2012 Demo

The name Megatherian, which means an extinct elephant-sized ground sloth, is by far the best thing about this band. The hilariously bad band photos are a close second. This was recorded in their rehearsal space they call The Imagination Station (yes, this is a really geeky prog affair), and the production quality is certainly that typical of a demo. There is no real problem with instrumental skill, however. While everyone is proficient enough at their instruments, this really is all over the place. They seem to throw in prog clichés in randomly, completely disregarding the flow of the music. While most sections aren't all that awful in themselves, they often don't sound that great next to each other. This just doesn't sound all that cohesive.

The best part of this is when the band gets into a nice groove, a pretty sweet guitar line is laid down, a decent enough growl does it's thing - it's simple, but it works. But then some irritating side attraction always sprouts up. Be it some vaguely jazzy chords, a noodly bass line or some weird jolting guitar, these just prove more irritating than anything. The biggest problem with these dudes is that they throw in random tropes of the prog genre in (to what end? To prove you're a real prog band?) when it's just not necessary. It just makes for many unneeded sections and pointless self indulgence. This release is padded with clean sections, featuring rather dorky vocals. These are often nice enough, a subtle winding bass line, sparse chords, passable atmosphere - however, they rarely rise above nice territory. It's something we've all heard before done relatively well.

This really is the type of stuff that requires improved production. I know that the band is still in their demo phase, and I don't mean to be overly harsh with them, but I think that the rough production really drowns out a lot of what they're going for. Some of the more expansive passages do not meet their potential, and the production cheapens the experience. It really does feel quite thin at times. The production is by far the best in clean sections - the section with the bouncy bass line and restrained soloing on "Odyssey Infinite" is by far the coolest part of the demo.

There are some fairly cool ideas here, but they don't fit into a cohesive package. The composition is quite sloppy, as many sections come off as superfluous. The songwriting also isn't especially strong. These guys really need to cut out the fat and go for a leaner approach with less fucking around. The random bass wankery is particularly annoying. This could have been cool with better production and with much of the excess self indulgence cut out.