Destrage - Are You Kidding Me? No.

     In yesterday's song post, I talked briefly about how "catchy" doesn't have to be a bad thing to call a metal band. It can, in the right circumstances, be a perfectly fine thing, and if you mix "catchy" and some "weird" together, it can be a perfectly great thing.

     I've written about Italy's Destrage before, but since then I've spent a lot more time with their latest disc Are You Kidding Me? No. and have come to the conclusion that it'll be criminal if this record doesn't end up on some Best of 2014 lists at the end of the year. There's a decent chance it'll land on mine, but for now I'm just going to urge you to check these guys out, and facilitate your doing so by featuring another track from this killer album.

     I'm honestly hard-pressed to pick the right song to feature from Are You Kidding Me? No. "My Green Neighbour" feels perhaps the most singley (and I mean it is the album's single), but I've already done that one. Album opener "Destroy, Create, Transform, Sublimate" does a great job of kicking things off with a bang and setting the tone for the rest of the record, but I think I have to go with the album closing title track as your Song for this evening.

     "Are You Kidding Me? No." opens punky and techy and even a little mathy, like some hypothetical super jam featuring members of Protest the Hero and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Things go a bit further down the math-prog rabbit hole before taking a turn for mariachi oom-pah town before ultimately resolving into some very neo-classical sounding shred. All in all, it's a good encapsulation of the confident wackyness to be had on Are You Kidding Me? No. and a good encapsulation of why you should give Destrage a listen.