Last summer I was lucky enough to get a guided tour around The Bestiary, debut album by Aberdeen based band Cyclops Cataract. Building upon the foundations of previous EP ‘Swallow The World’ it was an intriguing and genre-shifting release far beyond the black / death descriptors that went with it. Indeed, the band excelled in bringing a variety of different facets to their sound akin to unlocking each cage and revealing something unique and remarkable within. So, when this four track EP with the odd band title (taken from a Salvador Dali quote) arrived I was pleased to note that it is a side project from Cyclops C guitarist Scott Hogg who had hinted that with references to Gojira, Strapping Young Lad and Enslaved that this was going to be more on the progressive metal side of things.

Scott has delved fully into the Dali-esque ethos and has with him vocalist Omer Cordell of British Colombia based act Trailight as well as some guest vocals from Romain Jeuniaux of Belgian band Omnerod, making this a truly multi-national meeting of minds. I was expecting something that was going to be far from one-dimensional here and am pleased to say that is exactly what I got over its 25-minute running time. Nothing here stands still for a second.

It’s the drums we first encounter on opener ‘The Savant On Ketamine’ and Scott who is responsible for all instrumentation is far from tranquilised. The opening barrage is massive and heavy as a very heavy thing. Vocals are angry thick rasps on the back of them and guitars chug away. Take nothing for granted though as we move into progressive keyboard twists providing a frosty twinkling sound along with clean vocals. Now normally I would moan about the move away from the extreme side of things vocally but with a clean timbre with early “shades” of Paradise Lost about them they are absolutely spot-on here. Moving between them and snarls, eclectic instrumental twirls and weighty pummelling we certainly get the best of both worlds here. ‘The Terrible Paradox Of Self-Awareness’ hones in with spiky and jagged riffing before going into mellow gloominess and on the drop of a coin some schizophrenic highfalutin and rafter raising croons. There’s some of the maverick outsider influence of Mr Townsend at play and despite the chopping and changing of styles it all holds together perfectly and at least to my mind, makes some kind of sense. Add to this some sonic high-pitched twirling guitar weaves giving things a chiptune makeover, others may not quite agree though.

With ‘Nevada Séance’ I totally get where the Enslaved comparison comes from and the melody, propulsive thrust and gnarly blackened vocals drop me straight into their more recent discography. No carbon-copy in the slightest, everything is but for an instant and the cleans swoop in again providing a real shiver down the spine moment which is really quite excellent. ‘The Non-Conformist’ by both name and nature has the concluding number romping off with some seething fast flurries and some djenty contortions bouncing the listener all over the shop. A bit of rock-opera sounding vocal gymnastics twist it into even more frenzied shapes and there’s the addition of what sounds like Theremin adding to the mania. This time when the clean vocals come in I am reminded a fair bit of A Pale Horse Named Death going into a Beatles like melody as the music calms down around them. Seriously there is bits of everything going on here making this debut one that really must be heard. The only problem is that it has such addictive qualities you are going to find yourself coming back to it as it persistently tugs at your memory…

At the end of the accompanying note that came with this Scott writes that he hopes to continue this project with a full album and more guests in the future. I sincerely hope he does too as this could be the start of something quite remarkable!

(8/10 Pete Woods)

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