Animals As Leaders

Animals as Leaders initially began as a solo project for Tosin Abasi from the now defunct band Reflux out of Washington D.C. Abasi now has two other band members he performs with live, but on the recording he plays all the guitar and bass parts. Listening to the album for the first time, you'd think Abasi has about 20 fingers on each hand and plays two different guitars with two sets of arms. This isn't the case, he only has five fingers on each hand and one set of arms. Although his guitars have at least 7 or 8 strings apiece. Abasi is quite fleet fingered and flies through notes at an amazingly fast pace. He is however, extremely precise and quite creative with the sound he's created, fusing metal style riffing and solo's with more progressive jazz fusion and even bossa nova grooves. Its nearly impossible to describe just how technically proficient and creative Abasi is without actually hearing the music. Seeing him perform these songs live is even more mind blowing. Having heard his music live before hearing it on cd, i was just blown away, my jaw literally dropped more than once. I found myself laughing, (because i didn't know how else to react), when he looped an unbelievably fast set of sweeps and then proceeded to add yet another quite complicated riff on top. There is really no way to understand the awesome power of Abasi's music without hearing it, or if you're lucky enough, seeing him perform live. Take a listen and have your eyes melted from their sockets... its definitely worth it.