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ILLOGICIST

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal • Italy


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Illogicist picture
Illogicist biography
ILLOGICIST began life in 1997 as a project of Luca Minieri (guitar) and Remy Curtaz (drums).Roberto Zeppa soon joined on bass and the band began preparing to record their debut album.Weeks before the studio sessions began,guitarist Fabio Filippone (NEFARIUM) joined the band.This line-up recorded ILLOGICIST'S first official release,the 2002 ep "Polymorphism Of Death".
After this recording Filippone and Zeppa left the band and Diego Ambrosi (guitar) and Emilio Dattolo (bass) joined the ranks.New music was written,then a long period of rehearsal and live gigging began.The resulting session produced 2003's "Dissonant Perspectives" ep.
After a lengthy period of heavy promotion and live gigging in the Italian underground scene,ILLOGICIST secured a deal for it's first full-length debut after signing with Crash Records and in 2004 "Subjected" was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public.
In the mean time founding drummer Remy Curtaz left the band,and drummer Marco Minnemann was brought in for the recording sessions for their sophomore album,2007's "The Insight Eye".Minnemann has since been replaced with Sergio Ponti behind the kit.
To quote the band,ILLOGICIST'S music is a "violent sonic combination of technical ability, rhythmic asymetry, melodic sickness and lyrical frustration created to reflect a dynamic and emotional vision of suffering and introspection".
Comparable to bands like BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME,ION DISSONANCE and THEORY IN PRACTICE to name a few,ILLOGICIST come highly recommended.



Why this artist must be listed in www.progarchives.com :
This band has been approved by the Progressive Metal Team of Special Collaborators



Discography:
Subjected, studio album (2004)
The Insight Eye, studio album (2007)
...

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ILLOGICIST discography


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ILLOGICIST top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

4.13 | 8 ratings
Subjected
2004
4.03 | 10 ratings
The Insight Eye
2007
3.27 | 9 ratings
The Unconsciousness of Living
2011

ILLOGICIST Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

ILLOGICIST Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

ILLOGICIST Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

ILLOGICIST Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

3.50 | 2 ratings
Polymorphism of Death
2002

ILLOGICIST Reviews


Showing last 10 reviews only
 The Unconsciousness of Living by ILLOGICIST album cover Studio Album, 2011
3.27 | 9 ratings

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The Unconsciousness of Living
Illogicist Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by VOTOMS

2 stars Review nš 225

Illogicist - The Unconsciousness Of Living

A quick definition: Italian Death - the band - copycat. At first, there is a giant scale difference between sounding like Death and being a Death copycat. I did like their previous two albums. Same style, very technical lines, not a masterpiece, I can't remember any song from them but no problem, is the kind of album I know if I try again in the future it would be a funny listen. Then some years later, The Unconsciousness Of Living appears and I went "Oh, Illogicist. Let's see what happens now." And that's it. The riffs and musical structure, the Chuck Schuldiner vocalist wannabe (and his voice is almost there, really), this non-brutal but highly skillful playing, and all the rest, they are pretending to be Death. Many times I realized stolen riffs and passages almost identical to Death or another band from the same gang. Otherwise, the musician's level could be a catchy detail. The recording quality is flawless. It's just a question of... Uninspired virtuocity.

 The Unconsciousness of Living by ILLOGICIST album cover Studio Album, 2011
3.27 | 9 ratings

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The Unconsciousness of Living
Illogicist Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by UMUR
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator

3 stars "The Unconsciousness of Living" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Italian death metal act Illogicist. The album was released through Willowtip Records in November 2011.

The music on the album is technical death metal. Itīs not of the brutal kind but rather a very nineties Death (the band) influenced type of technical death metal. The influences is actually worn so much on the sleeve that the music at times could be mistaken for being Death playing. That will probably please some fans of that particular band but personally I think Illogicist badly need an identity of their own and it has some impact on my overall enjoyment of the album. Thereīs no discussion that the music is well played, well produced and as such well composed, But I stand by my words when I say that there is little here that can be called original. You got the fast death/thrashy riffing, techncially well played guitar solos, sneering high pitched growling, semi-progressive song structures and a very skilled rythm section.

The well playing band and the overall professional production and songwriting does warrant a 3.5 star (70%) rating, but if you are not content with listening to what is basically a Death clone (hell the vocalist even sounds like Chuck Schuldiner did in the mid-nineties), Iīd get my technical/progressive death metal kicks elsewhere.

 The Unconsciousness of Living by ILLOGICIST album cover Studio Album, 2011
3.27 | 9 ratings

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The Unconsciousness of Living
Illogicist Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by Conor Fynes
Prog Reviewer

4 stars 'The Unconsciousness Of Living' - Illogicist (7/10)

Illogicist stole my heart a couple of years back with their second album 'The Insight Eye'. With technical ferocity, strong hooks in the songwriting, and an organic sense of production that seemed to go against the trends of modern tech death, I found myself very impressed by what these Italians could conjure with a style of metal I usually do not find so appealing. 'The Unconsciousness Of Living' is Illogicist's third effort, and they are in form, more or less. Again, this band releases some very chaotic and cerebral death metal; very much the same thing that they have done before. It is for this very reason that despite Illogicist's consistent technical wizardry, I don't find myself quite as drawn towards this album as I did their earlier work.

Had I not heard the work of Illogicist before, I could see myself falling in love with 'The Unconsciousness Of Living'. The music that this band makes may be best aligned with the progressive, philosophical sounds of a band like Death, but Illogicist's sound can be defined and distinguished apart from their peers, and that is something I would not say often for death metal. The band has a very dynamic sense of rhythm in their music; each of these songs sees the band go from slower, gloomy chugging, to near-thrash intensity. All of this is bound by a real sense of composition in Illogicist's music. The time signature changes here are fast and frequent, and fans of highly technical metal will find a treasure chest of well fleshed out ideas here. The band's ability to play and perform these riffs is no slouch either; guitarists Ambrosi and Minieri wow me with a seemingly unrelenting barrage of off-time riffs. The bass work in the album is phenomenal, and Illogicist make the bold statement to have their bassist clearly heard in the mix, and only to their benefit. The drumming of Illogicist is the most conventional aspect of the band's sound, but well played. I would have more good things to say about Alessandro Tinti's work if the mixing had not sought to push it so far into the background.

Really, Illogicist's work here is incredible, from a technical and compositional perspective. Even so, the fact remains that nothing has changed from 'The Insight Eye'. Over the course of years, one would think that the band may have added a new degree or development to their music, but no; I am hearing almost the exact same sound as I did before, and instead of loving every second of it, I get a somewhat disappointing sense of deja vu. Splitting hairs, there is more of an emphasis on technicality here, but I find that this comes at a loss of the hooks that made 'The Insight Eye' such a delight for me. With repeated listens, large aspects of this album's sound become recognizable and familiar, but I would have maybe preferred to have heard a little more variety and sense of surprise on the record. Also worthy of mention is the fact that throughout the entire album, I think I only heard one guitar tone, that being the same one that the band has used in the past. The positive angle of this is that Illogicist do have a strong grasp of one sound, but the lack of variety fails to inspire me the way my first experience with the band did.

This lack of progress forward aside, 'The Unconsciousness Of Living' is an incredibly accomplished technical death metal record, and its positive aspects- of which there are many- cannot be ignored. Someone who has not yet heard this band should be amazed by what Illogicist offers, and even to existing fans such as myself, their work here certainly does not disappoint. With a twist or slightest change in their formula however, I think I would have been a lot more impressed.

 The Insight Eye by ILLOGICIST album cover Studio Album, 2007
4.03 | 10 ratings

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The Insight Eye
Illogicist Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

Review by Conor Fynes
Prog Reviewer

4 stars 'The Insight Eye' - Illogicist (8/10)

Now this is something that really deserves the label 'progressive death metal.' Blistering rhythms, harsh vocals and technical showmanship all come out to play here, and what comes out of the deal is a heavy monster of a work, that while not having much variety in terms of dynamic; is filled with intellligence in all of it's atonal, schizophrenic beauty.

One of the things that really stood out to me (to the point of blowing me away) was the perfect integration and counterpoint of guitar/bass riffage. While most bassists have the dubious honour of being little more than a figure on stage being almost too quiet and droned out to hear, the bass gets plenty of time to pop up and amaze, in between the technical guitar parts. The rhythm guitars are everything you would expect; polyrhythmic and strange chords abound. With the lead generally throwing a layer of extra 'melody' on top, it ends up feeling like a pretty complete work from a technical metal perspective. The vocals -while certainly upholding the tradition of death metal- are not especially memorable and seem to fade behind the brilliant instrumental work being done. While Illogicist does not have many 'catchy' melodies at work here, that is not to say it is not memorable; there are plenty of moments here that really struck a 'chord' with me, and I couldn't help but press the 'rewind' button back a few seconds to have my mind blown again.

While other bands of the genre like Opeth and Cynic earned the progressive label by adopting different styles into the mix and adding a dash of melody, Illogicist sticks to a purely metal theme and elaborates on it. To this effect, some might not want to listen to forty minutes of an unrelenting metal onslaught, but if you have an independant appreciation for metal on it's own, then this is certainly to check out.

Thanks to TheProgtologist for the artist addition.

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