Tuesday: The Faceless - The Spiraling Void

     Fans of The Faceless will no doubt have heard the news (and perhaps even the new song) by now, but both are definitely tasty enough to warrant their own Tech Tuesday post.

     First, the news, which is that the latest lineup to join Michael Keene under the Faceless banner includes a couple of guys from the band's Planetary Duality days, most notably former-and-now-current-again vocalist Derek "Demon Carcass" Rydquist. History would try to tell us that this lineup might not be the most solid long-term, but longtime Faceless fans seem generally pretty stoked that the Planetary Duality-era team is back at all.

     Second, the song, an unsurprisingly technical and proggy number called "The Spiraling Void" that sounds right at home on the possible spectrum of progression since Autotheism. Besides the new track, most news out of The Faceless HQ lately has been tour (and lineup) related, so no word just yet on a new record. But a new single is always a good sign that more new material might be right around the corner, and I for one would very much appreciate an album's worth of stuff like "The Spiraling Void".

Last Tuesday: The Faceless - Legion of the Serpent

     Getting on to Tuesday now, and that means you could probably stand to hear a Tech Tuesday tune.

     The only news out of The Faceless HQ recently has been less than stellar, with the gist of things being that it's once again pretty much just the Michael Keene show. But then hasn't it always been that way? I for one don't really care if it's just Michael running the show or not, so long as I don't have to wait too much longer for some more tasty jams like this Tech Tuesday track.

     "Legion of the Serpent" might be an older cut, taken from the band's 2008 masterpiece Planetary Duality, but it was certainly a crowd favourite when I saw them The Faceless at Heavy TO back in 2012. It's had a special place in my heart since that show, so please enjoy "Legion of the Serpent" with my compliments.

Son of Aurelius - Mercy for Today

     Imagine if The Black Dahlia Murder and Arsis made sweet, sweet metal love to each other, and one of them got knocked up, and then nine months later pre-Michael-Keene-show The Faceless acted as midwife for the resulting baby. That baby, my friends, could very well be named Son of Aurelius.

      I came across these guys a few years ago (so long ago that I can't even remember how) but only recently got around to picking up a copy of their 2010 debut LP The Farthest Reaches. I now wish I hadn't forgotten about them for so long, because I could have been singing their praises this whole time. The eleven tracks on The Farthest Reaches are a sampling of some of the tastiest technical melo-death (melodic tech-death?) I've heard in ages that wasn't written by one of the three bands mentioned above.

     You might not feel quite as enamoured with these guys as I am, but I definitely think you'll dig them at least a little. So check out "Mercy for Today", the furious opening salvo from The Farthest Reaches, and discover for yourself what seems like the Internet's best kept metal secret.

Song of the Day: The Faceless - Planetary Duality II: A Prophecies Fruition

     California tech-death band The Faceless (aka The Michael Keene Show) no doubt picked up a lot of new fans with last year's stellar Autotheism, which was a perfect blend of Opethian beauty meets Arsis-up-to-11 beast.