“Mysterious creatures from the past have come and found some objects, known to us humans as instruments. Soon, they began to groove. Sometimes while playing, their trunks got in the way, making some of their tones sound rather odd.” – how Murrayglossus describe themselves on their Facebook page!

I’ll use slightly different terminology! Murrayglossus are a duo, Ben Haeringer from Berlin and New York drummer James Knoerl, and together they play progressive rock/metal with a bit of jazzcore (I didn’t even know that was a thing!) as well as a bit of everything else.

Earthcore is their debut EP and at about 24 minutes in length, consists of six instrumental tracks, each named after an extinct animal of some kind, even the band name Murrayglossus is an extinct echidna!

Both musicians in this duo come from a heavy metal background and this does show in the music they have produced. Heavy metal riffs and crashing drums are prevalent all the way through, as are bounding bass lines.

Elements of jazz pop up from time to time as does post-rock, sludge and multitude of other genres.

It’s the progressiveness of the EP that makes it stand out from other EPs out at the moment as the music is very technical and there are a plethora of time changes throughout each track and the EP as a whole.

The music, itself, is very sludgey and doomy, and there are some solid grooves throughout.

I have seen these guys being compared to Mastadon and I must say this is a credit to them. The two of them work well together and the interaction of the two is spot on.

If you are a progressive sludge fan who likes a bit of doom in there too, then this is the EP for you!

Tracklist

01. Extinct (Intro)

02. Discoaster

03. Zaglossus Hacketti

04. Elasmotherium

05. Mixotoxodon

06. Teratornis

This review is purely the property of The Metal Asylum