Intronaut Valley of Smoke

If I was crafty or had some sweet connections in the trophy-making industry, I'd consider plopping a shiny gold plastic van on an elevated wood stand with a clever title and inscription at the bottom. Maybe it would be called something like "The Always On Award" or "The Consistently Great Greatness Trophy of Honor." (Note that I've already gone out of my way to establish my deficiency in the crafty department, so I'm taking no responsibility for the quality of those prematurely delivered titles.) The moral of the story is that this award would go to the (very) few currently active bands that have not only released stellar albums, but have also always nailed their live set. In that regard, Intronaut fits the application requirements perfectly, with recent stellar performances on tours with Cynic and Helmet respectively, and remains one of the only bands I've been blown away by each and every time. Since great live musicianship tends to lead to quality records, having high expectations for Intronaut's latest, Valley of Smoke, was a pretty safe bet. And since the songwriting jump from The Challenger EP to Prehistoricisms was quite sizeable, the expectation of further innovation on the latest full-length was all but implied. The quick summary? These dudes have been obviously been hanging out with Mastodon and Cynic a lot. Valley of Smoke represents another step away from the faster, more traditionally metallic lean of Null and Void, instead furthering their role in defining modern, wankery-free progressive metal. Opening track "Elegy" is an immediate head-turner, thanks to one of the records biggest riffs and some throaty singing (a la Mastodon) that is a welcome addition to Sacha Dunable's already stellar screams. As the song backs away into yet another example of Joe Lester's always agile bass work and slowly adds subtle guitar lines, it's clear that this is Intronaut at the top of their game. More singing is woven into the mix as Valley of Smoke progresses, with "Above" and "Core Relations" showing off a new found knack for clean vocal harmonies. Experimentation reaches its apex with the title track, the eight and a half minute song marked by dueling bass lines (featuring Tool bassist Justin Chancellor as Lester's worthy opponent) and sparse, but rhythmically intensive drumming. The truth is, every Intronaut release has been exciting and sufficiently unique -- both in terms of where it sits in the metal scene and amongst the band's own back catalog. Yet even as we see the band push further and further into progressive/experimental metal world, they've never lost sight of the fact that a great riff is still invaluable. These guys are simply the poster boys for modern intelligent heavy music, be it categorized as metal or something else entirely. Bottom Line: If you plotted Intronaut's experimentalism vs. time, you'd see a rather clear, linearly increasing trend. Prehistoricisms was their first release to truly back away from metal and explore more subdued instrumentation, but with the help of their introduction of well-executed clean vocals and an increased tendency to explore sweeping song structures and dynamic shifts, this new record continues to push those genre limits. Valley of Smoke is truly Intronaut's progressive magnum opus.