Yesterday, Qualeaceans released their debut first album entitled Capture Of Ziz. It’s an epic one track 78-minute composition, consisting of five movements.
After a year of trying, it’s no surprise no label picked up the album for distribution. Complex song structures like Capture Of Ziz's one and only song, In The Cavern Of The Flightless, aren’t easy to digest and may give a hard time even to fans of the most extreme metal music to make it through the whole composition, given that it is one hour and twenty minutes long, separated to five movements, one more brain-melting than the other.
This is not technical death metal in the way the term has been associated with bands like Meshuggah or Gojira in the recent years and certainly lacks in brutality compared to acts like Atheist, Death or Cynic, the top of the genre’s typical examples. Through that point of view Qualeaceans seem to go back in time even further and connect more with the 1970s progressive rock and its sub-genres (space rock, kraut, even jazz rock) and awaken memories of some of the most underrated, yet very talented and much influential obscure bands of that era.
Sadly, old fans of those bands are usually too stubborn to broaden their horizons to contemporary metal acts like Qualeaceans. Who needs this shit when you can have Kin Ping Meh all day long? they’d say. Or Os Mundi, Epitaph, Julian’s Treatment, Raw Material, Samurai, Flower Travellin’ Band and whatnot… Right? Wrong. Personally, I can sometimes become obsessed with many of these bands myself, but in the case of Qualeaceans, I can recognize the qualities of this sort of obscure music coming out through a heavier approach, not only in sound, but in a state of mind as well.
All these bands mentioned above, in their efforts to be as much complex as possible, they usually made use of some of the most extraordinary instruments like saxophones, vibraphones, flutes and were usually very much heavy on keyboards. The stars in Qualeaceans’ album are definitely the guitars. Even in its quiter movements, in those hair raising electroacoustic moments midway through the album, Qualeaceans make a great use of, but don’t go nuts on the additional instruments, giving space to the massive guitar riffs that are about to return in the next movement. Progressive it is indeed, but above all it’s metal.
Whether or not you get tired of improvisational music that goes too far, you should really give Qualeaceans a chance, maybe more than one. Capture Of Ziz has the potential to grow with every listen, as long as you listen with an open mind, willing to take the journey throught the whole intricacy.
Capture Of Ziz can be purchased lossless or in any other digital format and streamed freely, or pay-what-you-like on Bandcamp.
Band’s Tumblr
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