Animals As Leaders: Weightless on LP

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Los Angeles' ANIMALS AS LEADERS return with their second genre defying album. Currently on the

road across Europe with the DEFTONES and BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME. When unknown

virtuoso guitarist Tosin Abasi released his debut solo album under the moniker ANIMALS AS

LEADERS in 2009, few would have predicted the band's meteoric rise over the next two years.

Although Abasi earned acclaim as the lead guitarist in the Washington, D. C.-based metalcore act

Reflux, it was still a long-shot that an instrumental album of progressive metal with jazz, electronic

and ambient flourishes would develop anything more than a cult following. Now, on the eve of the

release of "Weightless," the group's sophomore effort, ANIMALS AS LEADERS is revered worldwide

as a trailblazing pioneer of modern heavy music.

The group's genre-defying compositions have

earned extensive praise -- Steve Vai called the band "the future of creative, heavy virtuoso guitar

playing," and MetalSucks recently ranked Abasi #2 on their list of modern metal's top guitarists -- and

the diversity of their music has enabled them to tour with a wide variety of acts, including Deftones,

Underoath, Circa Survive, BTBAM (with whom the band will tour for the third time this fall), The

Dillinger Escape Plan, The Faceless, Thursday, Dredg and, on the 2010 Summer Slaughter tour,

even Decapitated.

Whereas the group's self-titled debut was a collaboration between Abasi and

Periphery's Misha Mansoor, "Weightless" features the recording debut of ANIMALS AS LEADERS,

the true band -- that is, Abasi (guitars), Javier Reyes (guitars) and Navene Koperweis (drums). After

nearly two years of touring together, the trio wrote and recorded "Weightless" together in mid-2011,

with Koperweis producing and Reyes mixing. The group debuted a new track, "Isolated Incidents,"

during their inaugural headlining tour this summer, which included sellout shows from coast-to-coast -

- a sign that as quickly as ANIMALS AS LEADERS have risen, the best is yet to come.

Rezensionen

ALLSCHOOLS. de: "Ein Meisterwerk, moderner, metallischer Musik!" 09 / 10