(Progressive Ambient) Humanoid (участники Augury, Quo Vadis, Neuraxis, Unexpect) - Remembering Universe - 2008, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

12 февраля 2008 года на лэйбле Panoptic Records (подразделение компании Disconcert Music) вышел дебютный альбом группы HUMANOID под названием "Remembering Universe"..

HUMANOID – проект гитариста канадской progressive death metal группы AUGURY Матио Маркотте. Концепцией проекта является инструментальная космическая музыка в духе CYNIC, PINK FLOYD, OPETH.
Помимо Матио в проекте также участвуют музыканты Форест (AUGURY, QUO VADIS, ATHERETIC), Хаот (UNEXPECT) и Томми МакКиннон из NEURAXIS.

Humanoid is the side project of Canadian Mathieu Marcotte of Augury fame. For his solo effort he has put along side him, his band mate Dominic "Forest" Lapointe who plays the 4 string fretless bass, ChaotH who plays a monster 9 string bass from the avant garde band Unexpect and Tommy Mckinnon, the drummer from another well known band in the business today, Neuraxis. With a line up of such stature, which plays in the biggest bands today respectively, you expect a full on metal assault. What you think and what you get is a mirror reflection, not in the sense that it is crystal clear but instead the exact opposite.

The band plays a mixture of ambient, space rock, post-rock and progressive rock. The nucleus of the band is, unexpectedly an acoustic guitar, which plays virtuosic and classical tunes. There is an abundance of ambient passages though the majority of which contain a spacey feel within itself.

When one thinks of ambient music, especially in the rock genre, one thinks of calm and composed background music. This band’s hate for the conventional norm and open mindedness to experimentation is determined to give you the exact opposite of what you expect. Thought, at times calm and serene, giving the listener a feeling similar to that of sitting in a field watching the cloudless and calm sky there is for the majority of time a sense of underlying tension, strong and uncontrollable turbulence and disturbance. The atmosphere leaks of chaotic confusion and turmoil like that of someone lost in endless catacombs thriving desperately to get out and the point black inability of someone to comprehend and understand what stands in front of him. The closest one can get to describe the effect of the music is to imagine Esoteric’s album, “Metamorphogenesis” minus the growls and played on acoustic guitar.

The music is wonderfully composed and interwoven between the guitars and the 2 bass guitars. The presence of two bassists is something extremely rare and it’s only the second time I have experienced this phenomenon, with the first time being during In Peccatum’s EP. The bass compositions, whether it be to echo the drums or the acoustic guitar or even both together adds to the spacey feel and lends to him the weird feeling that he is walking amongst celestial bodies in the endless and empty nothingness. Apart from the instruments the band also uses the voices of nature, like that of a wind blowing or the cricking of crickets and grasshoppers, to enthrall the listener, as done by bands like Red Sparowes and herein lies the post-rock influence.

This ability of the band, to create such emotions within the mind of the listener is the main focus of the band. To understand the beauty and emotion of the music one needs complete silence and utmost concentration. For the casual listener this may seem nothing more than background music, but then again this type of fan base the band does not intend to create. The type of fan base the band wants is that type of music fans that delve deep into the music so as to understand and unravel the inborn mystery and the complex intricacies.

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