Rustler, Phonetic Whips

Yeah, I just can’t seem to escape it lately — metal’s come back into my musical world, and in somewhat of a major way. It’s like slipping back into any addiction, I suppose: you promise yourself that it’ll definitely only be this one thing, this one time, until the next time you do it, and then you find yourself looking for more pretty much all the time. A little Killswitch here, a little Isis there, and pretty soon I’m staring in the face of a full-blown Metal Relapse. And yeah, it feels pretty good.

Which is sorta how I ended up snagging a copy of local Houston metal band Rustler’s brand-brand-new disc, Phonetic Whips. Where not long ago I probably would’ve shrugged and said, “eh, why bother?”, not wanting to subject myself to yet another Korn/Tool/Pantera clone with nothing new under the sun, I got the CD on a whim after hearing just a song or two on the band’s Myspace page.

And I’m damn glad I did, because this is something new and mesmerizing, at least to me. Metalheads be warned: Phonetic Whips ain’t hair-swinging, devil horns-pumping, Headbangers Ball-watching metal. Well, not all the time, at least. Phonetic Whips eschews the confines of “standard” metal in favor of something a hell of a lot more complicated and more interesting. Every time the band gets locked into a crushing, Sabbath-stomp of a groove, members Justin Giardina, Chris Courville, and Jason Caldarera almost inevitably lunge sideways (at just the right time, mind you, which really says something) into something melodic, something syncopated, something drone-y, or all three at the same time.

The music Rustler makes is tense, slow-building instro-metal, the kind that’s relentlessly technical but still thunders and slams in all the right places. There’s some resemblance to fellow instrumental metal heroes The Fucking Champs, but Rustler don’t just add to the genre, they own it. Rather than aiming for either the atmosphere or some kind of novelty shtick (looking at you, Champs), the band comes off like an incredibly skilled bunch of jazzbos who moonlight as Metal Dudez; think the original Rollins Band crew, maybe, or possibly more appropriately, Dub Trio (replacing the dub/reggae with jazz, obviously).

Take “Jammin’ on the One,” for example — the track starts with a hypnotic swirl of guitar and drums, sounding dark and menacing but keeping things subtle for a while, ’til the guitars break free of the drone and charge headlong into a Clutch-heavy metal assault. Or “Mark of a Gentleman,” which is heavy and thundering, with guitars just this side of Master of Puppets, but which shifts gears and drops into a Rush-like melodic passage partway through before returning to the rock. Everywhere on Phonetic Whips, Rustler effortlessly melds jazzy elements to heavy-as-hell metal dynamics, to the point where they very nearly transform into a prog-rock band, or maybe some long-lost cousin to the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

“Stardotstar” is probably the real proof of the band’s fusion-esque skills; out of all six tracks on Whips, it’s the least out-and-out metal, instead using guitar and bass to nimbly spiral and twist the melody around the rhythm like on some Yes B-side. It’s noodly and nimble, hardly what you’d expect from a band that can do the Sabbathian stomp of closer “A Mat of Human Hair.” Even at their heaviest, though, elements of prog and jazz peek through — “Hair” and “Aardvark,” for two, both stomp along like Godzilla but still shapeshift from one moment to the next into intricate-but-still-rocking compositions that resemble “Tom Sawyer” or “Red Barchetta.”

When the album ends, I’ve got this ringing in my ears and I feel a little off-balance. And then I want to go back and do it again. Ah, screw the support group…