The Contortionist - Intrinsic
Back in 2010, Indiana’s The Contortionist really, really wanted to be the thinking man’s Acacia Strain. But that was two years —nearly four generations— ago. To put it in perspective, think of what smart phone you were using back then. OMG! Now you can relate to your grandparents’ walking-10-miles-to-school-uphill-in-8-feet-of snow stories. Facebook didn’t even have Timeline back then! FML! How did we survive? So, considering how much this quintet has matured as a band in that relative lifetime (and seeing as how Metalcore is soo 2010), on album number two, The Contortionist really, really wants to be Between the Buried and Me. I can’t hold it against them. Any Indiana resident with an IQ above 60 (so, approximately 20-35 people) wants to be someone/anyone, somewhere/anywhere, something/anything else. The difference is most of us don’t get record deals. (Skeletonwitch doesn’t count. I said over 60.) I’ll give these young Prog Metallers props, they have the tools and talent to reach whatever that week’s goal is. Album opener “Holomovement” begins this metaphysics course with expansive melodic flourishes, spacious noodling, and a brief burst of brutal fury. Above all, I think they will succeed simply because Jonathan Carpenter’s voice is all-pro. He has the dreamy clean singing to effectively carry the meandering space travel, and the bestial roar to accentuate the heavy parts. Intrinsic’s biggest flaw is that it never seems to take off, and doesn’t much care to. Beauty and beast alternate sporadically, leaving the album to wander aimlessly for what feels like an extraordinarily long 45 minutes. When one delves so deeply into the psyche, one should not forget to bring the hooks. As impressive as randomly disjointed moments of this album sound, it ultimately feels like a band lost in transition. My guess would be, next stop: Dream Theater.
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