Without Waves - Lunar

Chi town gives us another great metal band, Without Waves, who know how to craft some tasty licks.Right off the bat let me tell you that Chicago ensemble Without Waves is an impressive outfit. You don't often encounter musicians talented - or bold enough - to fuse elements of jazz fusion, extreme metal, and stoner rock so well and in such a compelling way. As such, you can't really cherry pick from an album like their latest, Lunar (their first on Prosthetic Records), and get a true sense of the breadth of their sound.

Sewing Together The Limbs, the album's opener with a Mastodon-esque groovy chorus, is followed by the Damn The Machine proggy-jazz metal opening of Poetry In Putrid Air that gives way to the trippy, Opeth-y, clean tone groove of Us Against. And it just goes on and on, carrying the listener on the ebb and flow of the band's sonic ocean. It's just damn fine music that offers more than just variations on a core rhytymic style. Granted, that's sort of how your average band works, I know, but the bands that make stylistic diversity their signature sound while still maintaining a strong sense of identity really get my blood pumping.

The Bottom Line: Coming from a famous blues town like Chicago, Without Waves displays some very impressive musical ideas that are both sophisticated and laid back in a way that seems comforting and hugely satisfying. This is clear Spring morning, open the windows, and crack open a nice fruity IPA music for sure.

- Genghis really wants to have one of those mornings right about now...