Live performance:**** Times Seen:2
Genre:Progressive Metal
Genre 2:Instrumental
Genre 3:Post-Metal
For Fans of:Dream Theater,Animals As Leaders,The Contortionist,Between The Buried & Me, Baroness, Painted In Exile,Periphery, getting high and watching cool music,prog.
Status-Recording an EP Label-Unsigned
Formed in 2011
I am fairly easy to please when it comes to music, especially live music. Despite this being the case, Long Island’s local music scene tends to be over filled with generic and unoriginal bands. However Animus Apart, manages to separate themselves from everyone else by utilizing both talent, and progressive elements extremely effectively. I am almost certain I’ve been to at least one show this band played because their name was extremely familiar. However when I won my first ever free ticket to see my friends in The Eastern Condition and FX ZERO play, I was blown away by Animus Apart’s performance. It actually humored me that a band so talented was the opening act, but it doesn’t bother me because I know that if these guys keep at it they will be headlining awesome shows in no time.
With a nice blend of progressive metal, and post-metal I think Animus Apart could totally remain instrumental and kill it if that’s how they want it. I’m unsure if that was simply the show I saw them at, or if they parted ways with their former vocalist but in the song “The Uprising” they maintain a real Sumerian Records type of feel with heavy parts along with technical elements still in play. I really am looking forward to what these dudes are going to do with their upcoming EP and I hope I will be able to catch them live soon. I have talked to them briefly about playing my next annual birthday show in April so hopefully the EP will be released and ready by then if they can make it!
This is a really cool band that any prog lover is going to want to see and support, so if you haven’t checked them out listen below and catch ‘em live at their next show!
Track with vocals:http://animusapart.bandcamp.com/
Live performance without vocals:https://www.facebook.com/AnimusApart/posts/991047754246150 Animus Apart EP: 9.6
Genre 1: Progressive metal
Genre 2: Instrumental
Genre 3: Djent
Genre 4: Post-metal
For Fans Of: Animals As Leaders, The Contortionist, Dream Theater, Between The Buried & Me, Intervals, Vildjharta, TesseracT, Beyond Our Eyes, Sithu Aye, getting high and having your face melted, falling in love with riffs.
Formed In: 2011
Status: Releasing this EP on Friday May 6th! Next show is: May 20th, the EP release show. Details TBA.
Label: Unsigned.
-Animus Apart EP Review-
Animus Apart has been playing the songs on this EP for a long time now. Once you’ve seen them enough, you know exactly how these songs go and essentially what to expect. Boring right??-NOPE not on your life. Vocals or no vocals Animus Apart kills it with a fast-paced pulsating metal release. I’ve been waiting for this EP to drop for a very long time and it’s a pretty breathtaking release. Especially when you find out the guitarist Billy recorded it all pretty much himself. The recording quality sounds nothing less than professional.
Right off the bat, the title track “GNX 8757″ Animus Apart throws some heavy riffs and fast beating drums. Around the four minute mark, you’ll come across the breathtaking guitar work of Billy Pfister. When you see AA live, you won’t be able to get that GNX riffage out of your head. The melodies are catchy and addictive, and that is without a doubt Animus’ specialty. Cody Hosza also debuts his skills on the sax in this song, before Animus goes back to their addictive riffage and gets heavy and groovy widdit. Would love to hear more sax in future releases. Besides, who plays bass anymore anyway!
The next song is “I: The Downfall”, which I think was the most recent addition to the EP. It starts off decent, but ends up falling a little flat even if only in comparison to it’s brother and sister tracks. It’s definitely not a bad track in any shape or form but some spots just remind me of what I would picture as a typical bandcamp instrumental band. What I like about the other tracks is only three words tend to come to mind. Animus. Apart. Prog. The end of the song (and I mean from about 6:50 onward) is pretty much this song’s saving grace. As for the song as a whole, it’s the only one out of the three 8+ minute songs on the album that actually feels long.
“II: The Uprising” starts off prog as FUCK right away, if you’ll excuse my French. This track masterfully switches between consonant prog riffs and heavy pounding multi-string riffs. Jake Hosza has an excellent drum fill in this one too. Without his stamina and beat keeping, Animus would not be able to do some of the crazy shit that they do. A lot of the most complex time signatures can be attributed to the mastermind of Garrett Kuppelmeyer and if you’ve seen that dude’s mustache you know he is definitely a mastermind. Animus Apart shows without him are always good, but never quite as good.
The final track, “Sonder”, starts off with the man with the plan and the closest thing to the band’s frontman Cody Hosza. Cody, is also the social media guy if I do say so myself. Catch him telling you when the next show is or fighting with Joe Velocci of MOMTK. “Sonder” is a creative prog masterpiece. This song is a phenomenal closer to both the EP and any Animus Apart show. It’s the slowest song, but it’s got a steady electric feel. The interlude at 8:12 sounds like something BTBAM themselves may have written. The riffing in this track is rival only to GNX, and that’s why they both earn themselves a tie for my favorite track. Sonder is complete with heavy breakdowns, soloing, musical enlightenment and more dank parts than you can count. Ultimately the best way to describe it would be eleven minutes of ear sex.
I admit that Animus Apart is especially difficult to compare bands to. They have definitive prog, instrumental and djent sounds, but they don’t exactly fit too snugly with any of those above FFO bands and to be honest, I love them all the more for it. Catch your local prog band at a show soon. This EP drops TOMORROW. Get ready and try to prepare yourself if you can. This one’s a banger.
Get the EP in the link below on Friday, May 6th. You can also listen to the first track right now!
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