Band:	Ex Eye
Album:	Ex Eye
Style:	Experimental Jazz, Avantgarde metal, Post-metal
Release date:	June 23, 2017
A review by:	RaduP

01. Xenolith; The Anvil
02. Opposition/Perihelion; The Coil
03. Anaitis Hymnal; The Arkose Disc
04. Form Constant; The Grid
05. Tten Crowns; The Corruptor [Digital bonus]

This is a metal album made by jazz musicians. No, they're not Shining.

The roster of this band is quite impressive as far as influences and previous collaborations go. While the band is not lead by any of the members, it is quite clear that the most prominent one is Colin Stetson, who has previously worked with artists and bands such as Bon Iver, Tom Waits, Arcade Fire and Bell Orchestre, as well as a string of solo records(releasing one this year as well). Joining him are drummer Greg Fox, who played with Liturgy, synth player Shahzad Ismail and guitarist Toby Summerfield. The first three have previously worked on Stetson's reworking of Henryk Goreki's 3rd Symphony. Thus, this album wasn't the first time these fellas stepped together in the recording studio.

I admit that I overstated in the headline, since calling this a metal album is a bit of a stretch as it is not just metal, and calling the musicians jazz musicians is also underestimating them. In fact, Ex Eye's debut is quite a menacing blend of jazz, black metal, post-metal, avant-garde, minimalism and noise in such a way that it sounds thoroughly cohesive and natural. The non-metal elements, whether the synth soundscapes or the post-ish guitars or the saxophone, add quite a lot to the metal ones, building a contrast that augments and expands the heavy sound chimeras when they come.

Probably the most dynamic of the instruments are the drums, portraying blistering blast beats as well as groovy rhythms and marching drums, which also manage to stay afloat even when in danger of being drowned by the wall of noise often created by the other instruments. Ex Eye combines melodic passages with crushing walls of sounds, with moments of textural silence, having plenty of time to arrange all the building blocks and develop the songs, considering that more than half of the album's tracks clock at more than ten minutes. While the album lacks any type of vocals, the listener may be tricked into thinking he hears screams or certain vocalizations, but they are all tricks down Stetson's saxophone's sleeve. It is amazing to hear the saxophone blend so seamlessly with metal sounds, something which is not as rare nowadays thankfully, seeing as the instrument has been coming back in style.

A veritable exercise in soundscape building, atmosphere, groove, aggression and the blend of all these. Thrilling album, huge sounds.