Welcome to Number of the Beef- the only late-night metal hash dealer this side of the river Styx. We got three hot plates here for you knuckleheads. Boy, you knaves really love your jazz-metal. Are you sure you should be ingesting something this dense so late? Ah well, I'll let all y'all's wives scold you later after she notices your spare tires have started to overinflate. Okay, we got a short stack of Dead Neanderthals, here you go. And a skillet full of Sly & the Family Drone, there you go, darlin'. And... who had the Ex Eye? Boy, hadn't had one of these on order in a while. Let me tell you a little about them. Ex Eye is an instrumental metal quartet, led by avant-garde saxophonist Colin Stetson. Stetson is joined by Shahzad Ismaily on synths, Toby Summerfield on guitar, and Greg Fox, formerly of the "black metal" band Liturgy, on drums (because of course he does- you want this man on the friggin' bassoon?). They perform tightly wound, incredibly intricate, and aggressive post-rock, with hints of free-form jazz and thick layers of hazy, void-gazing doom metal, a la Electric Wizard and Acid King, folded into the mix. Stetson's saxophone playing is always a rewarding and fascinating listen, but it is particularly astounding to hear him keep pace, note-for-note, with the blazing guitar work on this album. Ex Eye was their debut LP, and only full release to date, dropping in the summer of 2017. It was recorded live at Ismaily's own Figure 8 Studios and released on established extreme, top-tier metal bulkhead, Relapse Records. Check out the punchy album opener "Xenolith; the Anvil" with its savage, cascading drums, adrenaline-pumping synths, and the deep, leviathanized grooves laid down by Stetson's sax; "Opposition/Perihelion" with its wormhole-like, intersecting guitar tremolos, screeching synths, and, of course, Stetson's sax performance, which pours over and melts through the compositions like molten hail; and lastly, the trance-inducing and intensity-ramping maelstrom of "Form Constant; Grid." Bon appetit, assholes!
