Intronaut | |
|---|---|
 Intronaut live in 2013 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Progressive metal, post-metal, sludge metal |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels | Century Media, Translation Loss, Goodfellow, Lifeforce, Metal Blade |
| Members |
|
| Website | metalblade |
Intronaut is an American progressive metal band from Los Angeles, California, that incorporates complex polyrhythms, progressive rock, and jazz. [1]
Intronaut formed in 2004, and their initial line-up included guitarist/vocalist Sacha Dunable, guitarist/vocalist Leon del Muerte, drummer Danny Walker, and bassist Joe Lester.
In 2005, Intronaut released a four-track demo entitled Null – Demonstration Extended Play Compact Disc . They signed to Goodfellow Records in October and recorded Void in early April 2006 at Shiva Industries in Santa Ana, California with producer John Haddad. Void represented the first songwriting effort featuring the band as a whole, as Dunable had written much of the material for Null prior to the other members joining the band. [2]
In August 2007, guitarist/vocalist Leon del Muerte left the band to focus on Murder Construct and was replaced by Dave Timnick. Shortly thereafter Intronaut toured Europe for the first time in support of The Ocean.
In January 2008, the band announced that they had signed a worldwide deal with Century Media Records and completed their next album, Prehistoricisms . [3] As the album was the first without del Muerte - whom the band described as their "metal riff guy" [4] - Prehistoricisms took on a more rhythmic quality that was exemplified by the double-drummer ending of "Any Port". [4] They also recorded a cover of Eyehategod's "Dixie Whiskey" for Century Media's twentieth anniversary covers album.
In April 2009, Intronaut toured with Kylesa and Mastodon. [5] Later that year, in October 2009, Intronaut played several shows in Kolkata and Pragati Maidan, Delhi for the Great Indian Rock Festival XIII.
In the summer of 2010, Intronaut released their third full-length album, Valley of Smoke , featuring a guest appearance from Justin Chancellor from Tool. The album was characterized by increased use of melody and pitched singing, as well as more concise songs. [6] In late 2010, Intronaut opened for Cynic on the "Re-Traced/Re-Focused Tour" of North America. Shortly thereafter, Intronaut completed another North American tour opening for Helmet.
In mid-2011, Intronaut toured Europe with The Ocean and Red Fang, then toured North America with Animals as Leaders, Dead Letter Circus, and Last Chance to Reason, and then toured Europe again with Ghost Brigade and A Storm of Light.
In early 2012, Intronaut supported Tool on the first leg of their North American tour. [7] After the tour, they commenced writing for their fourth studio album, Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones) , [8] which was released on March 19, 2013. [9] In April 2014 they supported TesseracT in their North American tour, as well as serving as the live backing band for one man progressive outfit Cloudkicker's live debut. [10]
In 2015, the band released their fifth album, "The Direction of Last Things".
In 2018, Intronaut fired their drummer, Danny Walker, following allegations of domestic abuse. [11]
In 2020, after 5 years without new music, the band entered the studio with Alex Rüdinger performing as a session drummer to fill the vacant spot left by Danny. The album that was born of this is "Fluid Existential Inversions", which is intronaut’s sixth full length studio album.
Intronaut's sound is influenced by a wide variety of genres, with songs frequently transitioning from heavy distorted portions into ambient jazz-infused soundscapes. The guitar work is based around distorted and sometimes fuzzed tones. Guitar parts include anything from driving head-banging riffs to dissonant ones. Various metal genres are represented in Intronaut's songs. These genres include heavy metal, stoner metal, post-metal, and sludge metal. Bass guitar is a prominent feature of Intronaut's sound, often serving as the primary melodic component of certain riffs. The use of fretless bass guitars on numerous songs adds to the prominence of bass guitar in Intronaut's songs and reflects the influence of jazz, a genre in which fretless bass guitar is common, on the band's sound. Intronaut's songs frequently shift between intense metal sections and jazz-inspired ambient sections. These jazz-inspired passages employ jazz chord shapes and tones with heavy reverb to create ethereal breaks from their more intense riffs. Vocal tones include screaming, growling, and melodic singing, often featuring elaborate harmonies. The drum performances focuses heavily on polymeters and polyrhythms, typical of the jazz, progressive, and various metal genres that influence Intronaut's sound. Intronaut often incorporate more experimental, psychedelic passages into their songs as well, utilizing unique instruments such as sitars and hand percussion.
Intronaut have frequently been compared to other progressive oriented sludge metal acts such as Mastodon and Baroness, though the band members have denied that the latter was ever a significant influence on their sound. A marked stylistic change came when clean vocals were introduced on their album Valley of Smoke. Intronaut's clean vocals, consisting largely of harmonisations between guitarist/vocalists Dunable and Timnick, has frequently been compared to Alice in Chains. Habitual Levitations used clean vocals almost exclusively and was also largely devoid of the band's earlier extreme metal influences, drawing comparisons to acts such as Deftones, Hum, Oceansize, Tool, and Alice in Chains. The release of the album The Direction of Last Things marked the return of more aggressive vocal styles and other extreme metal elements, while retaining the more melodic sensibilities of their previous two albums. The album also experimented with elements of math rock, particularly on "In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing".
| Intronaut discography | |
|---|---|
| Studio albums | 6 |
| EPs | 3 |
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Indie. [12] | US Rock [13] | US Hard Rock [14] | US Heat. [15] | |||||
| 2006 | Void
| — | — | — | — | |||
| 2008 | Prehistoricisms
| — | — | — | — | |||
| 2010 | Valley of Smoke
| — | — | — | 20 | |||
| 2013 | Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)
| 37 | — | 14 | 10 | |||
| 2015 | The Direction of Last Things
| 15 | 29 | 7 | 3 | |||
| 2020 | Fluid Existential Inversions
| — | — | — | — | |||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | ||||||||
Sludge metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that combines elements of doom metal and hardcore punk. The genre generally includes slow tempos, tuned down guitars and nihilistic lyrics discussing poverty, drug addiction and pollution.
Cradle of Thorns was an American rock band. Formed in 1988 in Bakersfield, California by singer Ty Elam, the band was initially defined by their gothic rock style. After releasing their debut album, Remember It Day, independently in 1990, the band signed with Triple X Records, and would come to be defined by a more dance music-oriented style influenced by heavy metal and industrial rock. In 1998, the band changed their name to Videodrone and signed with Korn's vanity label Elementree Records, releasing their self titled fourth album, Videodrone the following year, which featured a mix of industrial music and nu metal. Videodrone disbanded two years later, but reformed under their original name from 2007 to 2015.
William Brent Hinds is an American musician best known as the lead guitarist of the Atlanta, Georgia heavy metal band Mastodon, in which he shares guitar duties with Bill Kelliher and vocal duties with Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor.
Yakuza is an American rock band formed in Chicago in 1999. They have been acclaimed for their incorporation of jazz and world music elements.
Void is the debut studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released on August 23, 2006 in the United States through Goodfellow Records.
Cynic is an American progressive metal band formed in Miami, Florida in 1987. The band has been primarily based in California since the late 1990s, marking a significant shift in their geographic and creative roots. Paul Masvidal originally served solely as the band's guitarist, but later took over as lead vocalist and chief songwriter. Cynic incorporates elements of progressive rock, alternative, and metal.
Null is the first EP by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released in 2006 by Goodfellow Records.
The Faceless are an American technical death metal band from the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles. They released their debut album, Akeldama, in November 2006, and a follow-up, Planetary Duality, in November 2008. The band's third album, Autotheism, was released on August 14, 2012. On December 1, 2017, the band released their fourth album, In Becoming a Ghost.
Prehistoricisms is the second studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released on September 16, 2008 by Century Media Records, to positive reviews. It is the first album to feature guitarist Dave Timnick, as the band moves towards a jazzier, more progressive sound.
Murder Construct is an American extreme metal band from Los Angeles, California, United States. The band members are Travis Ryan, Leon del Muerte, Chris McCarthy, Caleb Schneider and Danny Walker. Previous band members include drummer Jeremy Gregg.
Valley of Smoke is the third studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released in North America on October 12, 2010 on Century Media Records, who also released their previous album Prehistoricisms. The album was released in Europe with exclusive bonus track "Vernon" on November 22, 2010.
Tesseract are a British progressive metal band from Milton Keynes. The band, formed in 2003, consists of Daniel Tompkins, Alec "Acle" Kahney, James Monteith, Amos Williams and Jay Postones. The band is currently signed to Kscope. They are credited as one of the bands to pioneer the djent movement in progressive metal. As of 2023, Tesseract have released five studio albums: One, Altered State, Polaris, Sonder and War of Being, as well as two live albums, Odyssey/Scala and Portals, and the extended plays Concealing Fate, Perspective, Errai and Regrowth.
Uneven Structure is a progressive metal band based in Metz, France. They play a style of post-metal which is heavily influenced by the Swedish extreme metal band Meshuggah. The band blends polyrhythmic passages and extremely low tunings with a heavily layered production style and ambient soundscapes. They are often categorized in the djent movement due to the Meshuggah-like guitar tone they often employ. The band was formed after the split of Longchat, a band which featured Igor Omodei and Benoit Friedrich.
Skyharbor was an Indian/American progressive metal band with members from New Delhi and Mumbai, India; and Cleveland, Ohio, US.
Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones) is the fourth studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released on 18 March 2013 in Europe and 19 March 2013 in North America on Century Media Records, which also released their previous two albums Prehistoricisms and Valley of Smoke.
Leon del Muerte is a musician living in Portland, Oregon, USA. He is a guitarist, a vocalist, and also a founding member of the band Murder Construct. He is a guitarist in Terrorizer LA, and Lightbreaker vocalist in Impaled, and he was previously involved with the bands Nails, Exhumed, Nausea LA, Intronaut, Phobia, and Artificium Sanguis.
The Direction of Last Things is the fifth studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. The album was announced in August 2015 and released through Century Media on November 13, 2015. Singles “Fast Worms” and “Digital Gerrymandering” were released in September and October of 2015, respectively. The album was recorded and produced by Josh Newell with mixing by Devin Townsend.
"Show Yourself" is a single by American progressive metal band Mastodon, off of their studio album Emperor of Sand. It peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart in 2017, making it their highest-charting song to date.
Cloudkicker is an American post-rock/post-metal musical project based in Columbus, Ohio, created by guitarist Ben Sharp. Sharp, a commercial airline pilot, does not pursue Cloudkicker as a full-time project; he releases his music as "pay what you want" under the Creative Commons license through Bandcamp.
Fluid Existential Inversions is the sixth studio album by American progressive metal band Intronaut. It was released February 28, 2020, through Metal Blade, their first release through the label and since leaving Century Media.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
