Geryon (mems. Krallice & Castevet) streaming debut LP

by Doug Moore

Geryon at the Acheron (more by Fred Pessaro)

If you keep tabs on live metal in NYC, you’re probably already familiar with Geryon, the guitar-free death metal duo (yes, for real) featuring Krallice/Castevet bassist Nick McMaster and his Krallice bandmate Lev Weinstein on drums. The band has been gigging with increasing regularity since early 2012; they’ve played with The Body, Dysrhythmia, Zevious, Behold…The Arctopus, Child Abuse, and Mutilation Rites since June. However, until now they’ve had no official recorded material.

We’re featuring their self-titled debut on Invisible Oranges this morning (it’s also streaming in full below). From our writeup:

“Death metal without guitars” is not an inherently appealing concept. Fortunately, Astomatous were an unconventional death metal band in the first place. Their basic approach has remained the same: dissonant, Gorguts/Immolation-referencing riffs that sync up with or push back against Weinstein’s forceful blasts. McMaster has picked up a few tricks during his time in the fertile NYC progressive metal scene, where he’s also taken up with Castevet for their excellent new album. He fills up a lot of space by himself, largely avoiding palm mutes and instead stacking up piles of hand-cramping chords and slides. The bare-bones lineup leaves these songs feeling texturally sparse at times, but that’s part of the point — it exposes the harmonic richness of McMaster’s playing.

Check out the rest of the writeup over on IO.

Geryon is available digitally via the band’s Bandcamp. It will see a vinyl pressing via Gilead Media in early 2014. Stream it in full below.

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