Hemotoxin's "When Time Becomes Loss" should be in The Infinite
While the first half of Hemotoxin's fourth full-length certainly sits fairly comfortably under the technical death/thrash tag, the B side of the album (which makes up just over half of the album's run time) is noticeably more progressive & feels more like progressive death/thrash to me. The album as a whole is far too ambitious not to qualify as Progressive Metal so it should reside in The Inifinite as well as The Horde & The Pit in my opinion.
I just gave this Hemotoxin album some listening and a review to continue my on-off thrashy progressive death metal exploration and to give another one of this month's feature releases a go. You are right about the second half of the album being more progressive than the first half. However, for me the progressiveness only covers two songs, and that's not enough to add this album to The Infinite. Technicality and aggression are the main focus point in the other 5 tracks that sound like if Revocation time-traveled to the era of Atheist's debut Piece of Time. With that, I'll have to vote NO for this entry, Daniel.
Update: I accidentally voted YES instead. Whoops!
Do you not hear an album that should be included in The Infinite here though Andi, regardless of whether you think it's more technical or progressive? I see it as exactly the sort of release that should belong in The Infinite to be honest as it reaches well outside of the standard death & thrash metal genres, just like Hemotoxin's major influences (i.e. 1990's Death, Cynic, Atheist, Vektor, etc.) who are all better served with progressive tags than they are technical ones.
To me, the "technical" sound is less about weird time signatures and trying to break the genre's standards and more about a less melodic and more robotic, showoff aesthetic. At least this is the best way I can phrase it. Prog metal has to have awkward but organized time signatures where as tech metal needs to be able to create awkward, repetitive but technically proficiant riffs and aesthetics without pushing too far into prog territory.
I look at it like this:
Technical = Consciously complex & hard to play.
Progressive = Utilizes a more expansive palate of thematic, structural & melodic ideas which gives the music a more sophisticated (& sometimes spacey) feel. It can often be quite technical but not always.
Most technical releases could easily fit under the progressive tag in my opinion but I don't feel that the same can't be said in reverse. Personally, I think we'd be way better off not having tech death & tech thrash subgenres in The Horde & The Pit, instead using progressive metal to differentiate those releases. We could even add a "technical metal" subgenre to The Infinite if we thought it was necessary. This would avoid the current problem where people tag obviously progressive death or thrash metal releases as technical simply because there's no progressive tag in those clans which sees those releases missing out on a rightful membership in The Infinite. This feature release is a prime example of that & I'd suggest that our The Infinite members are just as likely to enjoy a record like this one as our The Horde or The Pit members.
I look at it like this:
Technical = Consciously complex & hard to play.
Progressive = Utilizes a more expansive palate of thematic, structural & melodic ideas which gives the music a more sophisticated (& sometimes spacey) feel. It can often be quite technical but not always.
Most technical releases could easily fit under the progressive tag in my opinion but I don't feel that the same can't be said in reverse.
That's what I've been thinking, but you phrased it way better.