refluxology
Back from the sweaty, bloody, heavy metal endurance test that is the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.
When you're listening to bands from one or two narrow genres for three days straight, your ears begin to crave something a little different; something that doesn't sound like every other band. This year, the band that really delivered that for me and was the clear pleasant surprise of the festival was Reflux, out of DC.
I'd never heard of them before and they were supposed to be playing on the second stage which I'd been unwillingly boycotting because the layout of the venue made it almost impossible to get in or out of. But something got messed up with the schedule and they ended up playing on the main stage early saturday afternoon while my friends and I were waiting around for a Strapping Young Lad signing that never seemed to happen.
When they came out, it was just the guitarist, drummer, and bassist and they launched into about five minutes of insane, fast, tight, proggy, instrumental rock that caught our attention in a hurry (It may have even been the song above, but I can't say for sure). I was a little disappointed when a vocalist came out later and started screaming along. I was really excited about an instrumental set as a nice change of pace. The vocalist wasn't too bad though and the band kept up the intensity and complexity.
After their set, I made a beeline for the merch table and picked up a copy of their album, "The Illusion of Democracy", which you can (and should) buy directly from Prosthetic Records. The Prosthetic site also has the mp3 for "Above the Pyramid and the Eye," which has vocals and is more indicative of their overall sound ("the Keats Persona" is an instrumental).
They get additional style points for working in a Chappelle Show soundbyte into their set immediately before launching into a song: "We learned that white people can dance if you play the right music: electric guitar."