Since Amaranthe stormed on to the scene in 2010 with their widely acclaimed demo, not much has held them back. It has been a non-stop ride to the top for the Swedish metallers releasing two well received albums, introducing their brand of lightning fast electro metal with catchy hooks, technical prowess and their unique element of diverse vocal flurry. Continuing on the hot trail and only a bit over a year since the release of the previous album ‘The Nexus‘, Amaranthe release their newest effort ‘Massive Addictive‘. Can they continue their pop-metal dominance and follow up two albums that had so much effort and passion thrown into them?

Progressive metal often conjures up images of the grandiose, highly technical and often very much exhibitist behaviour. With sprawling solo’s and mind bending time signatures that are often thrown in just for the sake of it. A genre that is easily over saturated and behind its miasma of technicality can be essentially self indulgent and boring.

It’s been 3 long years since we have really heard anything from Scar Symmetry. The band haven’t toured much, not really said anything about any new music and also parted ways with long time guitarist and producer Jonas Kjellgren. Quite honestly it really didn’t seem like the band had much going for them any more. Little did we know though that a new Scar Symmetry album trilogy was in the works, representative of new beginnings in the band, and a point for guitarist Per Nilsson to prove that he can bring out the best in Scar Symmetry.

Progress within a band is hard to define. You could determine that progress is more technically driven, songs where the progress would be that  the members have become more masterful with their respective instruments. Perhaps you could define progress through being more daring and forward thinking in their approach, trying new sounds and different ideas. Or you could define that progress is when a band is truly cohesive, when not just one particular area of the band excels but the unit as a whole is immovable.

Language is a concept that comes in many different forms, from the earliest days of man we had the beginnings of a language with grunting, which then evolved to some form of communication that in time took form into the way of speaking that we now know. Having said that, expressing yourself  holds many possibilities, giving people the option of speaking in different tongues and different dialects. Accentuating nuances that would normally be forgotten, giving words and terms double meanings in peoples respective mother tongue, enter The Contortionist.