Song of the Day: Mestis - Menta

     Today's song comes from an act that's kind of a friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. You see, there's this instrumental prog-tech-jazz metal type band you probably know called Animals as Leaders, and in this band there are two guitarists: Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes. These two slingers of many-stringer guitars are so full of ideas that they're in another band together, the jazz-influenced T.R.A.M. Even more than that, Reyes is so super chock full of material that he's got his own solo side-project called Mestis. It's from this project's first EP that I've drawn today's song.



     Your song today is called "Menta", from Mestis's recently released EP Basal Ganglia, and it's a beautiful piece of guitar-based instrumental music. It's only a short EP, displaying flashes of Reyes's songwriting, but I definitely consider it a good thing that it defies easy labeling. Give it a listen, and you'll find that simple terms like "jazz" and "metal" drift away like smoke on the breeze. If you can pin Mestis down, you're a better man than I.