Album Review: The Contortonist-Intrinsic

Indiana's The Contortionist made quite the splash on the metal scene with their 2010 debut Exoplanet. It was a hell of a debut that showed off their talent as a band as well a progressive-based sound that was dynamic from most of their peers in the deathcore genre. Their sophomore album, Intrinsic, takes The Contortionist to new territories with their sound while still maintaining the same level of quality as Exoplanet.

Intrinsic sees The Contortionist making a pretty dramatic shift to a more straight-forward progressive metal sound while still retaining the death metal/deathcore sound they had in the past. It was refreshing to see a band change their sound while maintaining the quality of their previous music. The Contortionist definitely put an end to the trend of band's changing their sound while sacrificing making good music in the process (I'm looking at you Baroness). The Contortionist gets their most daring and experimental song to date out of the way first with "Holomovement". This song sees vocalist/ keyboardist Jonathan Carpenter capturing his inner Paul Masvidal as he showcases his much improved clean vocals over extremely melodic guitars and atmospheric keyboards. It will definitely immediately capture the listeners attention and sets the tone for the album. The Contortionist's trend with experimentation runs through the whole album. There is some great use of vocoders, synths, and even some jazz-fusion and post-rock melodies thrown in for good measure. Even with the all the experimentation going on during this album, The Contortionist doesn't forget what they best at: Combining progressive and death metal influences. The grooves/breakdowns and the melodic riffs on this album are top-notch. Almost every melody on this album is stunning (just like it was on Exoplanet) and the breakdowns hit pretty hard. "Causality" is the prime example of the two sides of The Contortionist coming together perfectly. It starts off with a heavy section full of groovy guitars with Carpenter screaming his lungs out and descends into a stunning melodic section with an incredible riff and great basswork paired with a couple of brief sections of clean/electronic vocals. "Causality" without a doubt rivals "Contact" off of Exoplanet for my favorite Contortionist song to date.

Intrinsic is the next logical step for The Contortionist as a band. They have matured and become a more progressive and experimental band with better songwriting, but they also not forgotten where they came from and that's what makes Intrinsic such a great record. They haven't lost the heavy/progressive edge they showed on Exoplanet and they have introduced a ton of new ideas for their sound with Intrinsic. This a band that is clearly going places and it's going to be exciting to watch where they go from here.

4/5 Stars
Standout Tracks
1.Casuality
2.Geocentric Confusion
3.Sequential Vision