Tech Death Thursday – The Zenith Passage
One does not simply retain their facial structure on Tech Death Thursday.
Today we are talking about another incredible band, but first here’s a metric fuckton of news for ya:
- Existential Animals have released a new single called “Prism Prison” which you can listen to here
- Hadal Maw have parted ways with their vocalist and in the meantime Separatist frontman Sam Dishington will be filling in for him. More on that over at Hadal Maw’s Facebook. Also, if you don’t listen to Hadal Maw you’re doing it all wrong.
- Theoktony have dropped a new single titled “Apostate” off of their upcoming album. That album will be released by Dissected Records later this year. Check it out.
- Defeated Sanity released a new track called “Generosity of the Deceased”. Mosh to that here.
- The Ritual Aura’s new single “Time-Lost Utopia” rips and you can grab it from their Bandcamp. Big thanks to NoCleanSinging for turning me on to this band.
- Continuum have announced that their debut album will drop via Unique Leader on April 21st. No new songs to speak of from these guys, however I found this and was all like this.
- Beyond Creation wasted no time in finding a new bassist and announced Hugo Doyon-Karout is the new bass player. More on that here. Time will tell how good he is at seducing dat fretless.
- Wrath of Vesuvius, also know as WRVTH have released an album sampler for their upcoming Unique Leader debut. Check it out here.
- Shortly after I wrote this article, The Faceless decided to creep me out with their timing and announce that the Zenith Passage’s Justin McKinney has joined them. Who wants to take bets on how long he stays with the band? In all seriousness though, good for him. He’s now a member of two of the greatest technical death metal bands out there. Check out that announcement here.
Phew, still with me? Good, let’s talk about The Zenith Passage. The first time I heard their 2013 EP Cosmic Dissonance I was absolutely blown away. This band writes songs and not just crazy riffs and weedlies. They combine groove, melody, Archspire-ish vocals and even a little ambiance to create some truly amazing music. If you took the Faceless and mixed them with Fallujah and a tad of Archspire, The Zenith Passage is what you would get. Incredibly precise instrumentation combine with some mind bending riffs and impressively fast vocals. One of the things about these guys that always stands out to me is the drums. Not only are they fucking incredible, but they do so without going super fast for the sake of speed. I don’t know if that makes any sense or if I sound like a crazy person, but I understand it in my head so deal with it. Check out this stream of their brilliant 2013 EP:
Late last year the band released a pre-production track that is just as incredible, if not more so than the EP. We featured the song at TOH a while back, but I’ll be damned if I wasn’t gonna make a TDT about these dudes anyway. A little label you guys may have heard of called Unique Leader Records will be releasing their debut album later this year and I am so stoked I might start Archspiring* backwards when it comes out. Here’s that aforementioned track. Note that this is pre-production!:
That’s it for this week. Until next time,
*Archspiring (/Arch’ spire (ING)) is the act of losing oneself in weedlies and deedlies and looking like a fool while flailing your arms about in a manner that would terrify even the bravest of warriors. [Editor’s Note: SMH]
