Intronaut

Void (Goodfellow)
by Hansel Merchor

Void is longer and more expert at drawing the same complicated patterns and expansive brutality that Null worked so well towards. Opener “A Monolithic Vulgarity” is just that: Monolithic in the sense that sounds like a heavy metal milestone, with a spine is brutal jazz, rearing its ugly head into progressive jazz, tasty bass lines, and syncopated drums. The progressive side of Intronaut is very much present in Void, but don’t expect clean melodies or guitar wankering. This is progressive in the sense that it experiments with sounds, fucks with rhythms, and features odd tempo constructions that conglomerate at a point only to cause a big bang of brutal cacophony. “Gleamer,” for instance, is standard metal -the band’s own standard, at least – yet toward the end, deconstructs into crumbling feedback, active drone, and heavy noise. “Fault Lines” is only the third track, but it’ll have you exhausted by the second minute as abstract melodies work to a peak and plateau at that technical point where the guitar and the drums blend and work as one. Intronaut is without a doubt one of the most promising American metal bands today, and Void one of the most interesting releases of 2006.
(www.goodfellowrecords.com)