A friend once explained his enthusiasm for thrash metal using the term 'giant flesh machine'. That's quite an image, methinks, and this album by L.A. quintet Upsilon Acrux brought it to mind again. Things fit together so well here that on first listen it was difficult for me to distinguish individual instruments. Further determined listening revealed that they often work as two complimentary duos of drums/guitar playing interlocking riffs, with comment or emphasis provided by Fender Rhodes and very occasional manic sax. The riffs themselves are fairly complex and constantly changing, with a relentless, lurching forward momentum that is both claustrophobic and attention grabbing. It's like an accident scene that you cannot look away from. Time signatures shift often or stop and reconfigure completely via split second hops. It can be quite dizzying.

"Remnants Of The Habitable Epoch" toward the end of the disc, may be the most conventionally easy to follow, with it's rolling feel and slightly slower pace. Perhaps that's what it's title refers to: a display of lineage for the curious but timid to moisten their tootsies. The slightly hidden reveal during the second act. This stuff seems so far removed from what I would assume to be its roots (prog rock and fusion), that it almost seems to have sprung fully formed from some particle collider experiment or complex computer algorithm. Plus there's no silly singing to muddy the results.