365 Days of Metal: We Are But Animals

Day 72

Animals As Leaders - Weightless

Band Origin: Washington D.C., USA

Genre: Instrumental / Experimental / Progressive

Label: Prosthetic Records

Running Time: 46 minutes

Release Date: November 4, 2011

Best Part: The ridiculously fluid guitar sweeps and grooviness of Tosin Abasi and company return, en masse. Oh and the track To Lead You To An Overwhelming Question deserves special attention.

Favorite Tracks: Cylindrical Sea, To Lead You To An Overwhelming Question, Odessa, An Infinite Regression, and Weightless

Grade: 5

Side Note: May take a couple of loops to fully sink in - but Weightless is that good. Surefire contender for record of the year on many critics shortlists - guaranteed.

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Weightless in 20ish words or less:

For arguments sake, Weightless is AAL's true debut, as it captures the creative energy, flair and style of its members and steps it up a notch in both composition and grooviness.

The Band:

Animals as Leaders is an instrumental trio from Washington D.C. that pushes the envelope on experimental and progressive metal. Originally the brain child of guitarist Tosin Abasi, who was approached for a solo-record deal by Prosthetic records following the dissolution of his original group Reflux. Abasi originally declined the offer, choosing to enroll at the Atlanta Institute of Music to aid with the creative elements of music composition. Eventually deciding to take the label up on their offer the debut album was conceived and the guitar and bass work handled solely by Abasi, while effects and drums were provided by friend and co-producer Misha Mansoor of Periphery. Adding in fellow 8-string guitarist Javier Reyes and later drummer Navene Koperweis, Animals as Leaders began touring on the Summer Slaughter Tour in 2010, and opening for well known metal acts worldwide, including their most recent tour in support of Between the Buried and Me this fall in Europe and again currently in North America.

Animals and Leader's first album was their self-titled release from 2009.

Jay's Take on Weightless:

The record created by Tosin Abasi back in 2009 that would give birth to Animals as Leaders was for lack of a better term, phenomenal. It featured highly technical guitar work, with ridiculously melodious sweeps and copious amounts of shredding and djenting. It was one of the grooviest and most outlandish instrumental debut records that I had heard at that moment in time. Getting to see the band live as one of the opening acts at Summer Slaughter in 2010 was a treat in itself, as the band which belonged clearly to a completely different style of music as the remainder of the bill, provided a clinic that roused even the most dedicated death metal enthusiasts that showed up to the venue. To say the self-titled album focused solely on heavy grooves and fast paced technical shredwork would undercut the value of the record. Weightless takes a slightly different direction, the grooves are still present, the technical guitar work is present and accounted for, but there is more focus on effects and arrangements. I say arrangements because Weightless for sake of argument really is the actual debut record for the band, if you consider Animals as Leaders to be a solo record, which it essentially was. Weightless gives off the feeling that it was composed, constructed and played by a well oiled machine, rather than a one-man wonder. The rhythm guitar and leads play into each other flawlessly, and create a real gamut of sounds, while Koperweis' percussion work and sound engineering fill out the remainder of the background that makes Weightless a truly inspired composition.

As I mentioned, in comparison to the original 'debut', Weightless is decidedly different, more subdued overall but is a step in the right direction, as it showcases the evolution of the band as a whole. If this is the debut record that the trio created as they only began to get their creative juices flowing, just imagine the future possibilities.

Sample of the Day:



- J