Sunday: Exist - If or When

     Your Saturday song was an example of something a little heavier from Scale the Summit. But what would happen if a band with similarly jazzy and proggy tendencies went full metal? You might get something that sounds like your Sunday song.

     Washington's Exist went full jazzy prog metal on their 2013 LP Sunlight, and came away with an epic monster. I've featured tracks taken from it a number of times before, and now it's that time again, so have a listen to "If or When" and then picture Scale the Summit applying those chops I was talking about to something as gnarly as this. Wouldn't that be badass? Get to work guys.

Exist - Like the Weather

     The concept, if you will, of today's post, and how it relates to today's song, makes me feel clever. Please bear with me.

     "Like the Weather", by American fusion band Exist, is a little bit like the weather -- mercurial, changeable. At times "Like the Weather" thunders along like a storm front, and at other times it backs off like a sunny break in the clouds. The song's nine minute running time is like a year's worth of shifting seasons and varied weather patterns.

     OK, so maybe that's reaching a bit. "Like the Weather" is a killer fusion metal song, with a perfect storm of jazz and tech death elements. And given that Exist's debut LP is entitled Sunlight (complete with title track), maybe it's not such a stretch to believe that there's some meteorological or climatological stuff going on. Or maybe I'm just tired. Goodnight kids.

(Unfortunately, I can't find a copy of this song online, so you'll just have to hit the Googler and try to find a stream of the album somewhere. "Like the Weather" is track four. Good luck!)

Exist - Writhe

     I featured fusion metal band Exist a couple of weeks ago, but their debut LP Sunlight is so solid that I feel compelled to sing their praises again for the benefit of anyone who isn't familiar with them yet.

     To that end, your song this evening is Sunlight's opener "Writhe", a nearly ten-minute epic that's a story of two halves. The first four or five minutes feature some sinister fusion riffing, and the latter half consists of a seriously jazzy instrumental section. Take both parts together and you get a track that demonstrates pretty thoroughly what Exist is all about, which in my opinion is just the job you need your album opener to do. If you don't hear "Writhe" and then want to hear the rest of Sunlight, then this kind of fusiony stuff just ain't your cup of tea. My condolences.

Exist - Self-Inflicted Disguise

     Do you like fusion-metal band Cynic? Are you eagerly counting down the days until they release Kindly Bent to Free Us in February? Is the wait until Valentine's Day just too goddamn long for you? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then today's band might just be the methadone to keep you going until you can mainline some more sweet, sweet Cynic.

     Said band, Exist, even have a Cynic-al connection: frontman Max Phelps is a member of Cynic's current live line-up, as well as being the frontman for the current line-up of Death to All, the Chuck Schuldiner-tribute group organized by Death-alums and Cynic prog-nerds Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert.

     What all of this six degrees of separation stuff means for you is that Exist displays a lot of the same jazzy-sounding prog-metal goodness that can be found in Cynic's more recent work, making Exist a pretty tasty way to make it through the next couple of months. Have a listen to "Self-Inflicted Disguise" from Exist's debut LP Sunlight and see if it'll scratch that fusion itch for you.