Animals As Leaders – ‘Parrhesia’ (Sumerian Records)

By Jase Walker

As far as bands in the prog metal scene go, Animals As Leaders were one of the first bands I really hit on when I first started listening to stuff from the djent/prog metal scene about a decade ago. Something about the fusion of heavy eight-string chugs in odd time signatures mixed with jazz really did something for me and I’ve been a fan of theirs since. Every album of theirs is on my heavy rotation, and I’ve seen them live multiple times.

So, with 2022, we finally get the next addition to their discography in the form of ‘Parrhesia’. It’s been around six years since their last release, ‘The Madness of Many’, which seemed to discard a lot of their more ‘metal’ side in favour of a more ambient and atmospheric sound. Admittedly my favourite of theirs is still very much ‘The Joy of Motion’, which was probably their best blend of jazz and Metal but I’m not one to take more new music from one of my favourite acts for granted so time to get my ears around their latest!

‘Parrhesia’ comes in at nine tracks, with a runtime of just over 36 minutes, so don’t expect any particularly long songs, but generally I find this makes an album on the whole a bit easier to digest and doesn’t need repeated listens to properly get the gist of it.

Right from the outset with ‘Conflict Cartography’ this feels much closer to something from their earlier efforts mixing a lot of large soaring melodies against a backdrop of intense, grinding single string playing, interspersed with riffs that often sound like they’re being played in reverse – a pretty signature style for these guys.

‘Monomyth’ stands out with its unique style of extremely tight rhythmic chugs and what sounds like carnival style melody in the background, this track seems to be AAL toying with what sorts of bizarre rhythmic sections they can do similar to tracks like ‘Physical Education’ from ‘The Joy of Motion’. The music video for this is also pretty bizarre and I can only imagine what the dancers must have thought in regard to trying to choreograph something like this.

So far, I’m really getting a feeling that AAL have decided to experiment a bit more with the rhythmic side of their sound in comparison with previous efforts, almost as if they knew their melodic side was pretty solid but figured they’d play around with time signatures a bit more, I mean have you seen what Matt Garstka (drums) is capable of? He’s an absolute machine.

‘Red Miso’ and ‘Gestalzerfall’ again show many call backs to their earlier works and seems to stick around the mix of jazz and metal in equal measure as opposed to leaning too far in either direction so this is really appealing to me. A nice solid measure of double-thumb sections, leading into ‘release’ sections of ambient backing and tasteful playing.

A brief interlude of ‘Asahi’ leads into their other single from this album, ‘The Problem of Other Minds’ with a gorgeous, harmonised melody leading right from the outset layered against a dreamy jazzy lead. But not long before the signature thumpy double-thumb work comes back into play – overall feeling a bit more like a holdover from ‘The Madness of Many’ and it’s sweeping soundscape feel.

For the peak of the album, with the final three tracks, ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ begins the opening segment with its extended wailing guitar solo before bringing back the signature chugs, but again this puts on display the more playful rhythmic elements that the rest of the album’s shown of so far. This is further emphasised with ‘Micro-Aggressions’ with some of the fastest and most intense playing I’ve heard from AAL so far, Tosin and Javier have definitely spent a lot of time upping their game here and adding finesse to their style.

Not only have they upped their speed, but also the accuracy with which they put these improvements on display is mind-blowing. It’s obviously not all about that since they’re used to decorate specific passages and it’s not all just a speed fest here. But honestly, I feel like with the sort of solo playing I often see Matt putting out on social media, it’s like they feel justified in using his absolutely ridiculous playing to realise ideas that have been bouncing around in their heads for a while now.

Finishing the album with ‘Gordian Naught’ – probably the most aggressive and intense track on the album, this one’s almost entirely just rhythm and barely contained fury. Most people usually opt for some sort of “send-off” but not AAL, this one’s here to let off one last angry scream and depart with no explanation.

‘Parrhesia’ feels solidly like they’ve taken all the experience from their previous jaunts, wrapped it all up into an album that continues to push boundaries that not many others even come close to. A unique force that’s inspired many other acts to do similar but remains at the forefront of the question, “what if there was more jazz in metal?”.

I can’t wait to hear this stuff live!

‘Parrhesia’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.

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