After receiving two promotional copies of Intronaut’s Void I made the executive decision (aka I was too fucking lazy to do it myself) to pass one of the discs onto Double Ds to review and made no attempt to listen to the album myself. I’d heard Intronaut are a prog metal outfit, and I hate prog metal so I figured the "brutal death metal guy" could tear it to shreds. Surprisingly, hey Mikey, he likes it! Upon reading his review I decided to dust off the copy I kept for myself, tossed it in the stereo, braced myself and… fucking loved it!

The material on Void is heavy, catchy, aggressive and melodic. The music is just really easy to get into and had the aggressive qualities I look for in a metal disc. The more I listened to the album, the more I wanted to listen to it, which for me is unheard of. Usually after I listen to an album 5 or 10 times, I usually put it aside and don’t listen to it again for months, but Void kept creeping it’s way back into my playlist, day after day, week after week, month after month, I actually became obsessed with listening to the album and still listen to it on a regular basis today and the truly remarkable thing is it still hasn’t become stale to me!

The follow-up to Void is the band’s latest offering, and last with guitarist/vocalist Leon del Muerte, entitled The Challenger; a 9 track mCD featuring 3 new tracks, 5 live tracks and a remix of "Burning These Days". The 3 new tracks pick up where Void left off, with the band playing the same catchy chunky rhythms played in strange time signatures with raw angry vocals and tight drum playing that one would expect after hearing both Null and Void.

The five live tracks are typical of any live recording, the material sounds much rougher and not nearly as tight as it does on CD. Basically, it’s just filler material, but it still makes me interested in catching this band live, it just sounds like the kind of material you can listen to while sitting at the bar and nodding your head in time with the music without having to look through a crowd of jackasses windmilling and ninja kicking. Every time I see that ninja kicking shit I just want to grab one of those douches in a thai clinch and make them eat my knees Wanderlei Silva vs Rampage Jackson style, but I digress…

The remix of "Burning These Days" is kind of interesting, it’s not a dance mix, but they were able to cut a nearly 8 minute song into just under 3. Basically this sounds like something Ahumado Granujo would have done, and, honestly, I don’t mind it.

If you were a fan of Intronaut’s earlier recordings, then this is definitely worth picking up for the three new tracks alone. For those who haven’t heard Intronaut I’d suggest starting with Null or Void first, or even check out a few of their tunes on MySpace and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this band. Finally, Leon, why the fuck is it every time I start liking one of your bands you decide to quit and choose to play full time with really really horribly shitty bands instead. You’d rather play in Phobia? Dude… come on!

Review byTeufel