Band:	The Beast Of Nod
Album:	Multiversal
Style:	Progressive death metal, Technical death metal
Website:	http://www.thebeastofnod.com/
Release date:	March 29, 2021
A review by:	RaduP

01. Flight Of The Quetzalcoatlus
02. Contemporary Calamity
03. Intergalactic War!
04. Call Of The Squirrel [feat. Joe Satriani]
05. Unleashing Chaos [feat. Nick Padovani]
06. The Plan For Multiversal Creation
07. Guardians Of The Multiverse [feat. John Matos]
08. The Latent Threat
09. Shredding Of The Cosmos [feat. Sanjay Kumar, Matias Quiroz, Michael Angelo Batio]

How many bands do you know that have their own encyclopedias for their lore?

I first found out about The Beast Of Nod through their previous (and debut) album, Vampira: Disciple Of Chaos after it was posted in one of the Facebook groups that I followed, mostly because the cover art that was pretty distinct for a certain type of proggy tech death. I was right, but also The Beast Of Nod were a lot quirkier than other bands in the same genre. Naturally I was pretty excited to see them follow that one up this year, and even more excited seeing how many high profile guests they're getting for this one, from Joe Satriani, Michael Angelo Batio, both of Equipoise's guitarists, Abiotic's John Matos, and Bleak Flesh' Matias Quiroz, all providing guitar solos. And though their original drummer isn't featured, he is replaced by Lord Marco of Brain Drill and Sleep Terror.

So, a quirky proggy tech death album full of lore to follow-up, and an impressive guest roster. There's a lot for Multiversal to live up to, but also hopefully a lot of attention to be attracted. Well, I can't say that I ever pay attention to lyrics, especially when you can't actually make them out, but I reckon there's still a lot of lore being expanded here. What I do know is that I do get a sense of it from the way the music is structured in a very dramatic storytelling way. My mind goes to "intergalactic plot twists" whenever I hear those off-kilter guitar progressions. Honestly, there's very little tech death out there that feels as genuinely entertaining and gripping as this does.

As a whole, Multiversal feels like it was made for those people who appreciate tech death's technicality but lament it's lack of actual songwriting. The album goes a lot into hyperblasting mode, as one does expect from tech death, but it's done in a way that feels very self-aware, and almost always making up for it by being genuinely entertaining. There's a greater decree of technicality than on the previous album, something that I can see fans of the former being wary of, but I feel like very few bands can actually put it to great use like The Beast Of Nod do, especially on the closer, which features half of the record's guest solos for all the extravaganza you can possibly want.

Multiversal is a more ambitious record than Vampira: Disciple Of Chaos, amping up some of its technicality and star power, while still displaying the dramatic songwriting and worldbuilding skills that made Vampira such a blast.