Release Date: July 31st 2024. Record Label: Self Released. Formats: DD/Cassette
Outermost: Tracklisting
1.Wavelength Synchronizer 04:06
2.Power Vulture 04:58
3.Blood Wedding 07:48
4.Inspiraled 01:26
5.Quantum Divorce 03:16
6.Conglobulations 03:18
7.Do I Know How To Party... 04:26
Members
Carmine Laietta V - Guitar
Jon Ehlers - Keys
Sam Brodsky - Bass
Drew Mack - Guitar
Jeff Stieber - Drums
Review
Instrumental Stoner Metallers Astrometer is a band made up of members from such great acts as HULL, Meek Is Murder and Bangladeafy. Their debut album Outermost is quite an eccentric album with the band focusing upon areas of Math Rock, Psych Rock, Space Rock, Jazz Rock, Ambient Sounds and Stoner Metal with a free thinking Prog Rock/Metal attitude. The album is wonderfully strange and marches to its own original beat and you can see the members other bands heard throughout the record.
There’s a hint of Mastodon and CAVE IN progressive heaviness on the early stages of the record especially on tracks such as Wavelength Synthesizer and Power Vulture which carry an Electronic Rock dynamic that is brilliantly supplemented by Jon Ehlers intense Keys, Synths and direct Ambient sounds. This is all topped off with a subtle Doom/Stoner Metal energy which has a dramatic Science Fiction or Space Rock presence.
With a melodic Hard Rock score being added along the way, Astrometer fully live upto their Math Rock aspect of their music which embraces a full on Space Metal attitude within the heavier stages of the record. Astrometer are not afraid to switch to areas of Post-Rock and Post-Metal which gives the record an identity crisis along the way but I mean that as a good thing. As you never know what you’re going to experience with this record and when the band decide to change creative tactics and employ a Jazz Rock attitude then Outermost becomes an even stronger and more interesting record because of these creative choices.
Other standout tracks include Blood Wedding, Quantum Divorce and Do I Know How To Party…
Outermask is brilliantly weird and has quite the GONZO attitude within the whole journey of the record. It’s quite short and compact, running under thirty minutes but the album feels longer and makes you want to hear more especially on the later stages on the record where Astrometer go full on EXPERIMENTAL and deliver some of the best sounds on the whole album.
Astrometer has delivered a surreal and action packed record that I’m hoping there are more exciting releases such as this in the near future.
Excellent and Highly Recommended.
Words by Steve Howe
Links
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