Friend, thank you for answering the door. This night is a blustery one and cold. I recognize that your time is valuable. With that in mind, I would like to walk you through this straightforward five-point pamphlet entitled, “Exogalactic and You: Understanding Why You Should Convert to the Belief that the Third Album from Seattle’s Xoth is Excellent.”
1) It is omnivorous.
Genre descriptors are often handy, but they sure can be a crutch. Luckily, in this case Xoth plays with elements of so many genres that they’ve got enough crutches to help even the most accident-prone spider ambulate pretty gosh-darn well. The core of the band’s sound is a technical, progressive thrashiness that lands somewhere in the general vicinity of such other descendents of Voivod and Coroner as Droid or Cryptic Shift. But layered alongside that are modern extreme metal sheen, melodic death metal, blackened elements, and neoclassical shred, which means that Xoth should also appeal to such superficially dissimilar bands as Arsis, Exmortus, Revocation, or Slugdge.
2) It is cohesive.
Despite all the stylistic influences, Exogalactic is a remarkably cohesive album. A large part of this is probably due to the fact that Xoth has consisted of the same four people since the band formed in 2014. The songwriting and performances across the album are so tight that it’s natural to assume they are the product of long hours in the practice space as well as a well-earned understanding of each other’s capabilities. But the omnivorousness pokes through in so many satisfying ways, like with the strutting riff straight out of King Diamond’s Abigail that opens “Manuscripts of Madness,” or how “The Parasitic Orchestra” is built around a folky chorus lead that honestly wouldn’t have been out of place on Amorphis’s Tales from the Thousand Lakes.
3) It is brief.
4) It is awesome.
Jeremy Salvo’s drumming is both frantic and precise. Ben Bennett’s bass is delightfully forward in the mix, with its chunky twang that sounds like the snapped and flailing cables of a suspension bridge accident. Woody Adler and Tyler Sturgill, meanwhile, play their guitars not just like it’s their job, but like the whole damn universe might just up and die if they stopped for even a second. Exogalactic is absolutely littered with heroic guitar leads, several of which actually end up doing more of the narrative and rhythmic work of the songs than the vocals (courtesy of Sturgill). Each song seethes with crackling energy, like the wailing, treated main lead on “Sporecraft Zero” or the rather triumphant gallop that “Reflective Nemesis” works its way up to. This is truly an album for you if you are the sort of person who enjoys listening to guitars making excellent sounds.
5) It is secretly a power metal album.
I mean, no, it’s not really a power metal album, but in very much the same way that Moonlight Sorcery’s Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle feels like a power metal album disguised as a symphonic black metal album, Exogalactic often feels like a power metal album disguised as a turbocharged technical thrash album. This feeling comes through in the catchiness of the songs, but in particular it shines through in the brightness of Xoth’s leads and melodies. Truthfully, these dudes are so invested in the idea of guitars making awesome sounds that they’ll often put an arpeggiating lead on top of an otherwise basic verse (like on the excellently twisty closing track “Map to the Stars, Monument to the Ancients”). The killer second-half tune “Saga of the Blade” is a great example, because if you dialed back the distortion and added in a bit of clean singing, it could easily pass as modern melodic power metal. To put it a completely different way, does “Saga of the Blade” sound like Dissection’s “Thorns of Crimson Death” as played by Somewhere Far Beyond-era Blind Guardian? Absolutely it does not, but the scope and invention of this terrific album invite such pleasant musical daydreams.
Thank you for letting me warm my tired feet by the fire. I won’t ask you to accept Exogalactic as your lord and savior, but I will say, friend, that there are far worse decisions you could make in your life today. XOXO(galactic).
