Although the editors of MetalSucks get a vote in he Scion No Label Needed Contest, the staff of MetalSucks, alas, does not. Thus, over the course of the next few days, each MetalSucks writer will post an endorsement for his favorite finalist for the contest. You can check out all the finalists, and vote for your personal favorite, here.

Reciprocal initially hearken back to the halcyon days of 2005, where if you got a free jazz/fusion shredder guitarist, talented bassist and drummer, and… well, admittedly generic singer, and listened to a lot of Atheist, Calculating Infinity-era DEP, and/or Cynic, you had a shot at getting on Black Market Activities or even Relapse. But to reduce them to riders of a bygone trend would be really unfair: the band are excellent at what they do, and simply relegating them to a cluster of bands that combine brutal death metal with noodly Psyopus/Behold… the Arctopus parts would be stiffing them. These guys are the real deal: death metal dudes partaking in as much awesomeness as possible, managing to weld together parts that normally wouldn’t gel particularly smoothly.

Take, for example, their song on Metal Insider’s page for Scion’s No Label Needed contest: “Hopeless” combines straight up death metal, gravity blasts, jazzy guitar wankery, a sweet Death-style solo, and punch-some-dudes grooves in a way that hints at the fact that Reciprocal have actual songwriting chops as opposed to a compulsive need to throw as many styles into one song as possible. Their nimbleness is a virtue, and they exhibit a comfort in it that illustrates why they’re not to be taken as a novelty act, as so many “ARE WE JAZZ/GRIND???? NO WE’RE DEATH METAL LOL!” bands allow themselves to be.

I know Reciprocal are a little too “grr/meedly-meedly/grr-grr” to have a straight shot at getting the most votes, but… come on, people. When has rooting for the underdog ever steered you wrong? And in this case, the underdog is a scraggly death metal dude from California. So vote for Reciprocal. Early and often.

-SO

Listen to and vote for Reciprocal here. You can also visit them on MySpace.