About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

Business as usual for tech grind savants with a new bass player and a couple of album-end surprises.



Pros

• Customary precision played at hyperspeed.
• “A Murder to Child” reveals a new dimension to this group’s considerable talent.

Cons

• While the 20-minute untitled track contains hilarious skits, the duration wears you out.

Description

• Released February 17, 2009 on Metal Blade Records.
• This is the band's third album.

• First album with new bass player Mike Horn.
• Produced by Doug White at Watchmen Studios.

Guide Review - Psyopus - 'Odd Senses'

Chris Arp and his grind-against-the-machine pack are back for more technically-exact mayhem with their hotheaded third outing, Odd Senses. Now expanded to a quartet, Psyopus are even more psychotic than before.

In case you’re new to Psyopus, think of Mr. Bungle shoved into alliance with Dillinger Escape Plan, Napalm Death and Steve Vai. The only rule Psyopus adheres is to deliver ear-shredding cyber thrash with accurate fractal notes and brutal algorithms punched in mere nanoseconds.

The prolific note expenditure wound from Arp would’ve been enough to send future guitarists home packing years ago. In today’s metal, Arp’s mathematic shredding has not only become a norm, it’s become almost expected by rock snobs in nerdy fashion, much as Trekkies expect to be satiated with Borg appearances every five episodes or so.

On Odd Senses, Psyopus propels calamitous beat collisions with Arp’s inhuman note searing.

You won’t believe your ears when he jerks and slides outlandish note sirens reminiscent of old Atari games (the 2600 version of Phoenix especially) on “Duct Tape Smile.” Assaulting their listeners with barely discernable velocity on “Medusa,” “X and Y” and “The Burning Halo,” Psyopus rattle and exhaust every opportunity they get.

Where Odd Senses truly shines, however, is the distortion-less “A Murder to Child,” upon which Chris Arp really shows off his chops to the equation of a chamber fugue group in a nine-minute odyssey of terror that would do Bernard Hermann proud. Despite a twenty-minute campfest of sheer idiocy at the end, Odd Senses is an accomplished grind massacre that must be heard to be believed.