THE SIMULATION

'Born of Osiris', a band formally started around 2007 is a Tech Metal/Progressive Metalcore band that has had quite a large following with Tech Metal fans. For the first part of the 2000s, the band changed their name a few times, originally named 'Diminished' in 2003, they changed it to 'Your Heart Engraved' in 2004, got signed to Sumerian Records and changed it again to 'Rosecrance' in 2006 and released an EP, and then finally settled on 'Born of Osiris' in 2007. Since then, they have released either a new album or a new EP every 2 or 3 years.

'The Simulation' was released in January of 2019 as a 'mini-album'. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but the total time for the album is around 25 minutes. It has 8 tracks, mostly of them staying around the 3 minute mark. According to tweets from guitarist Lee McKinney, the band plans on releasing a 2nd album later in 2019.

This album introduces the new bassist Nick Rossi, who replaced David Da Rocha in 2018. The original band members that are still active in the band are Ronnie Canizaro doing most of the vocals, clean and dirty, Joe Buras also on vocals and keyboards and Cameron Losch on drums. Lee McKinny is the guitarist and has been since 2007.

The music is pretty much straightforward Tech Metal with the rapid drumming, heavy speed guitar work and mostly screaming/dirty vocals from both vocalists (Joe's vocals are a tad more melodic). The thing that stands out with this band is the frequent and excellent use of keyboards that give the music the progressive metal edge that also gives it some variety. There are even some synth solos as in the instrumental break in 'Under the Gun', but all of the solos breaks are short because all of the songs are commercial length. That is another problem, the band is trying to take the genre to a commercial level, so there isn't any time for real soloing or any extensive progressive exploration.

Probably the most progressive of the tracks is the djent heavy 'Silence the Echo' with its tricky riffs and interesting textures. But it is hard for me to get around the vocals, which is my main issue with the album. But I am being as subjective as I can anyway, and the band is definitely talented, which is the biggest draw for this album since their sound is much more perfected and their playing has improved over the years. Their timing is impeccable and that means a lot in this style of music. But there really is not much of a let up with the dirty vocals and the intensity of the music. Really, the only variety you have here is the inclusion of keyboard led sections, but everything is so rapid fire that its tough to have any huge amount of detectable development.

If you love tech metal, then this is definitely for you. Just be aware that the shortness of the album and the songs lead to not a lot of depth in the music, and not much in the way of dynamics. For these reasons, along with the fact that it is a short album, I give this 3 stars. This style of music is not my preference not because its loud, but because there is little variety between the tracks.