It used to be so simple. Bands would approach a music writer, give him a copy of their album, and hope that he’d like it enough to convince readers to buy it. With the advent of file sharing, the equation has changed. The journalist’s role is still to introduce you to great music, and your role is still to acquire that music if you like it. But these days, you can instantaneously get an illegal copy on your computer for free, with no negative ramifications other than a droplet of guilt, easily dismissable.

We could bemoan how the ease of acquiring recorded music for free has made it no more than a loss leader for a band’s merch or live show. But that would be ignoring the fact that illegal downloading is here to stay. Besides, there’s so much goddamn music to listen to than an underground metal band is far more likely to achieve obscurity than commercial success.

As a result, we’re seeing more and more bands giving away full-length albums like they used to give away stickers or demos. And if bands have accepted the album as a promotional calling card, and quality metal labels like Works of Ein have done the same, who are we at MetalSucks to stand in their way? It’s a promotional concept as extreme as the music it involves.

That’s why we’re launching “Freeloader.” Each installment, we’ll review a metal album that the band has opted to let you download both cost and guilt free. If you dig it, return the gift by sharing it widely and often. Deal? Deal.

Neuromist – Move of Thought (Self-released, March 2010)

For all this talk about how the internet has flattened the world, I still know fuck all about the tiny former Soviet republic Moldova, and even less about its music. The country’s lack of international cultural exports may be at the root of my ignorance. Moldovan band Neuromist, on the other hand, know plenty about the metal from my country, and plenty beyond. Taking their cues from the less weedily-weedily end of the prog-death spectrum – Atheist and Death (USA), Coroner (Switzerland), Martyr (Canada), Meshuggah (Sweden) – this band of Moldovans sounds like it could come from anywhere but where they’re from.

Maybe that says more about the geographic anonymity of progressive death in general than the fact that Neuromist recall so many other bands. Fact is, they’re honing in on all the aforementioned’s best qualities, namely that they all remember that they’re metal bands, not just assemblies of shredders. No question these guys can play. Kirill Zmurciuk’s guitar riffs straddle multiple styles and layers, and his solos reek equally of jazz theory and death metal shred; nimble bassist Alex Petriuc is wisely turned up audibly in the mix, earning some exposed parts in “Bizarre” and a solo in “Rebuilt Babylon.” Even vocalist Vladimir Ghillien pulls his weight with an impressive catalog of growls, howls and clean vocals.

But the bigger plus is that Neuromist sound dense, even at their most complex. The band slams home its tricky riffs with an ultra-heavy, vintage Morrisound guitar tone, and drummer Mikhail Grigoras usually forgoes frilly fills and blastbeats for a bashing rhythmic unison. On the most impressive tracks on Move of Thought, nobody stands out, in the best possible way.

Neuromist falter a bit when they tilt the prog/death balance in favor of prog, as in the hamfisted jazz-funk fusion at the end of instrumental “Cortex Tectonics,” or the totally unnecessary ten seconds of cocktail jazz in the middle of “Lost Grip.” It’s a failure of unmet ambition, the same problem that Atheist and Pestilence had on Elements and Spheres, respectively. So maybe this is a right of passage in the tech-death life cycle? Either way, overlooking Neuromist’s faults is a small price to pay for a free album.

Get Move of Thought here.

(3 1/2 out of 5 horns up)

-SR