{"id":66828,"date":"2017-06-01T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=66828"},"modified":"2017-06-01T07:06:20","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T12:06:20","slug":"tech-death-thursday-apotheon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/tech-death-thursday-apotheon\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Death Thursday: Apotheon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>This was supposed to be another EP roundup, but I ended up listening to\u00a0<strong>Apotheon<\/strong> over and over instead. For good reason, too!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>News:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s another new <strong>Contrarian<\/strong> song up, and it sounds like they&#8217;re going hard on the prog this time around. Check out &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n9ksxXKoUMs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memory Eternal<\/a>&#8221; and look for\u00a0<em>To Perceive Is To Suffer<\/em> on July 28th.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Divinity<\/strong> have completed the final part of their <em>Immortalist<\/em> trilogy, and you can now stream the full thing at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metalinjection.net\/latest-news\/listen-to-technical-metal-masters-divinity-wrap-up-their-trilogy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Metal Injection<\/a>. I haven&#8217;t really paid much attention to the band until now, but trust me when I say this is worth your time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Beyond Grace<\/strong> have a classy new video for &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=InKg3ZzUXmE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oracle<\/a>.&#8221; It strays far from typical tech death music video conventions in that it&#8217;s actually worth watching. Look for\u00a0<em>Seekers<\/em> on July 7th.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=607869167\/size=venti\/bgcol=FFFFFF\/linkcol=4285BB\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>Apotheon<\/strong>\u00a0is a band I&#8217;ve been meaning to talk about for some time now, and with a new EP just around the corner, it&#8217;s about time I gave them their due. I&#8217;ve mentioned them briefly before, but for those of you who don&#8217;t recall, the band&#8217;s first EP was a pretty solid piece of progressive melodeath.\u00a0<em>The Ascension<\/em> did everything right; the band put songwriting first, never letting the technical aspects get in the way of the music. There were plenty of impressive instrumental acrobatics going on- the guitars have tons of counterpoint melodies and beautifully layered chords, and the drums are super creative- but the performance was very human. I believe this was in large part due to the production; it doesn&#8217;t sound like anything was quantized and the drums aren&#8217;t triggered, so you can tell that there are actually\u00a0<em>people<\/em> playing the instruments. The songs aren&#8217;t overly long, and the whole thing is wrapped up in just over 20 minutes. It&#8217;s great if you&#8217;re in the mood for something forward-thinking and melodic, but don&#8217;t have the time (or attention span) to sit through a full-length prog outing.<\/p>\n<p>The band&#8217;s next outing,\u00a0<em>Mechanically Consumed<\/em>, mixes things up a bit without sacrificing too much of the sound they established on\u00a0<em>Ascension<\/em>. It progresses much the same as the first album and is similar in length, but for this go around, they&#8217;ve explored their technical side a little further. It&#8217;s the same on an emotional level and still has a lot of groove, but there&#8217;s a lot more motion in the guitars in particular. Leads and solos are more prevalent before, ebbing and flowing in vibrant arpeggios performed with immaculate technique. At times, they resemble what\u00a0<strong>Arsis<\/strong> might sound like if they were lighter in tone (one solo on &#8220;Tyken&#8217;s Rift&#8221; in particular sounds like an alternate take of Ryan Knight&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WA2HVDA2OAA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">We Are The Nightmare<\/a>&#8221; solo).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_83000\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ATFxLFDcv5g?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Apotheon aren&#8217;t afraid to get a bit weird here either. Even when the band is playing in standard time, the rhythm changes and accents come in places you wouldn&#8217;t necessarily expect. The handful of bounce riffs are kept interesting with some creative syncopation and melody accompaniments, and time signature changes occur smoothly without disrupting the flow of the song. One of my favorite moments on the album comes about halfway through the title track, where the music cuts to a bizarre waltz-like segment reminiscent of the latter half of <strong>BTBAM&#8217;s<\/strong> &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cn5xKJFl7NE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Prequel to the Sequel<\/a>.&#8221;\u00a0Experimentation like this is part of why I love prog metal, and the band makes it work without sounding too hokey or contrived (bonus points for using a xylophone).<\/p>\n<p><em>Mechanically Consumed<\/em> feels very complete despite its short running time, delivering a fun, well-rounded experience. Despite being a bit more sanitized in terms of production than their first effort, the band&#8217;s distinctive sound remains intact and shows some growth and experimentation. If you&#8217;re looking for something smart and succinct, then look no further.\u00a0<em>Mechanically Consumed<\/em> is out on June 20th; follow Apotheon on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ApotheonBand\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a> and check out their <a href=\"https:\/\/apotheon.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bandcamp<\/a> for all their music. That&#8217;s all for this week, and until next time,<\/p>\n<p>Stay Tech<\/p>\n<p>(Image <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ApotheonBand\/photos\/a.1475993969310485.1073741828.1471926633050552\/1920563558186855\/?type=3&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">VIA<\/a>)<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Do you have a band you would like to see featured? A new release we should keep an eye on? Or maybe you want to do some writing yourself? Then email us at techdeathtovh@gmail.com and make your voice heard!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was supposed to be another EP roundup, but I ended up listening to\u00a0Apotheon over and over instead. For good reason, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":66844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Time to tech or be tech'd, as Spear gives us a primer on Apotheon just in time for their upcoming EP.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[640],"tags":[7381,8572,5154,4287,4008],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/apotheon.jpg?fit=710%2C375&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}