Music originating from the Swiss mountain town of La Chaux-de-Fonds should, under normal circumstances, sound as brutal and left field as the music that is being made by Coilguns. Created from members of progressive metal band The Ocean, Coilguns are Jona Nido on guitar, Luc Hess on drums and Louis Jucker on vocals and hoarse screams. Recorded live over one day and mixed and mastered in a few short hours, their latest EP “Stadia Rods” shows how music so visceral yet intelligent can originate from any given habitat.
The opening “Parkensine” rides upon blasts of razor-sharp, tangential riffs and the interplay between screaming, desolate vocal and guttural barking. Throughout the opening piece, there are several changes in mood, tempo and ultimately atmosphere, which rather than come across as schizophrenic, fuse together into a well crafted whole. The second track “Zoetropist” displays a more hysterical assault, whilst still managing to maintain the organisation and detail of the previous track. A shriek separates this and “In the Limelights”, which slows the pace down to a sludge drenched march through a landscape of “post-rock”. “Witness the Kern Arc” brings the pace back up with mathematically tight changes and squalling vocal release, which closes in a crescendo of vigour, ultimately giving way to the multifaceted closer “The Shuftan Process Parts 1 and 2” which essentially brings the EP back round to where it began.
The complexity of each piece together with the dynamic range on display, indicate that Coilguns are firmly within the arena of intelligent yet belligerent metal. Atonal riffs, dementia and discord blended so skilfully together are generally hard to come by, and bands with such dexterity and craftsmanship are one of the many possible futures of the metal scene in our day.
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