PROGRESSIVE METAL
Dom Lawson buckles up for a delve into the darker, heavier side.
Heavy and weird times call for heavy and weird music, so strap yourselves in. Without Waves’ third album, Comedian (Prosthetic), begins with a bewildering flurry of polyrhythmic riffs and bugeyed screams, before mutating into a perverse amalgam of pitch-black post-rock and left-field electronics.
Somehow, this Chicago quartet make it all sound entirely natural, and they sustain that suspension of musical logic throughout. Fans of Devin Townsend and Between The Buried And Me will revel in the scattershot riot of ideas that fuels more aggressive songs like .algorithm and Sleight In Shadows, while the melodic drift and hazy dynamics of Day 15 and Do What Scares You offer sublime moments of woozy respite.