Few bands deserve the adjective ‘progressive’ more than The Algorithm. French composer Remi Gallego and collaborators play a mix of electronic dance music, mathcore, technical metal and prog rock.
This is mind-expanding music with the rarest of qualities – true originality. Their groundbreaking first album, Polymorphic Code, leaned heavily on chiptune, retro videogame sounds and chopped-up timings, while Octopus4 introduced a leaner, heavier approach. Brute Force is the logical conclusion of these two developmental directions. Choppy lead single Floating Point is a good introduction, with glitchy rhythmic guitars driving the track as synths pick out cascading melodies from flurries of robotic notes. Userspace is an atmospheric prog rock number, guitar taking the melodic role while pulsing synths handle the bass. Flat-out metaller Deadlock is a brutal statement and Rootkit ties everything together with a proggy yet danceable finale that sounds like a heavier Pure Reason Revolution. But there’s really no frame of reference: the band sound like nobody else, and that’s why The Algorithm are one of the brightest lights on the crossover prog metal scene.