Exivious
Liminal
Season of Mist
2013
Metal music can very complex without any boundaries, when delivered by musicians that do experiment, improvise and evolve. Actually, how many “prog” so-called rock & metal bands nowadays can claim that they honor the “progressive” term when they present the same things and do not progress a bit? The case here is kinda different than the one I described above. You see the brainchild, Exivious, of the guitarist Tymon Kruidenier (ex-Cynic, ex-Skeletor) do not care to be easy of the listeners’ ears. This is an album that you should proceed with total caution. What’s in it might cause you various musical OCDs or a heavy headache due to its complexity. This is the kind of music that will never be popular but it will be admired by fellow musicians and artists in general.
Tymon says that Exivious plays fusionmetal. In other words, take jazz, fusion, metal, progressive, heavy, atmospheric, post-rock & rock elements… blend them together, add to them the apt experimental & improvisation “ingredients” and you have the instrumental version of Exivious! This is the second release of the band, only 4 years after their debut. A new drummer is on the board, Yuma van Eekelen (Brutus, The New Dominion, ex-Pestilence) and the album also features two guest musicians. Jonas Knutsson (Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects) on saxophone & Manfred Dikkers (At War with Self, The Kolios Project) on percussion. The full & vigorous production was done by Tymon Kruidenier, as well as the mixing. He also mastered the album along with Joris Bonis (Dodecahedron, Drown the Moth). Tymon knows better than anyone the sound he wants to create and he manages to deliver it brilliantly.
Even though such albums are long and tend to become tiresome after a certain point, Exivious were very careful on that part as the album lasts about 46 minutes. Certainly, “Liminal” is not for the average listener who wants to listen to music, serf on the web or listen to it in his car. It needs & devotion to experience all those complex, instrumental, experimental, atmospheric & progression soundscapes that Exivious creates. After all “Liminal” ain’t only a very stimulating album but also a quite intriguing one… can you handle it? Just take your chances!
Tymon says that Exivious plays fusionmetal. In other words, take jazz, fusion, metal, progressive, heavy, atmospheric, post-rock & rock elements… blend them together, add to them the apt experimental & improvisation “ingredients” and you have the instrumental version of Exivious! This is the second release of the band, only 4 years after their debut. A new drummer is on the board, Yuma van Eekelen (Brutus, The New Dominion, ex-Pestilence) and the album also features two guest musicians. Jonas Knutsson (Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects) on saxophone & Manfred Dikkers (At War with Self, The Kolios Project) on percussion. The full & vigorous production was done by Tymon Kruidenier, as well as the mixing. He also mastered the album along with Joris Bonis (Dodecahedron, Drown the Moth). Tymon knows better than anyone the sound he wants to create and he manages to deliver it brilliantly.
Even though such albums are long and tend to become tiresome after a certain point, Exivious were very careful on that part as the album lasts about 46 minutes. Certainly, “Liminal” is not for the average listener who wants to listen to music, serf on the web or listen to it in his car. It needs & devotion to experience all those complex, instrumental, experimental, atmospheric & progression soundscapes that Exivious creates. After all “Liminal” ain’t only a very stimulating album but also a quite intriguing one… can you handle it? Just take your chances!