Colin Marston is a lot of things—virtuosic musician, champion of the avant-garde in metal, mastering engineer extraordinaire. As a principal member of Behold…the Arctopus, Krallice, Gorguts, Dysrythmia, and more, he has pushed metal into some of the stranger places it’s been over the past two decades. Unsympathetic Empyrean, the debut album by his new solo project Xazraug, feels like something entirely new for him & transgressive in its own peculiar way. It’s undeniably an assault on the senses. Its five tracks span from nearly 10 minutes to over 14 and none of them leave a lot of space for contemplative atmospherics. Whether he’s playing a mind-bending riff, laying into an Emperor-style synth part, or layering hellish chanting, Marston consistently fills the sonic space with something you can’t easily tune out. That makes Unsympathetic Empyrean a demanding listen, but that shouldn’t turn off any fans of Marston’s work. The challenge is the point.
