Psyopus "Our Puzzling Encounters Considered" (Metal Blade)
By Taylor Green
Monday. Mar 12, 12:03 AM
Needless amalgamation of various elements, none of it cohesive.

Our Puzzling Encounters Considered has a cover featuring assorted puzzle pieces scattered in the corner of a near vacant red canvas. Very fitting. From track one, Our Puzzling Encounters… feels exactly as the cover suggests: a series of randomly scattered pieces, none of which fit together, and if forced, can create an image with thousands of spectacular small pieces, but in completion looks like a complete clusterfuck of nothing. This perfectly fits what Psyopus have achieved on their second record. Consisting of four extremely talented musicians, Psyopus lack all coherency to make a solid release. It's quite a shame, too, when breaking apart tracks like "The Pig Keeper's Daughter" and "Kill Us," which are composed of hundreds of small elements that shine brilliance out of every pore, but are needlessly mashed next to equally brilliant elements to squash away any genius that was once there. With the attention span of an ADD-ridden four year-old, Psyopus seem amused by their antics, but only do so for the sake of being different and lacking any point.

Moreover, it is an extreme shame since instrumental tracks that aren't forced into a 101 directions are amazingly composed. In fact, when I first heard "Imogen's Puzzle Pt. 2," I was thrilled the band had decided not to take away from their amazing talent by filling needless compositionally devoid transitions everywhere. Alas, only the two instrumentals boast such an auspicious sound.

Ironically, the song following the instrumental, "Play Some Skynard," serves as a statement on generic breakdown-laden metalcore ripoffs, but in actuality Psyopus sound like The Dillinger Escape Plan sans any thought process. It's as if they were so emotionally drained from making music that they felt they could get away with playing amazing chords to the point of combustion. Regardless, it is a formula many of my fellow metal comrades eat up. In fact, some of my insiders had been hyping this album up for weeks before its release, so much so that I had become equally as excited. Though after several listens, which I find is a must for bands of the mathcore/technical variety, I still find zero soul to the music Psyopus produce. While From A Second Story Window, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and The End manage to craft songs of this nature with exquisite structure, Psyopus fail to bring composition to the music and instead craft a picture that needlessly amalgamates various elements, none of which are cohesive.
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Taylor Green

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