{"id":80160,"date":"2018-06-07T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=80160"},"modified":"2021-03-18T10:12:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T15:12:39","slug":"tech-death-thursday-the-beast-of-nod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/tech-death-thursday-the-beast-of-nod\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Death Thursday: The Beast of Nod"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>The Beast of Nod<\/strong> is bringing the prog jams today. Prep your hogs\/logs\/etc. accordingly.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>News:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Veld<\/strong> has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JIUWoXosjE4&amp;feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new song<\/a> out that brings the beef. Tons of beef. <em>Spawned In Nothingness<\/em> is out June 15th.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Virophacus<\/strong> is a rad new band with a rad <a href=\"https:\/\/virophacus.bandcamp.com\/releases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new single<\/a>. Check this out if you like the noodly side of tech death.<\/li>\n<li>In case you missed it, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/premiere-mordant-rapture-quell-the-voiceless\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">we premiered<\/a> a new <strong>Mordant Rapture<\/strong> song the other day that I&#8217;m all kinds of excited for. Look for <em>The Abnegation<\/em> on July 13th.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Allegaeon<\/strong> have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Allegaeon\/photos\/rpp.148508903313\/10155498294463314\/?type=3&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">begun recording<\/a> the followup to <em>Proponent for Sentience<\/em>. I&#8217;m very interested to see where they take this one;\u00a0<em>Proponent<\/em>\u00a0was ambitious, and I can&#8217;t imagine they&#8217;ll be stepping it back for their future efforts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aethereus<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheArtisanEra\/posts\/2508544942504846\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have signed<\/a> with The Artisan Era and have a new album on the way for August. This isn&#8217;t a band I&#8217;m intimately familiar with, but a cursory listen of their <a href=\"https:\/\/aethereus.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">last album<\/a> leads me to believe they are many fire emojis good.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 400px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1030525921\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thebeastofnod.bandcamp.com\/album\/vampira-disciple-of-chaos\">Vampira: Disciple of Chaos by The Beast of Nod<\/a><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">_______________<\/div>\n<p>In my experience, tech death artists are pretty good about not taking themselves too seriously, especially as compared to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metal-archives.com\/search?searchString=black+metal&amp;type=band_genre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bands in other subgenres<\/a>. That said, with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mJGbgnPI-s0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">handful of exceptions<\/a>, few seem to fully embrace the absurdity of their subject matter. Even if we&#8217;re being regaled with <a href=\"https:\/\/clavicusvile.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-nightspirits-call\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stories about Skyrim<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/valeofpnath.bandcamp.com\/track\/klendathu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">giant space bugs<\/a>, the music itself is by and large serious business. That&#8217;s not to say they&#8217;re not enjoyable- believe me, I wouldn&#8217;t scream at you about these bands every week if I wasn&#8217;t having a good time doing it- but that sense of fun can get lost in the pursuit of virtuosity sometimes.<\/p>\n<p>Enter <strong>The Beast of Nod<\/strong>, a band whose lead single for their new album is about a laser-equipped tiger whose concept of &#8220;play&#8221; involves eating you alive. While this might sound like some &#8220;lol random XD&#8221; bullshit, the band has spent what I can only assume is a completely unreasonable amount of time penning a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebeastofnod.com\/the-land-of-nod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">backstory<\/a> for a world in which it makes sense for this creature to exist. That sense of playful brutality works its way into the music as well; it&#8217;s not just window dressing. The songs bound and bob through heavy downtuned riffing and brilliant displays of virtuosity like a groovier, sci-fi-themed <strong>Protest the Hero<\/strong>. There&#8217;s also this &#8217;80&#8217;s rock-like swagger pervasive throughout the album as well; even at its noodliest, the music is perpetually head-bobbing.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_92379\"  width=\"320\" height=\"240\"  data-origwidth=\"320\" data-origheight=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3Frg3XOBwCw?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>Though the core of their sound comprises that tapping-heavy style heard in the above &#8220;Prison of Ice,&#8221; there&#8217;s a pretty hefty amount of variety on\u00a0<em>Vampira<\/em>. The centerpiece of &#8220;The Cybernetic Tiger With Dorsal-Mounted Laser Cannon&#8221; is its glorious lead motif, and &#8220;Vampira Infernalis&#8221; views their primary sound through a neoclassical lens while closing it out on a heavy note. In terms of sheer heaviness, &#8220;Ripped Off Faces II: The Cape of Faces&#8221; takes the cake, playing almost entirely in the low end with a straight up slam riff in its chorus. It&#8217;s hard to condense any one song down to a singular defining characteristic, though; all of them go through myriad ideas, frequently changing time signatures and tone.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of tone, the album sounds great from an engineering standpoint, too. The mix does a good job of bringing out all of the instruments without sounding too blasted out or compressed, and everything has solid tone as well. In this regard, I&#8217;m most impressed with the guitarist&#8217;s use of effects and pickup selection. Between the two, the music is given a ton of texture and color that is lacking in a lot of other metal bands as well as giving it that high-tech science fiction feel.<\/p>\n<p>From performance to production to theme, <em>Vampira: Disciple of Chaos<\/em> is extremely tight. It feels complete in a way that few albums do, and at a compact 40 minutes, it wastes no time, either. Technical, progressive, and unabashedly fun, <em>Vampira<\/em> is a must for fans of technical music. Pick it up at <a href=\"https:\/\/thebeastofnod.bandcamp.com\/album\/vampira-disciple-of-chaos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bandcamp<\/a> and check out The Beast of Nod on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheBeastOfNod\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>. That&#8217;s all for now, and until next time,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1hjcTbxuXVk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stay Tech<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Is your band tech as heck? Got a juicy piece of news or an upcoming release to watch? Send it my way at techdeathtovh@gmail.com and I\u2019ll check it out. I might even talk about it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Beast of Nod is bringing the prog jams today. Prep your hogs\/logs\/etc. accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":80641,"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":"TECH DEATH THURSDAY COMIN ATCHA WITH BEAST OF NOD!","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":[13081,275,13063,4008,7308,4206,13080],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/the-beast-of-nod.jpg?fit=710%2C375&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80160"}],"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=80160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107490,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80160\/revisions\/107490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}