Ahh instrumental djent. Witnessing the evolution of a band from the Soundclick samples, the MySpace "INSTRUMENTAL NEED VOCALS" song to a fully fledged band is a beautiful thing indeed. Obviously, I am talking about Periphery here and its tumultuous journey from Bulb's clips on Soundclick, to the vanguards of djent today. Of course some projects never progress beyond the instrumental versions, with the creators preferring to let the guitar and whatever else they have included become the be-all end-all of the band. However, I am going to go out on a limb here and say most instrumental djent is pretty poor. The cliche of an downtuned 8-string, chugging away, with Superior Drummer adding to the artificiality already in place. The songs go nowhere, say nothing and quickly slide from the mind.
Of the exceptions to this is Paul Ortiz, better known as Chimp Spanner. Instead of solely relying on the Meshuggah sound, Paul brings in a myriad of interesting influence to his sophomore album "At The Dream's Edge". This is not the domain of monotonous chugging riffs with uninspired and lazy production. No Chimp Spanner sets out to encompass Mr. Ortiz's influence while tying it all together under a recognizable sound of his own.
The album starts out with a spacey intro, reminiscent of a sci-fi movie soundtrack, appropriately titled 'Galaxy Rise'. Each song brings something new to the table, be it the laid back bluesy soloing backed by some excellent piano work on the title track, to the straight ahead, yet entertainingly technical "Bad Code", to the apocalyptic "Terminus" suite.
My descriptions are extremely inadequate however, as the strength of this album means that each song is based on a particular idea, yet always incorporates other bits and pieces. Like the aforementioned Bad Code which apart from the tech riffing also has a great deal of dynamics, with the subdued middle section highlighting some simple yet effective bass and guitar work, while building up to a heavy ending.
The production is stellar, with a big, thick guitar tone, believable drumming, tasteful keyboard patches and sweet sounding bass. It being yet another one man job, At The Dream's Edge really highlights given the effort you can make an incredible sounding album at home, given some elbow grease and a bit of cash.