BOOK 1: DR. BREACHER

Originally I was gonna make this review on pride month, since many of you may know that Max Mobarry, the lead singer to this band, is a trans woman, and I wanted to show my support and appreciation for her craft here. However, life got in the way, so I am making this review now, a little late.

So, about Others By No One, they are a relatively new prog metal band, featuring Max Mobarry on vocals and guitar, Mike Gregg also on guitar and vocals, Quique Bucio on bass, and Sam Ruff on drums. While their discography so far isn't quite big, in fact if you look at their RYM page they practically have only one album if you count Book I to be an EP, they still have made quite a lot of fantastic music, with Book I being my personal favorite record of theirs.

I find Book I: Dr. Breacher to be one of the most solid releases of 2017, and it showcases the band's intricate strengths of technical proggy avant metal in a very refined way. You get a lot of qualities from stuff like jazz fusion, funk, thrash, post-hardcore, and symphonic prog in a very short and sweet album consisting of three tracks, one of which is a long 19 minute epic.

The one thing that has this album reeling me in is just how joyful it all sounds. I wouldn't say it is happy, especially since a lot of moments are very bleak and dark, but I find moments on Brand-New Remedy, or Dr. Breacher And The Time Travel Anomaly to have this quality that lifts me up in a way that I have not found quite a lot in some other prog metal bands. Max's vocals help a lot too, with her varied ranges of melodic and growling singing, mixed with just her cadence and dramatics, with it all wrapping into this very beautiful soundscape of emotions.

The instrumentals here are also really great in my opinion. Describing the sound Others By No One has is a very hard task, since when you think you can pin them down in one thing, they switch it up to have a completely different sound. Each song has these moments that feel so different from any other, creating this very varied, but not at all misshapen mix of musical ideals. I think the best way to actually picture the sound here is if Between The Buried and Me's Great Misdirect, and The Mars Volta's Amputechture had a baby, and that baby listened to Herbie Hancock, Cardiacs, Peter Gabriel, Converge, and a whole lot of other stuff, creating this very jazzy, punkish, delightful, and incredibly mixed sound. Honestly they create a nightmarish, but also very amazing display of music. Really, the music here is so eclectic and fun that I am always at least down to listen to Dr. Breacher And The Time Travel Anomaly anytime, anywhere.

If there is one thing I will say about this album that is a little harsh, it is that I am not a big fan of Death Of A Clone. It is a good track, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't quite have the same zaniness as the other tracks on here, and feels like a more straight laced song, which is something that I think doesn't quite fit Others By No One. The fun, eclectic, and quirky sound is still there, but it is too a more desaturated point that it makes me not quite like, nor see it as memorable as much as the other two tracks on here, and thus, while I'd say this album is very close to being a five star masterpiece, Death Of A Clone holds it back in that aspect.

I could ramble on and on about how good this album is, but I will keep it brief. This record showcases a sublime aura of zany prog metal, featuring such a wide, nightmarish, but incredibly joyous and lovely list of sounds and styles that makes the band so fun to listen to. If you enjoy bands like Between the Buried and Me, The Mars Volta, Haken?practically any prog band at this point, then check this album out. You'll have a wonderful time, I assure you.