5 out of 5

Label: Relapse Records

Producer: Martin Bisi (engineer)

They found their bassist in Colin Marston, which apparently allowed guitarist Kevin Hufnagel to fully unleash his inner wank, then hooked up with Martin Bisi over Albini’s organic hook for last album Pretest, and fuckity fuck if Dysrhythmia didn’t then drop one of the best, hardest hitting, most impressive instrumental prog/metal/whatever albums of all time.  I’m sure I should be voting in favor of later era, but that’s when they start to over-capitalize on everyone’s intense skill, and the line between entertainment and wizardry can get blurred after so many minutes.  ‘Barriers and Passages’ also marks the only Dys experience, for me, that has a jaw-dropping effect due to the way it perfectly straddles the rock and instrumental wank fence, in the same way that Keelhaul’s ‘Subject to Change’ does – there’s just something very powerful about a slow intro that’s still sonically interesting (the harmonics and odd tuning of ‘Pulsar’) that gives way to a most intensely felt blast of bass and guitar (‘Appeared at First’).  Everyone’s time to shine is also in sync on the album without feeling like a showcase.  Things change shape every few seconds, true enough, but there’s room for noting how awesome the time changes are and how they interplay with the bass, and how the bass drops into rhythm while the guitar chops up, only to switch places for the drums to then reinstate a new time… and Bisi gives the sound a perfect edge to sound just fucking raw (from the opening bass on track 2 you know its no longer ‘Pretest’) but it never slips into mash or slop.  Again, ‘Subject to Change’ comes to mind for the way it doesn’t make you feel out of place for headbanging but also gives you faith that these dudes could stand on stage and impress any technical music worshipping duders…

The album is fairly short at less than forty minutes, but this is perfect for music of this type.  The band does what it can to give you time to breathe with the seven minute midpoint ‘Seal / Breaker / Void,’ which brings back some of the slower rumbling dynamics of previous albums to great effect – making the speed metal on either side of this track that much more effective – and even manages to figure out how to seal the deal and top themselves, repeating the intro / crazy awesome loud song combo but embellishes where appropriate, stretching the lead-up out to about four minutes and knocking off some of noodly trim to conclude with powerful chords we can all stomp our feet to.

Perhaps the only downside of this is that you’ll be so amazed by most of it that you’ll forget that you put it on to be angry and smash stuff.  The band – and all the players involved – are musical geniuses, and their compositions in their various bands are almost always worth a listen.  But it’s hard to construct full albums that both impress and are enjoyable on a core level.  ‘Barriers and Passages’ is an example of an album that meets those goals… and is also one of the best discs in the genre.