Autocatalytica
by Mister Mime
22nd July 2021
Autocatalytica’s third album ‘Powerclashing Maximalism’ established the Canadian progressive metal band as certified risk-takers who are also capable of thrusting the listener into battle with a full-blown prog-symphonic power-metal orchestra
The engine of the album is driven by rhythmechanical guitars and drums, teeth-grinding pot-smashing riffs and augmented by alluring arpeggios, meandering melodic runs & frantic rolls in between… all adding up to a behemoth of a sonic force.
The balance and transitions between melodic vocals and verses and throaty growling hooks, structural breakdowns and open, free-flowing instrumental sections are definitely to my liking, with some edgy musicianship and borderline virtuosity on display along the likes of ‘Mike Stern or Dave Fuzinski meets modern metal maestros‘ - think Devin Townsend, Textures, Lamb Of God & Pain of Salvation.
The band exhibits surprising stints of sensitivity like in Trash Serum, versatility and a sense of humour like in ‘Bananas have Potassium’ before hurtling the listener back into a chasm of growling abyss like in the deliberately slow and haunting ‘Crawboi’, a tumultuous downpour of emotion and energy like in Cheggo and a contrary yet complementary outro ‘Graveo’.
Looking back, ‘Powerclashing Maximalism’ was definitely one of the most interesting metal gems from 2020.
MM: How was the name ‘Autocatalytica’ conceived and what does it mean?
Autocatalytica: "Autocatalytica" was basically me in 2009, on the tail-end of edgy-teenage pseudo-intellectualism reading a book about Gestalt Therapy where the word "Autocatalytic" was mentioned and I thought it was pretty rad sounding. The scientific-ish definition is more or less (I never took chemistry) that an autocatalytic reaction is a reaction where the catalyst of the reaction is the (main?) element itself. Anyways I basically shoehorned that into meaning "A self-sustaining entity of creation" e.g. a neo-post-progressive-grind-funk island.
MM: Can you tell us the concept of "Powerclashing Maximalism"?
Autocatalytica: Powerclashing Maximalism's title was inspired by a friend of mine declaring that I was a "Powerclasher' after witnessing the embodiment of utterly dissonant disregard for any sense of congruency that was the outfit I was wearing at a festival, which essentially boiled down to whatever combination of colourful nonsense I found in the ladies section at the thrift store thrown together that morning (Earthtones are direct products of toxic masculinity FIGHT ME). Autocat has always been a grab-bag of genre's and ideas and instead of pretending like I had some haughty overarching theme for the record I figured I might as well embrace the fact that it goes a million miles an hour in completely opposite directions on each subsequent track, also there's quite a bit of stuff in there, hence the "Maximalism"
MM: How do you go about naming your tracks? Are there any stories or particular references behind any? {Bananas have Potassium}
Autocatalytica: Ha! Track names generally fall into 3 categories, a working title that loosely describes the vibe of the song via a bullshit word (Dukka Dukka, Borndun, Zippler etc.) A weird inside joke/phrase made up by my girlfriend (Trash Serum, Fetus Pinata) or an obscure reference (Flesh Pillow, Balletic & Glacial), they almost never have any connection to the lyrical content of the songs, I always felt like that would be trying to hard to be meaningful (my edgy contrarian tendencies are immortal). Bananas have potassium falls into the obscure reference category, as it's a line from "Honey We Shrunk Ourselves" where one of the kids is undergoing an anaphylactic shock or that can only be remedied by giving him potassium, and one of the other kids has a beautiful holy shit moment where he remembers "Wait, Bananas have potassium!", this line was essentially the only thing me and a close friend of mine remembered from this movie we had both seen separately like 20 years prior.
MM: Can you tell us a bit about the artwork?
Autocatalytica: The Artwork was essentially an amalgamation of a bunch of my girlfriend Rachel Lindover's insanely amazing pieces that I morphed together in photoshop, I think it's also pretty representative of how much stuff is packed into our music.
MM: What’s your take on the concept of ‘genres’? What do you feel about drawing from different musical influences and sonic palettes within metal/heavy music? How would you say (metal) has evolved over the years?
Autocatalytica: I think genres are only useful as a set of descriptors that can best help you navigate your ears towards what exactly it is you feel like listening to in any given moment. When it's used as a set of rules as to what your music "should" sound like I think it ultimately becomes creatively restrictive and counterproductive, but they could be useful as a set of guidelines towards achieving a sort of sonic cohesion if that's what you're creatively shooting for. I think that drawing from different genes in heavy music can really bring out the dynamics and heaviness of anything you write, especially when it's contrasted with something softer. These things exist most effectively when juxtaposed with their extremes as far as I'm concerned.
But also Meshuggah is just heavier than everyone ever all the time, free shrugs. That being said, I think that there's a lot of progressive metal bands that will try to squeeze as many genres into a song as they possibly can just to sound diverse but not really be able to pull them all off (we've definitely been guilty of this), but I think that as long as genre shifts are serving the song it's all good. I'm a bit of an old curmudgeon, I honestly haven't seen a lot of evolution in metal, aside from when the world of guitar players collectively discovered that Meshuggah was amazing around like 2008, the genre as a whole has felt pretty stuck to me, but hey prove me wrong, I'm a crusty old fuck.
MM: Who are some of your main influences musically?
Autocatalytica: My influences range pretty widely, metal-wise it'll be no surprise that once again, Meshuggah is the shit, I love me some Devin Townsend in all of his forms, Protest the Hero, Opeth, etc. Otherwise, I'm into a ton of other shit that is not metal at all, I've been listening to a shit ton of instrumental electronic music recently, I've gotten extremely into Four Tet, Dorian Concept, and Rival Consoles, and I'll always love anything wildly creative in the indie rock space, some biggies being Kimbra, Moses Sumney, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, the list goes on and on!
MM: Who are the artists that you are really digging recently?
Autocatalytica: Some crossover with the last question, The new Moses Sumney Record "Grae" is insanely good, Rival Console's Latest record is amazing, Floating Points, Nils Frahm, Holly Herndon's insaneo AI choir on "Proto", Dorian Concept's "The Nature of Imitation", Makaya McCraven, Kamaal Williams, Nubya Garcia, so so so so many not metal musics haha!
MM: What are your interests and influences (if any) outside of music?
Autocatalytica: A man's gotta have a life outside music! I'm big into meditation, Scifi novels, gaming, running, and I also write code as a Web Developer which I think is pretty rad.
MM: Do you think ‘humour’ and ’sensitivity’ have a place in heavy music?
Autocatalytica: Hell yeah! Metal is at its best when it doesn't take itself too seriously, a bunch of hairy sweaty dudes making funny throat noises about satan? What's not to laugh at there, even funnier when they take themselves too seriously tbh. And sensitivity yes for sure! It's gotta draw on something real and emotional, nothing more metal than sensitive vulnerability.
You Can Follow Autocatalytica on:
https://autocatalytica.bandcamp.com/album/powerclashing-maximalism
All Images courtesy of Autocatalytica
