CONTINUO RENACER

"Continuo Renacer" is the self-titled debut full-length studio album by Spanish instrumental technical/progressive metal act Continuo Renacer. The album was released through Indar Productions in February 2005. Continuo Renacer is a trio who consists of Javier Guiterrez on guitars, Arkaitz "Kako" Carrasco on bass, and Imanol Aizpuru on drums. Fredy Pelaez guests on keyboards.

The music on the album features both jazz/fusion elements as well as some rather extreme technical metal parts not unlike the riffing/rhythm style of artists like Atheist, Spiral Architect, Blotted science, Watchtower, and Spastic Ink. In addition to that there are also some more melodic/atmosperic jazzy/progressive parts featured in the music with references to artists such as Al Di Meola and Steve Vai. The music is fully instrumental except for the chant in the beginning of album opener "The Intruder". The musicianship is on an extremely high level and if you crave tech metal madness look no further. There are multible tempo- and time signature changes in each track and the structure of the tracks are generally complex. The force of the music is that it comes off rather accessible and melodic even though the level of complexity is so high. It´s a very hard balance to strike. Some tech metal can seem too aimed at musicians and exclude non-musicians totally but I don´t think that´s the case with Continuo Renacer.

The sound production is excellent to these ears. Clean and powerful. Some might find the production a bit cold and not organic enough but I think the sound suits the music perfectly. All things considered "Continuo Renacer" is an outstanding debut album and firmly places Continuo Renacer in the premier league of instrumental technical/extreme progressive metal along with artists like Blotted science, and Spastic Ink. It´s safe to say that I´m impressed and I find this album highly recommendable to fans of the genre. A 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.