5 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: Terms

You look at that credit list of two people – Christopher Trull on guitar and bass, Danny Piechocki on drums – and besides some obvious supplementary here and there on strings or horns, you’ve gotta wonder: how the heck was this recorded?

Beyond the technical question, there’s wow factor just in terms of the instrumental wizardry: precise but hammered percussion; a slippery, bendy guitar sound that slips and bends across impossible riffs a mile a minute; music that segues between U.S. Maple deconstruction, Luttenbachers freakout jazz, hardcore chugga chugga, then comparatively poppy riffage, all within seconds and without feeling overstuffed…

All Becomes Indistinct is an interesting title: alongside other downbeat or mish-mash sounding titles (Makin’ Ennui; The Plummet Section), there seems to be an awareness of how music this complex and aggressive can, at length, lose impact. But our duo counters that with a sense of balance and variation: no average song lengths, no singular “style” beyond loud, and a mood that can be either incensed or joyful, depending if you want to use the music’s energy to either dance, or go around punching puppies.

Trull’s part in Yowie is definitely a reference, but even more dialed in: every track on All Becomes Indistinct, ironically, feels like it had a point; a reason to exist; a reason – beyond showmanship – to flip-flop between its styles. That said, this aforementioned balance sacrifices some linearity: music this technical (and non-stop) encourages the group to offer us something new each song, which also means the sequencing doesn’t feel like it matters as much; that these could all be singles.

Wrapping back around to my initial How question, though: seriously. There are multiple guitar lines here, and none are exactly playing rhythm. The drums are nuts, stuffing every little nook with blazing fast fills, and every cranny with everything else. So there must have been multiple sessions to record, but… how? Who takes the lead? Mind you, this question is pointless: the recording is flawless, and sounds like all parts were somehow magically played as a full band.

There are so, so many instrumental math rock albums out there. In 2023, this one came out, and proved the genre can still amaze.