Outcast - Awaken the Reason

Somewhere between Meshuggah-styled assaults and Devin Townsend’s symphonic elegance, you'll find France’s Outcast.

Their third full-length album “Awaken the Reason” is as outrageously chaotic as it is delightfully mesmerising and sees the French quintet manipulating a wide range influences with tremendous grace and technical aplomb. The chaotic, but equally delightful “Spin Angular Momenta” just might be the most faithful example of their well-balanced and intriguing sound. Starting with frenzied bursts of technical brilliance that venture on Meshuggah territory, highlighted by a superb and exceptional enthralling guitar solo, then towards the end the guitars sway into a melodic and alluring approach coupled with some angelic female vocals that reminds the wonderful performance of Anneke van Giersbergen on records like “Addicted”. Textures is also a good reference point, which makes perfect sense considering it was guitarist Jochem Jacobs that mixed this record at SplitSecond Sound Studio.

Employing poly-rhythmic, crunching guitar riffs, complicated and thundering drum patterns, furious grunts, dazzling ambiences and ravishing melodies, “Awaken the Reason” has it all for anyone longing for experimental, extreme and progressive metal.

Some call this Djent, others Prog-Metal, but it doesn’t matter the classification you want to dump on it because there’s no denying that “Awaken the Reason” is one of the best records you’ll likely hear in 2012. (8.2/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.outcast.fr

Label info: www.listenable.net