DR. SLAGGLEBERRY

Let's get this out of the way — DR. SLAGGLEBERRY has arguably the worst name in heavy metal. It's a name that deserves a cock-punch. It's more suited to a bunch of pretentious twats with thrift-store cardigans and wispy PHISH beards playing what they strenuously imagine to be soulful hippie jam rock bullshit on Quarter Beer Tuesday on some godforsaken empty frat patio in Nebraska. Just say it out loud once. "DR. SLAGGLEBERRY". I don't care what its backstory is. It's awful.

All that said... "The Slagg Factory" is amazing! It's instrumental, technical, jazzy math metal and it's a mindfuck of epic proportions. The lazy comparison would be MESHUGGAH, of course, but the band leaves a little more air in their spacy, proggy arrangements, with fat low-end that somehow manages to find and ride a loping, in-the-pocket groove no matter what time signature it's twisted into. The melodic lead guitar tends to go more for chiming, repeating melody lines over the chugging rhythm riff, recalling fellow instro-weirdoes KONG, but even in the occasional mellow bits, you're never far from a heavy-as-lead section or a harrowing, dramatic buildup (see the 2:30-3:00 section of "Gone Devil" for a bruising example of this band's masterful tension-and-release dynamics).

For all its impressive tech fleet-foot jazz dickery, "The Slagg Factory" is an accessible, even joyous affair, never too far up its own ass or impressed with its own skills to rock the hell out. If you like your prog sly, twisted and heavy, spacy and cinematic, without the corrupting influence of either operatic helium-heads or frilly-shirted grunters, this is some jazz-metal mainline that will please you mightily. Ignore that horrible name and give these guys a chance, because they deserve to be heard by many.