BYZANTINE

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Aug 222011
 


(TheMadIsraeli looks back at the discography of West Virginia’s Byzantine — and he’s spreading the music around, too.)

Byzantine is one of the most original, most kick-ass, most awesome metal bands in the last 10 years and SHAME ON YOU IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE.  No one else has yet reproduced their combination of Bay Area thrash metal, death metal, Meshuggah math-metal stylings, jazz fusion, and the grooves and melodic nature of the post-thrash movement and made it all work so seamlessly and so well.

I’ve always felt that the future of metal lies in bands who engage in fusions, and I think we’ve seen this become quite clear in current bands such as Revocation. But Byzantine, as an idea, is THE epitome of the modern metal band.  Theirs was (and I hope will be) the kind of direction we need to see more in this age of brutality.

So yes, the subject of today’s feature is what, in my mind, is one of metal’s most important bands.  Reviews of their (thus far) three album discography follow, and guess what?  That’s right, another download of the full thing.  Except this time we’re indefinitely hosting it, with no time limit on your freedom to grab these slabs of goodness. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

TONY ROHRBOUGH: “THE WORK”

 Album Reviews  8 Responses »
Aug 222011
 

(NCS writer TheMadIsraeli reviews the solo instrumental album from ex-Byzantine guitarist Tony Rohrbaugh.)

This review has been a long time coming and is VERY overdue. Tony Rohrbough, for those who don’t know, is the lead guitarist of progressive groove-metal masters Byzantine (a band who will be the subject of a retrospective, with a full discography download, in the post that follows this one), and if you’ve never heard of Byzantine, you need to get educated about them, because you’ve been missing out on one of the best bands of the last 10 years.

I’ve had this album for 3 months now, trying to absorb all that it is. I didn’t want to give this a rushed review, a sloppy review, because this man is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. As a guitar player myself, I IDOLIZE this dude’s playing. The riffs he wrote in Byzantine and his solos in that band’s recordings were just enrapturing to me. I wanted to do this dude proper justice on his first solo outing, and even as I sit here and try to review this now, I don’t think I’m going to do it justice, but I will try.

Let’s establish one thing at the outset: This is a solo album, but this is not a solo album meant to show off Tony Rohrbough’s beastly shred capabilities. This is an exercise in song-writing. Yeah, there are more leads and solos than on your average album, because of the lack of vocals, but that’s far from the point. Rohrbough is creating compositions here, something most shred masters can’t do for shit on their own. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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