years later, I just have to laugh at the Relapse comment in light of the direction the label took. Of course they still have the obligatory low tier deathgrind bands.

This is the third release by Dysrhythmia recorded by Albini, and their first record on the metal/grind/noise label Relapse. Dysrhythmia bare strong similarities with Oxes and Don Caballero, crafting expansive, textural, metallic compositions, and if your into those bands check this out. The bass playing on this album is also amazing giving their songs a heavy and driving quality.

Also check out the Cancer Conspiracy's 'Audio Medium', they play huge progressive instrumental rock, but have now sadly spilt up.

This band looks like in a lot of ways like King Crimson ontheir instrumentals especially the B*****d. except theyre much heavier in a lot of moments, but these guys have big future certainly, theyre extremely talented players and compose awesoem intriguing music. it takes a bit to get into them but still very nicely put together. i bought this album blinfolded relying that it would be a really nice hardcore cd since its from relapse records but it is absolutely not relapse style. diversity of music makes another advantage for this great cd.

No band sounds like Dysrhythmia, they're an eclectic blend of alternate tunnings, high energy and disonant grooves, and rhythmic exparamentation. Pretest is an intense album, Dysrhythmia at their best, every song brims the tensions of city life. "Bastard" begins the album simply enough with a twangy overdriven strat line which grows into a groove where eventually all three instruments match rhythms. Some more praticularly shiny finds on this album of gems is the violent "heat sink"and the equally intense "catalog of personal faults." The Album concluds with a dark, minimalist "Touch Bennidiction" which is almost 12 minits, and gives the overall impression of solitude.

Let's get one thing out of the way right now - this isn't metal. There is no aggression, there is no heaviness, there is only a passing semblance of something you might call energy, there are no riffs, and the guitar tone is overdriven ever so lightly for 95% of the album. If anything, this is more like math rock in the vein of Sleeping People, only more drawn out.

Now, there is something very evident about Philadelphia trio Dysrhythmia - they love to jam. In fact, they love to jam so much that they seem to have forgotten all about the concept of song writing in the process. Their compositions wander around at mid tempo, moving through myriad metric shifts, employing traces of dissonance here and there, displaying a very strict attitude of non-repetition, and other idioms typical of the math/noise/spazz-rock world. So, the obvious question is whether or not their long-winded, meandering instrumental adventures are interesting enough to forgive the utter lack of structure. I'd say... probably not.

Drummer Jeff Eber is competent, plowing through rhythmically convoluted evolutions in a reasonably dynamic and involving style that's firmly rooted in freestyle fusion. Bassist Clayton Ingerson (since replaced by Behold... the Arctopus monster Colin Marston) is, without a doubt, skilled at his instrument of choice. Unfortunately, his bass sounds like the strings need to be lowered by about... oh, I don't know... a few inches. They are very loose and generate a rattling sound that can grate on the nerves after a while. On the upside, this approach also produces a heavy rumble that works well in offsetting what the guitars are doing. Speaking of the guitars - Kevin Hufnagel is an interesting thing. He sounds like he's in constant improv mode. Occasionally, weird and discordant noises will escape his guitar; other times, he sounds like he's trying out for a hippie jam band; the next moment, you might get the impression that he's trying to turn Dysrhythmia into the next Don Caballero; the next, he might be plowing through infuriating garage punk chord progressions; and the next, he's a total funk machine; now he has drenched his guitar in reverb and is indulging in feedback-heavy artificial harmonics in an attempt to create some kind of profound atmosphere; wait, is that a noisy wall of distortion I hear? ... All of this might seem really great and all, but in reality it's sort of annoying. The guitars just sound rather bland. There's no power behind them, no emotion, no energy, no cohesion, no nothing. You're basically listening to a guy arbitrarily noodling away in his own little world - to these ears, it does not work.

So, basically, if you like listening to pointlessly drawn out instrumental jams that are loosely based around progressive rock and feature elements of math and noise, go ahead and get this. If you like listening to complex rhythmic work, go ahead and get this. If, however, you want something that's actually compelling and exciting, then you might want to think about looking elsewhere.

The first thing one notices when popping this album in for the first time is that it was apparently recorded in someone's basement, and mixed by that someone's mother. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but for a band whose basis is careful, precise, complex metric shifts, this recording has a bit too distant and fuzzy a sound. Also, the bass sounds like it needs all its frets lowered by about an 1/8th of an inch - it waxes a bit rattly for my tastes.

Now on to a track-by-track analysis:

"Bastard" - despite a somewhat cliché opening, this becomes one of the stronger tracks as it moves past playing around with guitar effects. The drums, guitar, and bass work together in very nice counterpoint, bouncing around themes and shifting from idea to idea. The song has overall a nice shape, dipping into a mellow section about halfway through and building back up.

"My Relationship" - the title sounds like it could be a punk song, and lo, a driving, simple bass figure kicks off this song. From there, however, with the help of the guitar, some much more interesting areas are explored, briefly.

"And Just Go" - the best opening yet, moving from a pseudo-improv-solo into a riff that could be from the minds of Bozzio, Levin, and Stevens as easily as from Mogwai. It doesn't let down after that, either, spinning out lines and always maintaining interest.

"Heat Sink" - and after a great track, back to the over-distorted guitar fuzz characteristic of track 2. After spending a minute and a half exploring an uninteresting lick, things improve, though not enough to make this one of my favorite tracks.

"Running Shoe Of Justice" - the intro sounds like an improv session, with the guitar sort of playing around with one idea, and then never really going anywhere especially great afterwards.

"Annihilation II" - another calm, melodic intro that builds slowly; in fact, the entire song is basically just an introduction, but in a good way.

"Annihilation I" - the conclusion... or is it the introduction?... well, it's where the last track was headed all along, anyway. Unfortunately, it doesn't make it all the way there, and kind of spins off into oblivion at some point.

"Catalog Of Personal Faults" - "item 1: I wrote this song..." No, kidding, but it just doesn't really seem very cohesive; it's kind of just a five-and-a-half minute vamp.

"Touch Benediction" - a very slow, rolling sort of exposition, never pushing anything too hard, just gradually swelling, shifting, pulling back - very calm, never getting overdone, and bringing the whole album to a very nice close.

-bt

I had heard a single from Dysrhythmia from a different source and was blown away by the richness of the recording quality and by what a tight unit the band is given the off time signatures they employ. So, I took a chance on "Pretest" but found it, however, to be the stark opposite-- a garbled mess of directionless "song" writing, unlistenably dissonant chord structures, poorly executed rhythm changes, and generally misappropriated recording studio rental fees. I sold it the same day I bought it.