SMARAGOS: SIDE PROJECT OF AURELIUS

If you’ve been enjoying Son of Aurelius’s The Farthest Reaches as much as I have this year, than you’ll wanna know about Smaragos, a new project from SOA bassist Max Zigman.

Smaragos share some common traits with SOA — namely, an emphasis on musicianship and a willingness to try all sorts of wacky things (e.g., a two-minute long sitar section!) — but it’s mostly it’s own animal. Whereas SOA’s influences are more noticeably melodeath, Smaragos are more interested in administering blunt force trauma and whiplash-inducing schizo-shifts; if the easy comparison for Son of Aurelius is The Black Dahlia Murder, than the east comparison for Smaragos might be Cattle Decapitation (funnily enough, SOA are actually on tour with Cattle Decap right now — get dates here). Some of the synth-y stuff makes me think of Faith No More at their heaviest (e.g., “Jizzlobber”), but the Satan’s-Taking-a-Dump vocals are pure Glenn Benton and his ilk.

This project is still in the early stages, but demos of two songs, “Furnace” and “Primordial,” are definitely promising (if kinda bass-heavy — not shocking given Zigman’s presence, but still…). There are streams of said demos after the jump; check them out, visit Smaragos on MySpace, and then let us know what you think in the comments section.

Here are the demos…

-AR