Band:	Titan To Tachyons
Album:	Cactides
Style:	Jazz, Avantgarde metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	August 2020

01. Morphing Machineminds
02. The Starthinker Is Obsolete
03. Tycho Magnetic
04. Earth, And Squidless
05. Everybody's Dead, Dave [feat. Trevor Dunn]

And here I was, wondering how Simulacrum sound like without John Zorn. Now they're produced by Colin Marston.

Having just reviewed John Zorn's Baphomet, an avant-prog offering where Zorn is directing the Simulacrum trio, I was wondering how they would fare as a standalone outfit. This isn't a Simulacrum album though, but two of the three members of Simulacrum, namely Imperial Triumphans's Kenny Grohowski on drums, and Cleric's Matt Hollenberg on bass, return in Titan To Tachyons as well. Completing the trio on guitars is Sally Gates, of psychedelic death metal outfit Orbweaver, of whom our Floridan resident has already been singing praises. So how well do they fare on their own?

Well as mentioned, this album is recorded/produced by Colin Marston, who should already be a familiar name either through his records or the albums he produced, and that's just for this year alone. Though the music has a lot in common with some of his own stuff like Dysrhythmia or Behold The Arctopus, this one is credited purely to the trio, all of which having some already great works in their (bands') name. But this being recorded on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (or of it being filmed by Kubrick in the Nevada desert) might go hand in hand with Cactides space sci-fi themes.

Being a purely instrumental record, made by people who are verified virtuosos, there's some concern that technical ability would be emphasized oved songwriting. The technical ability definitely shows on Cactides, and there are more than enough moments when the restraints are loosened, to create some nauseating and suffocating out-there sounds, but the band puts the restraints more often than not, having Cactides live in a very tense area. The sound takes bits from the free technical death metal of late, adding bits of the shredded instrumental prog, the "weird" rock of the 90s (some of it courtesy of Mr. Bungle's Trevor Dunn making an appearance), as well as bits of avant-prog and space rock, and obviously some jazz fusion. It's off-kilter and versatile, even if not all of the creepy atmosphere is always properly sustained. But I guess that comes with being experimental.

There is a bit of a lack of focus that will hopefully be addressed on later records, but the trio have already proven themselves excellent players and quite capable songwriters, and with two of them already established, I can only hope that we'll be seeing more of Sally Gates soon.