Nux Vomica (US) for Tech/Prog or Exp./Post-Metal

This American group, originally from Maryland but now relocated to Oregon, started out as a crust punk outfit but started adding more and more Swedish death metal influence as their career went on as well as getting increasingly ambitious and progressive in their songwriting. By now their songs often reach at least the 10 minute mark, almost always involving very elaborate tension-and-release narrative structures building up and transitioning between soft atmospheric sections, different tempos and riffing styles from otherwise disparate genres. Not just death metal and crust punk, but there often creeps some sludge into the slow parts and the softer parts occasionally echo 1980s goth rock.

They now actually remind me quite a bit of Afflicted, an unorthodox death metal group from Sweden, except quite a bit doomier and in some ways more ambitious. Nux Vomica's latest self-titled album can for point of reference be streamed on their bandcamp page and I'd say it's pretty damn progressive. Here are some songs from their earlier records:





I'm not sure quite which of the two progressive metal subgenres to submit NV to, but I think they belong on the website. What do the people on the site's staff who specialize in the more "out there" styles of progressive metal say? Do you think the band counts, or are they more generally outside-the-box-thinking than specifically progressive?


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 24 2015 at 09:52

I've been meaning to listen to this band for a bit. Those album covers are pretty nice.