Music is medicine

**Aragorn** · 23rd April 2018, 13:34

Some more Animals As Leaders. These guys are effing brilliant.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukAJy_ivSXU

**Emil El Zapato** · 24th April 2018, 11:28

Very jazzlike quality...cool...I like the sound

**Aragorn** · 24th April 2018, 13:10

Originally posted by NotAPretender

Very jazzlike quality...cool...I like the sound

I've only discovered this band quite recently, and although I don't like every single song of theirs — I'm not really into the djent stuff — the vast majority of it is really, really good. They are officially described as a progressive metal band, but they include so many different styles and influences in their music that it can easily be regarded as a new generation of world music.

They're a three-piece band: guitarists Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes, both playing eight-string guitars, and drummer Matt Garstka. There's no bass player or vocalist. They do feature keyboards and other instruments — e.g. a kalimba — in most of their recordings but I don't know which band members play those.

Up until recently, I was in agreement with modwiz that from the 1990s on, music started turning into a kind of GMO. By the late 1990s, guitar solos were even considered as taboo as smoking on camera. Even Metallica did an album in which there were no guitar solos in any of their songs. But then I heard these guys.

Jimi Hendrix was a revolutionary in terms guitar playing, and then came along Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert and other wizards like that, who took the art of playing the electric guitar to a whole other level. And now there's Tosin and Javier, and they're taking it to another universe.

**enjoy being** · 24th April 2018, 14:25

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**Emil El Zapato** · 24th April 2018, 14:31

Originally posted by Aragorn

Some more Animals As Leaders. These guys are effing brilliant.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukAJy_ivSXU

They're British?

The music that comes from such a relatively small place always amazes me...

**enjoy being** · 24th April 2018, 14:35

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**Aragorn** · 24th April 2018, 14:38

Originally posted by NotAPretender

They're British?

The music that comes from such a relatively small place always amazes me...

No, they're a US American band.

**Elen** · 24th April 2018, 14:51

Originally posted by Aragorn

No, they're a US American band.

This was hitting my funny bone, guys

**Emil El Zapato** · 24th April 2018, 18:08

Originally posted by Nothing

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E39F2rw6LVM

I really like that one...it has a 'true' indigenous sound...

**Emil El Zapato** · 24th April 2018, 18:16

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZiAXUGE1cU

**Aragorn** · 24th April 2018, 18:38

Also already posted elsewhere earlier, but these guys are also very good. Not as eclectic as Animals As Leaders — even though they were decisively more metal-oriented at the start of their career — but there's still some overlap in influences, and their guitar solos do tend to grab you by the throat.