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Sore Plexus > Visual Agnosia > Reviews > bayern
Sore Plexus - Visual Agnosia

Aural Euphoria and Its Benign Side-Effects - 94%

bayern, October 1st, 2017

Since I already reviewed the full-length here, I wasn’t planning to visit this page again, at least not as a scribe. But this friend called me the other day, one whom I had given the Sore Plexus discography a few weeks back, and he didn’t know how to thank me for that, the man having found another top favourite act. I knew his first band were Psychotic Waltz, and I threw him a couple of outfits that I was sure he would like… he happened to like these fabulous Germans the most.

A very right choice, if you ask me, since this bunch are one of the finest representatives of the progressive metal roster for the past 20 years. It’s too sad that they only danced for about four years, leaving behind a small, but utterly essential, legacy.

We’re looking at this short effort here, six pieces of elaborate metal art, closing on just above 22-min, and we can’t help but marvel at the musical audacity on display… from the first to the last note. “Paperhat” will instantly make paperhats for all present with its twisted, serpentine rifforamas, a scathing jazz-like labyrinth its unnerving qualities further aggravated by the surreal clean, Jello Biafra-like (Dead Kennedys) vocals; a puzzling riff after puzzling riff come in spiral-like hallucinogenic pirouettes, something that even Watchtower and Psychotic Waltz may find hard to match. “3’n Slow” is the next in line slab of outlandish soundscapes the relatively linear beginning quickly turned on its head by the sudden application of balladic interludes and swirling technical accumulations, the abstract Mekong Delta-sque passage mid-way further complicating the delivery which safely goes back to the more conventional section heard at the start.

“Shaft!” is the immediate piece here, a more orthodox shredder with nice melodic leads and atmospheric balladic deviations those recalling the already mentioned American ballroom dance champions; gruffer semi-whispered vocals appear to disrupt the hegemony of the main wailer who, when more subdued and less pathos-prone, closely resembles Buddy Lackey (Psychotic Waltz time and again). “Shakkapully” will pull you in with more dramatic arrangements with a pounding inauguration which takes quite a bit of space before a vortex of leads and riffs bound together gets unleashed splitting the song into two parts, the second one a totally surreal combination of weird serenity and dense technical riff-sections. “Boneless Chicken” notches up the drama with an imposing doomy passage from which derives a beautiful melodic breeze the latter growing into a supreme technical thrash cavalcade which later takes turns with a breath-taking quiet etude; screamy leads and schizophrenic rifforamas form an everlasting bond the psychotic character of this symbiosis cancelled by the doomy motif from the beginning, this time serving as an epitaph.

Although for a large portion of the time this opus comes as a mixture between Psychotic Waltz’s “A Social Grace” and Watchtower’s “Control & Resistance”, there are several other graceful references, intentional or not, towards other luminaries of the genre here, mostly form the rich German heritage, like Mekong Delta again, Deathrow, Sieges Even, Skeptic Sense, etc. What makes the band’s approach even more respectable is their unflinching adherence to the classic canons, the guys totally disregarding the dominant trends on the field. Well, a highly-technical repertoire can’t possibly be based on the groovy boredom so that stance shouldn’t be such a big surprise.

To continue with the admiration towards the band, they continued up the ladder to perfection on the full-length two years later which retained all the complex, multi-faceted histrionics from here by adding more aggressive thrash-fixated rhythms heightening their hybridization skills to the max thus producing one of the finest works from the progressive/thrash metal arena… Mission accomplished; game over for one of the most innovative, most original entities to ever grace the scene. That’s some way to go out in a blast, and if you think of it, quite a few of their peers from the technical/progressive metal sector had terminated their careers, more or less timely, after just two official showings: Watchtower, Toxik, Realm, Lost Century, Megace, Psycho Symphony, Agretator, etc. I guess an early culmination doesn’t quire require too many aftermaths if any at all. Besides, the possibility of producing something not as distinguished is greatly diminished, and the high status remains intact…

Whether these are the reasons why so many acts had laid down the weapons for good through the years is hard to tell. Quite a few have made attempts to come back, though, some successful, some not really worth mentioning. Our “sore“ heroes don’t show any big enthusiasm in doing that; I presume attaining an aural euphoria is just a once-in-a-lifetime experience…