6Exhance - 2023 - Et in Cacophonia Ego [mini-review]

(34:47; P.O.G.O. Records)



















Belgian band 6Exhance are out with the album "Et in Cacophonia Ego", and progressive metal is probably the best definition to sort the music on this album under. This is a mainly instrumental album, with the few vocal parts present being of a more distorted and extreme variety, and while the music can probably be described as extreme too it is not directly what one might call an extreme metal album. While many of the passages can be tight, hard and rather intense, the defining aspect of this production is the mathematical precision that is a recurring element throughout, and the more expressive and free form role of the saxophone in this landscape. Alongside some virtuous and expressive details also from the other instruments we get a good blend of free form jazz, math metal and what one might describe as free form metal. With just a little bit of an extreme metal flavoring as mentioned. This is chaotic and challenging music from start to finish, with a solitary drone experiment as the singular side step and exception to the norm, and those with a taste for the marriage of math metal, free form jazz and expressive, experimental metal explored in a fairly intense context and manner should find this album to be a rather intriguing experience I surmise.

Olav "Progmessor" Björnsen, December 2023

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/6exhance
https://www.facebook.com/PogoRecords

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