Shapeshifter just might be a perfect name for an album with such, well, shapeshifting music as the one Western NY band Negativehate has included on their latest, bearing such a name.
The band is branded as post-metal, but that post tag includes everything from prog rock and jazz to shoegaze and metal itself, very often, all evident in a single song, like on “Infinity Bias,” the opener here.
Such ‘shapeshifting could be a great obstacle if you don’t know your way either around songwriting or your instruments, but Freedom Scheyd and the rest of the crew seem to manage both quite admirably.
Having formed in 2012 and with big gaps in when their first albums were released, it seems now Negativehate is releasing with more regularity, which means they’re gearing up to really establish this concept with Shapeshifter. According to producer and co-guitar/vocalist Chuck Scandura, is as much about the science and spirituality of sound as it is about the multi-genre jam band feel.
It turns out that the band gave this album quite a fitting title, coming up with music that fits within the metal genre(s), but goes beyond it, making it something that even the listeners who are not usually inclined to take on metal genres and sub-genres might find something for them within. Despite the band’s name, nothing to hate here.
