AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): APOGEAN –“CYBERSTRICTIVE”

“Canadian tech/prog death metal group Apogean presents their inaugural full-length, Cyberstrictive, scheduled for 08 March 2024 via The Artisan Era on vinyl, CD, and digital. Marking the debut with the new vocalist Mac Smith (who recently served as the live vocalist of Decrepit Birth), the upcoming album poignantly explores the dark side of technology, shedding light on its poisonous effects on our lives.”

That’s the high-level introduction provided in the PR materials previewing this Toronto quintet’s first full-length, which follows their debut EP, Into Madness, released in June 2021. And here’s a further insight into the album’s conceptual themes, which is worth understanding in advance of listening to the album — which you’ll have a chance to do now:

Across 10 songs, Cyberstrictive discloses the dark aspects of technology, taking a broader look at its impact on our minds, bodies, and souls. Drawing significant inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and echoing the dystopian excerpts of George Orwell’s 1984, the album explores the hazards of modern technology, covering risks such as sensory damage, psychological trauma, desensitization, information paradoxes, predatory practices targeting children, addiction complexities, and the erosion of creativity.

Ultimately, the album culminates in a reflection on overarching manipulation and concludes by addressing the burdensome aspects of technology, employing wordplay and metaphor to illustrate the overwhelming drawbacks outweighing the benefits in the modern digital world.

And now, of course, we have our own impressions of the music to share, as a further prelude to our premiere stream of the entire spectacle.

Apogean keep the throttle wide open for a significant percentage of the album’s length, which is all to the good because hurtling like a turbocharged engine in the red zone is one of the band’s strengths. But it also sounds like an engine designed by a mad scientist, capable of whipping in and out of different space-time dimensions as it goes.

To put it differently, the instrumental performances are executed with machine-like precision but the moving parts (and tempos) constantly and unpredictably shift, fall into a new place, and shift again, almost faster than you can take in as it happens. And the vocals move just as fast, and veer in almost as many directions, with monstrous growls erupting into raw howls and hair-raising screams as the words jet out.

The executioners’ technical skills are very obviously at a very high level, with the string-slingers capable of darting and swirling like highly accelerated starlings in flight (if starlings were prone to going off in their own tangents instead of as a flock), and the drummer operating like a furious surgeon, scalpel sharp as well as maniacal (and bludgeoning). But they deploy these skills in fascinating ways — no mere blizzard of notes and beats here, but displays that manage to create head-spinning visions rather than tornadoes of cacophony.

Another reason the songs don’t come off as scatter-brained discharges or 20-car freeway pile-ups is the band’s use of recurring fretwork and rhythmic motifs to link their manifold maneuvers together (lots of these many little moving pieces turn out to be unexpectedly memorable). Granted, to carefully identify and map out these signposts would be a challenge, but almost subconsciously you know they’re there.

Another reason is the deployment of bone-fracturing grooves, often ruthlessly catastrophic in their hulking displays of pounding brutality or jackhammering in their frenzies. They also help keep things on track, even if they’re busting up the track at the same time.

The mad-scientist and interdimensional analogs come to the fore in other ways, too — in the sudden appearance of vaporous melodic diversions, with synths and glinting notes creating eerily dreamlike drifts, or in slowly slithering fretwork excursions backed by interesting rhythm-section interplay, or brilliantly spiraling solos anchored by pile-driving blows, or gently tinkling piano keys and strangely skittering electronics, or smoky saxophone solos that somehow don’t seem at all out of place.

All these ingredients, and more, are vital in guarding against the risk of sensory overload and in keeping listeners glued in place, straight through to the haunting ambient experience that makes up the album’s finale.

On top of all this, Apogean also manage to stay on course thematically. Consistent with the album’s lyrical conceptions, the songs often create chillingly dystopian atmospheres, capturing the emergence of technological perils and their harrowing consequences.

The end result is that every song on the album is a mind-boggling and mesmerizing adventure, both bombastic and brilliant, so much so that these 43 minutes seem to fly by — and not just because the band are themselves flying most of the time. To sum it up more succinctly, what we have here is one of the most exceptional tech-death albums of the year so far, and one that seems very likely to be front of mind come year-end list season.

Enjoy!

And now for album credits:

Vocals/Lyrics – Mac Smith
Guitars – Dexter Forbes
Guitars – Gabriel Silva Castro
Drums – Jacob Wagner
Bass – Robert Tam

Guest solo on “Bluelight Sonata” by Alex Baillie (Cognizance). Guest solo on “Hueman” by Paul Walsh. Mixing/Mastering by Zach Ohren. Artwork by Mark Erskine.

GET CYBERSTRICTIVE HERE:
CD/VINYL • https://www.theartisanerastore.com/collections/apogean
BANDCAMP • https://apogean.bandcamp.com/album/cyberstrictive
EU STORE • https://shorturl.at/kxEMW

MORE INFO:
https://linktr.ee/apogean
https://www.apogeanofficial.com
https://facebook.com/apogeanofficial
https://instagram.com/apogeanofficial