Solipsist is the debut album from Los Angeles death metal supergroup The Zenith Passage, comprised of current and former members of The Faceless, Fallujah, and All Shall Perish. The band combines crushing, technical death metal with plenty of prog & jazz-fusion elements, and with top notch production matching the superior musicality, Solipsist is a winner on all fronts.
The line-up of Greg Hampton (Lead Vocals), Rob Maramonte (Guitars), Luis Martinez (Drums), and
Justin McKinney (Lead Guitars, Backing Vocals, Bass ) obviously took the experiences with their other bands and combined that with influences ranging from Deeds Of Flesh, Decapitated, Spawn Of Possession, Severed Savior, and Aeon to create a pummeling album here. "Deus Deceptor" has some seriously complex stop/start arrangements featuring blinding drum work, fantastic riffs, and blazing Allan Holdsworth styled guitar solos, while "Simulated Reality" and "The Dissension Consensus" are both manic technical death metal barnburners complete with tumultuous arrangements and venomous vocals. "Dreamsphere" goes straight into spacey prog, complete with futuristic synths, and "Hypnagogia" again tosses in the prog, mixing symphonic keyboards amid a boiling maelstrom of riffs and jazzy guitar solos. For sheer aggression blended with plenty of melody, it doesn't get much better than the raging "Luminary Singularity" , another perfect example of how The Zenith Passage have seemingly expanded the boundaries of technical death metal here on this album. Some sensational guitar solos and drum patterns on this track, and Hampton uses a wide variety of extreme vocal styles as well.
This is some seriously good stuff from a new band that's going to turn a lot of heads when they listen to Solipsist for the first time. It's brutal, it's melodic, it's technical, and ultimately, incredible.
Track Listing
1. Holographic Principle I: Emergence
2. Holographic Principle II: Convergence
3. Simulated Reality
4. Deus Deceptor
5. The Dissension Consensus
6. Dreamsphere
7. Hypnagogia
8. Metaphysical Solipsism
9. The Tenebrous Veil
10. Luminary Singularity
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