DISSIMULATOR
DISSIMULATOR “Lower Form Resistance”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Can you believe it? I’m just 4 days into 2024 as I write this and we already got an album that’s gonna be hard to beat for the rest of the year. If this sucker doesn’t wind up in my Top 3, then 2024 will be a god-like year for heavy metal.
This shit is HYPERSONIC! If you could envision a mutant cross between VOI VOD, CORONER and MESHUGGAH, you would be close to DISSIMULATOR, but still not on the mark, because there’s even more to this. A technical riff orgy that rides the ridge between thrash and death metal...a futuristic explosion of musicianship of the highest caliber. The drummer Phillipe Boucher is an absolute madman! I haven’t heard better drumming even from the biggest names in the game. He’s the glue that provides the bedrock of DISSIMULATOR while guitarist/vocalist Claude Leduc goes berserk with an endless onslaught of riffing that is angular, dense and catchy at the same time. And he indulges in some outstanding solos as well. Not to be forgotten, bassist Antoine Daigneault performs his own magic that easily keeps up with his mates. And yes, in case you were wondering, these guys are French-Canadians from that Mecca of metallic excellence, Montreal.
Canada has been a hotbed of progressive metal ever since Three Men of Willowdale known as RUSH came onto the scene. Names like VOI VOD, ANNIHILATOR, OBLIVEON and D.B.C. come to mind. Now we add DISSIMULATOR to the list of top notch Canuckuckleheads. I don’t know if I could pick a top track here, but I’m going to say the title track wins by a pubic hair. Strangely enough, this is the one track that has clean vocals all the way through...Leduc usually uses a gravelly slur reminiscent of CORONER’s Tommy Vetterli. The constant but smooth transitions of CORONER are a pretty good touchstone for this band. I also loved the crazed angular thrash of opening track “Neural Hack” and the jaw-dropping tech-death brilliance of “Warped” with its modulated robot voices adding to the “Blade Runner” vibe of the band. But honestly, you could shuffle this whole album and find excellence...in fact, that might be an interesting way to listen to it.
An absolute MUST for fans of technical death/thrash. 2024 is gonna have to work pretty hard to beat this one…