Mind-boggling math-rock
Halifax four piece Wot Gorilla? manage to stand out in a sea of math-rock bands by injecting a crazy amount of intricate guitar work into their tunes; from the opening moments on their debut album Kebnekaise you get dropped right in to their world, I Beat Up The Bathroom, I'm Sorry is an instrumental twiddle-fest, and it's just a minute and a half long.
The band clearly takes cues from prog-rock's past, but they also inject a distinctly modern approach, with a mix of bands springing to mind from Tubelord and Minus The Bear to Coheed & Cambria (although this may also have something to do with Mat Haigh's vocal similarity to Claudio Sanchez). Wot Gorilla's tunes bridge the gap between the two camps, with a mix of sparkling indie-rock and heavier progressive rock sitting easily together; there are some great rock out moments to be had with tracks like Hold Me Back injecting meatier guitars and the odd spot of vocal histrionics into the intensely layered mix.
The album continues with the duel guitars and bass on full power and the band taking on some seriously complex song structures - the angular stop/start rhythms and restless tempo of each track seem to shift under your feet continuously leaving you constantly guessing. Oddly, and even though there are accessible, poppy and melodic moments peppered throughout the album, the relentlessly changing aural landscape can have a numbing effect, and at times the album can start to feel a bit samey. It may need a bit of tightening up here and there but if you like your rock on the experimental side there's still plenty to get your teeth into - perhaps best listened to in small bites though.