Candiria - The COMA Imprint
2002 - Lakeshore Records
By Philip Whitehouse.
Go to the Candiria website.
I'm going to say this right from the very start of the review - this band are not for everyone. In fact, their skewed, fragmented yet strangely cohesive mixing of hip-hop, jazz, funk, hardcore and metal is, to most ears, disconcerting and frustrating. But to me, it is the sound of tortured geniuses at work.
Borne out of minds as much in love with Miles Davis and The Wu-Tang Clan as they are with Metallica, The COMA Imprint is a bewildering headfuck of an album. 'Peel This Strip And Fold Back' is a total urban jazz-jam session, whilst 'Paradigm Shift' could make the most cynical of metal-heads slamdance like crazy. Add to this a cover of Method Man's 'Bring The Pain' (which, despite some apparent nervousness on the band's part which urges them to rush the song, rocks like a bastard) and just about every musical exploration in between those poles, and you've got a startlingly original concoction.
And thank the dark lord they've got the talent to pull it off. Carley Coma's vocal delivery is in itself almost as schizophrenic as the music - at one moment a typical ghetto-rapster, at the next moment a raging, Patton-esque metal demon. Mike Macivor's basswork, deeply-rooted in jazz and funk, is as groove-laden and precise as you would expect. Eric Matthews and John Lanacchia's guitar work is experimental, jarring, punishing and fascinating in it's melodicism by turns, and refreshingly free of the tendency such talented musicians usually have to try and arpeggio their way through entire songs. Witness Faction, where and entire verse is delivered as both axemen play one powerchord at a jarring rhythm. Simple, yet effective. The drumming, too, is excellent, courtesy of Ken Schalk.
If you're willing to step outside of the metal envelope a little, and allow these New Yorkers to lead you into a sonic landscape as diverse and interconnecting with other cultures as the city they originate from, then you may find yourself more than pleasantly surprised. Essential for the more adventurous metalhead.
9.5/10
2002 - Lakeshore Records
By Philip Whitehouse.
Go to the Candiria website.
I'm going to say this right from the very start of the review - this band are not for everyone. In fact, their skewed, fragmented yet strangely cohesive mixing of hip-hop, jazz, funk, hardcore and metal is, to most ears, disconcerting and frustrating. But to me, it is the sound of tortured geniuses at work.
Borne out of minds as much in love with Miles Davis and The Wu-Tang Clan as they are with Metallica, The COMA Imprint is a bewildering headfuck of an album. 'Peel This Strip And Fold Back' is a total urban jazz-jam session, whilst 'Paradigm Shift' could make the most cynical of metal-heads slamdance like crazy. Add to this a cover of Method Man's 'Bring The Pain' (which, despite some apparent nervousness on the band's part which urges them to rush the song, rocks like a bastard) and just about every musical exploration in between those poles, and you've got a startlingly original concoction.
And thank the dark lord they've got the talent to pull it off. Carley Coma's vocal delivery is in itself almost as schizophrenic as the music - at one moment a typical ghetto-rapster, at the next moment a raging, Patton-esque metal demon. Mike Macivor's basswork, deeply-rooted in jazz and funk, is as groove-laden and precise as you would expect. Eric Matthews and John Lanacchia's guitar work is experimental, jarring, punishing and fascinating in it's melodicism by turns, and refreshingly free of the tendency such talented musicians usually have to try and arpeggio their way through entire songs. Witness Faction, where and entire verse is delivered as both axemen play one powerchord at a jarring rhythm. Simple, yet effective. The drumming, too, is excellent, courtesy of Ken Schalk.
If you're willing to step outside of the metal envelope a little, and allow these New Yorkers to lead you into a sonic landscape as diverse and interconnecting with other cultures as the city they originate from, then you may find yourself more than pleasantly surprised. Essential for the more adventurous metalhead.
9.5/10
