4 out of 5

Label: Relapse

Producer: Colin Marston

After finding their footing on some initial releases, Steve Albini helped Dysrhythmia to explore post-rock / metal space with ‘Pretest,’ a sometimes slow but at the right moments an incredibly expansive, heavy album that definitely made one eager for what was next.  And my jaw hit the ground for followup ‘Barriers and Passages,’ when the group cut the fat, shredded up and all their jammy tendencies and then rammed them through a blender of tension, resulting in an amazing album that shifts and shudders and challenges and hits with surprising impact every time you push play.  Somewhere along the way, Colin Marston’s x-gene developed, giving him ten extra arms and increasing his potential to play his 12-string Warr guitar with wankery proficiency.  Cue a million band offshoots and a million scales and riffs that are never the same.

‘Psychic Maps’ is fucking amazing.  There’s no doubt.  You cannot believe that human beings can play this stuff, can get these time signatures down, can pitter patter on their drums and then switch to slamming on them and keep the vibe going.  But as was the case with the Arctopus album I listened to (a Marston offshoot with less rock, more jazz), all the inventive riffing in the world can sometimes just be too much.  Dysrhythmia is supposed to lean more toward rock in the world of instrumental metal, and this sensibility is achieved in two important tracks – the beginning and end track.  ‘Festival of Popular Delusions,’ our opener, is non-stop.  There’s not really any kind of breakdown in the song, but it’s played with such intensity and propulsion (seriously, no one stops sweating at any point of that track) that you are whipped into a proper goddamn frenzy a few seconds in.  Although… you can’t really tell when it ends.  Because ‘Maps’ doesn’t know when to stop.  ‘Pretest’ was a bit too spacey, but what Albini keyed on (despite his inclination to step back as a producer, I’m taking that his presence influenced something, since that album is just that much different from other ‘rhythmia stuff) was that you need a push and pull for some things to really hit home.  About halfway through the album, the band remembers that again and delivers ‘Room of Vertigo,’ which sounds like something off of ‘Pretest,’ moving us through our paces purposefully, not just lettin’ loose with the jams from ‘go’ until the (digital) tape runs out.  And the same can be said moreso for closer ‘Lifted By Skin,’ which starts in the same territory as the other wankery tracks (which are technically great, but lack some of that ‘Barriers’ momentum that’s present in the opening track) before running into a sound breakdown that forces us to breathe, and closing the album out with some heavy rock.

So, yes, this is all great stuff by unbelievably talented players, and jesus christ there are only so many chords and notes and yet this crew (and the offshoots) continue to come up with new and compelling compositions.  But the lines between the different projects with which Marston is involved become a bit blurry, so ‘Maps’ works best when the group remembers that they’re on Relapse and sometimes we just expect to be able to headbang to this stuff.