It is no mystery that I generally hate tech-death and deathcore, and ESPECIALLY bands who combine the two like Faceless, Braindrill, BTBAM, and so forth. It’s possible that the genres bore the fuck out of me because I’ve been listening to this shit for 20+ years and blast beats stopped being novel to me sometime in the mid 90s, but it’s also possible that I’m just not a beardo who thinks that a metronome is worth fapping over.

I guess there is something in the water up in Canada, or maybe there’s just nothing better to do there than sit in your room and practice your instrument, because there sure are a lot of tech-deathcore bands from up there. I can’t get into that stuff for the most part, but I was pretty pleasantly surprised by the new track from BENEATH THE MASSACRE. Despite having an “X the Y” name and playing a lot of notes, this band is pretty sick– check them out if you are fiending for some Ion Dissonance/The Faceless type shit. I think they have a recording out now on Prosthetic or something.

-Sergeant D.

Ion Dissonance are cursed, both figuratively and literally. Says vocalist Kevin McCaughey on the matter: “Anytime we try to get ahead in anything, there is always someone or something there to slow us down or get in our way.” Fittingly, then, their new album — which comes out today on Century Media — is called Cursed to reflect the band’s never-ending bad fortune. And also fittingly, the album leaked 40 days in advance of its release which created all sorts of problems for the band and their record label. Which is really too bad, because the album is excellent.

After the jump, check out my chat with Ion D vocalist Kevin McCaughey. We talked about the band’s bad fortune, the leak of Cursed, where they fit into today’s metal scene, and how the band’s approach to their craft has changed now that they’re all mostly in their 30′s and have wives/girlfriends, houses, and those most un-metal of daily chores: regular jobs.

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These days a lot of bands seem to like releasing a really heavy track as the first single — or even just preview — of their upcoming album. Makes a good first impression whilst calming the old-school fans who have inevitably been crying “sellouts!” about the band’s supposed new direction. This is definitely true of “After Everything’s That Happened, What Did You Expect?,” the first song to be released from Ion Dissonance’s forthcoming crusher Cursed. Shit is fucking heeeeaaaaavvvy, and its frenetic nature harkens back to the band’s more angular / spastic / dissonant (no pun intended, for once) sound of yore. So for all you original Ion D fans out there, this one’s for you.

But here’s the thing: Ion Dissonance started shifting away from this sound with their last album Minus the Herd into a more rhythmic, groovy territory, and while they’ve by no means abandoned their roots, Cursed seems to be focused more on those crushing rhythms and deep grooves as well. And that’s why I like Cursed so much; sometimes less is more, and though far less is technically being done by the musicians those grooves just fucking CRUSH, Gojira / Morbid Angel / Red Chord-style. My point here: while “After Everything’s That Happened, What Did You Expect?” is a pretty sweet song, it’s not really representative of Cursed as a whole. Check it out above.

Cursed drops August 24st on Century Media.

-VN

Back in March I expressed excitement at the prospect of a new album from Canadian OG deathcore/tech-death kings Ion Dissonance, and wondered aloud how it could be that this exceptionally talented band was still without a record label for their new album. Of course, the band wasn’t actually without a label… they just hadn’t yet announced that Century Media would be putting out their new album Cursed, which will see an August 24th release date and was produced by guitarist Antoine Lussier.

I have heard Cursed, and it’s a fucking slammer! It’s definitely in the more rhythmic/technical vein that 2007′s Minus the Herd ushered in for the band. Think more Morbid Angel / Gojira / The Red Chord death stomps, less breakdowns and Dillinger-style spazzes. Which is just fine by me because, ya know, I love that shit! Get a taste of a new song in the trailer posted above, as well as a look at the album artwork that you’ll look at once if you buy the album on CD and then never again.

Ion Dissonance also just announced a European tour in September with Cephalic Carnage and Psycroptic. Dates for that are after the jump. Hopefully a U.S. tour will follow.

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Soon enough we’re going to debut a metal cooking show that MetalSucks is involved with; we’re not going to tell you anything else about it other than that it’s definitely going to rule.

Until then, you can enjoy this video of Ion Dissonance tearing it up in some dude’s kitchen. I’m not really sure how this show came to pass: was this basically just the kitchen equivalent of your classic basement show? or is it just the dudes jamming out for some friends? Whatever it is, it’s pretty damn cool… even with the distorted audio.

-VN

Thanks: Ryan Schutte

Despite the urging of many a trusted metalhead over the past few years I never really sat down with Ion Dissonance‘s music until a few days ago. As is so often the case I was immediately taken aback by what I’d been missing out on.

OMG SUPER BLOGGER NEILSTEIN DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT EVERY BAND EVER!!! CALL THE METAL POLICE!!! PWNED!!!

So yeah it’s like this band was pretty much made for me, and they’re not of the proggy-weird ilk that I usually blog about. Ion Dissonance are way more immediately identifiable as “Axl music,” which is to say they’re incredibly brutal. As with any Neilstein entry there’s a good amount of technicality in the mix, but it comes in the form of original wave deathcore-ish mind-fuckery ala The Red Chord or fellow Canadians Despised Icon. There are also trace elements of Gojira / Morbid Angel and Meshuggah in the mix, and even some Dillinger-style dissonance (hardee har!) making these guys an all around win.

Noisecreep tells us Ion Dissonance just finished up recording a new album, the follow-up to 2007′s Minus the Herd. Expect it to be released sometime this summer on…. on…. could it be that this band is without a record label? Crikey, someone get on top of that.

-VN