Mandroid Echostar - The Sleeper

     In addition to being aware of my love for physical media, regular readers will likely also have picked up on my penchant for preordering. Whether it's in the form of an Indiegogo campaign or just a straight preorder, I enjoy knowing ahead of time that the album I'm looking forward to has already been paid for and will arrive at my door without any further action required on my part.

     The only downside is that stuff can sometimes take a while to arrive in the post, and although lots of bands are now mitigating this problem by issuing digital download codes on release day for fans who've purchased physical version of albums, I'm still a little old school in my desire to wait for my copy to arrive before I really sit down with a release. Sure, I'll stream or download on release day to keep up with the Joneses of music journalism, but it's only when I get my grubby mitts on a disc that I really delve into the material.

     For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised to find my copy of Mandroid Echostar's new EP in my mailbox earlier this week. For the unfamiliar, Mandroid is a techy Canadian band from Guelph that I've seen best described as sounding a little like Protest the Hero meets Coheed and Cambria. Their self-titled debut EP was pretty solid, and their new disc Citadels is more of the same: some really cool melodies spread across the soaring vocals and intricate guitar work and backed up by some tight and tasteful drumming.

     I almost want to go with "Ancient Arrows" as your song today, simply because the intro-y riff strikes me as the best Avenged Sevenfold lick Avenged never wrote, but I think I'm going to settle on "The Sleeper. For a guitar guy like me, this one's loaded: there's some fat riffage, some very video game-inspired tapping that opens and closes the song, and even a sweet little bluesy-sounding solo too.

     One problem/blessing in disguise? All I can find on Youtube is a stream of the whole EP, so you'll just have to ingest the whole thing, paying special attention to track five. Or just skip ahead to "The Sleeper". Either way, check these guys out pronto, and while you're at it check out the e-mail interview I did with Mandroid's singer Michael Ciccia back in the spring.