Review: Intensus – Intensus

Rated:

3.5/5

Eli Litwin, splattery drummer of Jersey prog curiosity Knife in the Glitter, is a hyperactive octopus dragging bloody metalcore into haughtier territory: improv jazz, game theory, chance composition, and avant-twaddle. He recorded blast-flecked drums in one 47-minute take; tracked guitars to follow his haphazard rhythms; and then invited eight metalcore luminaries (including members of Between The Buried And Me and A Life Once Lost) to bark along. Clearly a child of early Dillinger Escape Plan, Litwin’s maddening slurry mixes brutal headfuck with nimble jazz-fusion, and his devotion to sheer randomness brings math metal to new worlds of weird, mesmerizing, and masturbatory. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

Check out “I Gave Up” from Intensus below: