Prothos - Left To Drift & Hikikomori
Opinion: it’s getting more and more difficult to find superb metal music of any genre, especially sludge or doom or post-sludge or whatever your preferred terminology is. Of course, there are a number of outstanding doom outfits: Conan, Rottendawn, Ossuarium, Left Hand Solution, and Monolord come rapidly to mind.
Prothos
Yet as I hold my nose and plunge into the ‘New Arrivals’ section on Bandcamp, it’s apparent that hackneyed imitation has become the new graven image before which most bands now genuflect. In other words, 85% of all metal is little more than a simulacrum of a simulacrum. It’s derivative as all get-out. Everyone’s aping someone else, who’s aping someone else, who’s … ad infinitum.
But every once in a while, Mighty Mouse shows up. Remember Mighty Mouse? “Here I come to save the day, that means that Mighty Mouse in on his way.” This is my way of introducing Prothos, the brainchild of Matthew C. Meyer, which, according to his Bandcamp and Facebook pages “blends the aggression of djent, with crushing tones of sludge, and the atmosphere of post rock. Prothos has told many heavy stories that span from the dangers of technological abuse and evolution, to the human condition across the cosmos, right down the mystics of sand swept ancient cities.”
Prothos’ Bandcamp page asserts: “Prothos is a genre bending force to be reckoned with.” More often than not, whenever you read the phrase “genre bending,” you’re reading purple prose, because every band in the world claims to be “genre bending.”
However, in this case, the phrase is not pomp. For Prothos’ music is actually genre bending.
Prothos definitely delivers superb, genre bending music loaded with vast primitive power.
The just-dropped EP comprises two-tracks: “Left to Drift” and “Hikikomori,” with the former providing the sonic equivalent of “the Pacific Ocean's waves crashing against the beach,” while the latter is constructed around the Japanese word referring to the psychological condition which essentially confines people at home.
Prothos puts it this way: “Hikikomori is the polar opposite. This track is a typhoon of sound based off the tragedy and triumph of the nuclear meltdown in Japan.”
“Left to Drift” opens on gentle elegant guitars backed by emerging thrumming coruscations. As the drums enter, the tune adds metrical intensity, but still exudes flavors of dream-pop. A rumbling drum fill introduces crusty, grinding guitars reflecting a wall of thick potent sound, deep and melodious.
“Hikikomori” travels on snarling guitars, tight and full of glaring tension, riding a quasi-syncopated beat. A dark searing guitar tops the stormy rhythm guitar, infusing the tune with two penetrating textures of color. Out of the blue, the harmonics diminish to a jazz-flavored melody, followed by ramping back up to searing dynamics.
Prothos definitely delivers superb, genre bending music loaded with vast primitive power. Matthew C. Meyer has it going on.
