:: Contradiction ::

1. This aptly titled instrumental trio has concocted a very unusual sound that requires much more than the casual attention of the listener. Dysrhythmia was formed in March 1999 by ex-Grey Division Blue members Kevin Hufnagel (guitars) and Clayton Ingerson (bass). Drummer Jeff Eber completes the line-up. 'Contradiction' is their debut CD featuring 8 songs with a running time just under an hour. Comparison to other instrumental bands is difficult because, as is often the case, a whole range of influences is moulded to create their individual sound. The range is shown between the last two songs: the 2 minute short "Yes, it's kind of an Oxymoron" has that Dick Dale surf sound, while the 9 minute "Earthquake" is appropriately titled, starting with a chugging hypnotising rhythm with abrasive guitars then progressing into tech metal territory, building up to a climactic frenzy and then slowly fading out to personify the aftermath. The music has the haunting and melancholic mood of Ozone Quartet but the songs are more aggressive in the tone. This is partly caused by the live feel of the recording (each song was live in one full take, although several songs have dual guitar layers) which results a less-polished sound. Dysrhythmia is more diverse in the song structures than Actual Time for example, with songs in the range of 2-13 minutes. These extremely talented musicians have combined innovative song writing with an abundance of memorable parts and hooks to create an aural Armageddon. Daring listeners will be taken to all corners of human musical pleasure, from a massage of the intellectual brain to a soft caressing of the ear lobes.
(CR) - Edge of Time (Lithuania)
4 1/2 out of 5

2. Excellent stuff here! This psychotic Jazzy Progressive Metal is totally insane and of a superior level, musically speaking. All the stuff in here is totally instrumental, making the rapport with such acts as SPASTIC INK one of the best way to describe this band, but mixed with some weirder stuff, like PRIMUS used to do, for example. Totally in control, the guitars are way up-front and are never overshadowed by the bass or drums. In fact, all three instrument play an important and distinctive role in this music, mixed in a way that allows all three to show what their made of... And that is a very skillful, intricate, modern and technical Prog Metal that has a lot of elements taken from Jazz as well. The riffing is really complicated and this music may not offer you a good time for those who like their music catchy and simple. This is total jamming, yet everything is tight as a nun's ass and precise as a compass. The sound also allows all three instruments to be very clean and to offer their own distinctive impact on the music. The bass is jamming and adding both melodies to the guitars, which is often gone mad on some crazy leads and... The drumming is very snappy and is quite technical with lots of passes and rolls and stuff... This is an all around jewel for musicians but I don't think that many non-musicians will find it very interesting because it is totally music-oriented... Which I totally dig!
(SB) - Soundscape (Canada)
4 out of 5

3. Here we have one of the finest-sounding, most intelligently played independent releases I've heard in a very long time: Philadelphia's Dysrhythmia is an instrumental three piece that sounds like the result of throwing Rush, Frank Zappa, Megadeth, and Mahavishnu Orchestra in a blender and slapping the "puree" button. Guitarist Kevin Hufnagel clearly cut his teeth on not only Alex Lifeson but also the classic thrashers of the 80's (I'd guess Slayer was something of an influence), and yet he has enough jazz influence in his playing to make me think that John McLaughlin might have also played a part. He's certainly capable of throwing notes out at high speed, but finesse is more of an issue than fury, it seems; there is an emphasis on melody, even in times of shredded bliss. Bassman Clayton Ingerson is an active part of the mix here, as is drummer Jeff Eber - as with the very best three-pieces, each player rises above the collective sound, and what results is an invigorating audio stew that makes the listener pay full attention, every second of the way. This is absolutely unsuited for background listening; play with headphones on, or not at all. The word "fusion" is a subjective one - it implies the fusing of two different styles of music into one. In the 70's, "fusion" meant the fusing of jazz and rock. Today, perhaps fusion means the fusing of "traditional fusion" music and heavy metal. If that's the case, bands like Dysrhythmia are spearheading the movement, and God bless them for doing it.
This gets my strongest recommendation.
James Bickers - Sea of Tranquility (USA)

4. "Sometimes words can get in the way, and Dysrhythmia doesn't really have room for 'em. The trio lays down a deliciously sick mix of prog rock and free jazz on their self-released album Contradiction. The guitar can get a little noodly at times, but it's more than forgivable given the band's enjoyably goofy forays into metal and other genres." Brain Howard - Philadelphia City Paper

5. Dysrhythmia is a Philadelphia trio led by long time friends and musical collaborators,  guitarist Kevin Hufnagel and bassist Clayton Ingerson (both previously of Grey Division Blue). Drummer Jeff Eber completes the instrumental trio. The music represents a hybrid of the members particular tastes; thrash, punk, progressive rock, indie, ambient and noise. After two spins of the disk I’d have to concur mostly with the latter (noise).
Fusion requires more than musical virtuosity to carry it above mediocrity. It needs texture, atmosphere, complexity, substance and energy. At times, Dysrhythmia show the odd bits of energy and enthusiasm but in the long run the music sounds no more than one endless garage jam after another. The group says that everything was recorded live in one take. While some musical skill is evident, any real depth of song writing is not.

“Ladder” (7:29) starts things off in a lumbering manner, with meandering guitar and pinching bass lines. A stretch of feedback leads into a driving passage that rocks, but doesn’t roll.

“Side Walk”, track 2, starts quietly, carried by the bass. Some edgey, jabbing guitar adds interesting texture.

“Burning Cinders In a Freefall” adds energy to the mixture and provides some good visual motives to the music. However, the album’s sparseness is already wearing thin. There simply isn’t enough creative ideas to keep this music interesting.

“Rotary”, track four, is over ten minutes long. It has some quiet depth to it and good use of guitar. A nice, building intro eventually leads to a long, vacuous passage. Here is where the album loses me. Nothing new develops and the music plods on seemingly forever.

“Polytrip” is over thirteen minutes and it fares much better. There is some Frippish angst in the guitar playing and overall more dimension to the song writing. If you’re into the heavy side of instrumentals, there’s enough here to enjoy. There’s also lighter passages as well. The problem is, again, the constant use of repetition. Even though the song is loaded with time changes (and actually the musicians are remarkable in this respect), the whole of the song doesn’t have the dramatic arc to feel like an “epic” piece of work.

The atonal qualities of the band are in evidence on “Lost in Disguise” the seven minute sixth track. This is exceptional avante garde in it’s mixture of thrash elements and suspended, quiet bridges. However, while there’s enough angst to conjure up a military coup, melody is missing. I reinforce my bias in favour of melody. Headbangers might find more of interest in this track and elements of the album than I did.

The two minute “Yes, It’s Kind of an Oxymoron” is a blistering punk piece with some nice base runs.

It leads us to the nearly ten minute closer, “Earthquake”. I like the moody intro. In moments like this, the band’s potential is visible. Perhaps with a less raw sound, some overdubbing and keys the band can lift the limitations of their song. Parts of “Earthquake” are very powerful indeed.

As can be expected in a recording like this, the sound is raw and sparse. The jacket artwork is nothing more than scribbling in ink (though the band may be embellishing upon this). 'Contradiction' is certainly not going to turn any heads in progressive circles. On a positive note the musicianship and passion is there. Now all that has to happen is someone has to teach these guys how to write songs. (RZ) - Progvisions (Spain) 2 out of 5

6. Dysrhythmia are a Philadelphia trio active since last year and Contradiction is their debut album, almost an hour of completely instrumental music. As it often happens, it's quite difficult to describe in words a musical work built on technical performance and on the refusal to bow to the simple "song" format. The band manages to bring in its music a huge range of influences, from progressive hard rock to fusion, from ambient/noise experiments to aggressive metal: the result is a genre-defying, fascinating mixture. All three band members have a jazz/classical background; the techincal proficiency level is very high, but luckily the focus here is composition: the songs are well written, full of suprises and captivating. Sometimes a slight Rush reference pops out (for example, the beginning of "Ladder", or the final part of "Lost in Disguise"), sometimes I hear something of Spastic Ink ("Burning Cinders in a Free Fall"), but the overall feeling is never of exasperated musicianship; it must be remarked the great use of melodies even in the more aggressive passages, so that the songs never turn in self-exihibitionist instrumental orgies. The rhythm section is always inventive, and aptly builds a solid structure for the guitar work. As a final proof of the great musicianship shown by the band, it must be pointed out that all the songs were recorded live in the studio, with just a few overdubs.
"Contradiction" is not an easy record to listen to, but if you like genre-hopping and genre-bending music, you'll surely going to love it. If you are looking for music that tries to experiment with different languages (and you're not stuck in the true-metal-or-die attitude), Dysrhythmia is the band for you. - Stargazer (Italy)

7. This guitar, bass, and drums trio from Philadelphia likes it hard and heavy. "Ladder" is a driving guitar extravaganza that runs through several rhythmic patterns. "Burning Cinders in a Freefall" gives us some post-punk jamming. On "Side Walk", drummer Jeff Eber lays down some cool rhythms. Bass player D. Clayon Ingerson has his instrument tweaked to get a Tony Levin-like deep mellow tone. The star of the show, however, is guitarist Kevin Hufnagel, always at the music's forefront.
Overall, this CD might be compared to a less-accomplished reflection of Djam Karet's Burning The Hard City. There are several bright spots- a psychedelic flourish here, a jazzy break there, and a surprising punk twist on surf music. But by and large there is a sameness of sound that permeates this disc, barring two pieces. The 12-minute "Polytrip" for example, long overstays its welcome. One song of this is pretty cool; one hour is a bit much.  David Layton - Progression (USA)

8. Contradiction is a solid collection of instrumental tunes cranked out more or less live by the Philadelphia trio. There's a heavy edge to the proceedings, but of course there is a lot of influences at work in Dysrhythmia's music. While not nearly as complex as, say, Spastic Ink, Dysrhythmia explore some interesting musical territory, and the instrumental skill of the members is impressive. There aren't a lot of solos {though there are some} since the focus is on the songs, but at the same time, I think those songs could have used a little more flash. The writing is inconsistent, and some songs are much better than others, and across the board this sounds like a band trying to find it's sound. They're certainly on to something, but more work is needed before they can compete with the better heavy instrumental bands out there. The production is good, but not really to my liking, as it sounds way too "live". Obviously that's what the band was shooting for, and I bet on stage these songs sound pretty much like they do on the disc, but I'm not really fond of this hyper-natural sound. It's hardly distracting, but if I was calling the shots, it would have sounded different. Contradiction definitely hints at something better to come, and fans of freaky instrumental music {or King Crimson, whose influence is strong on Dysrhythmia} might really dig this disc. Less fervent fans of this kind of music might want to wait until the next disc for the band to grow a little bit.  Matt Johnsen - Feast or Famine (USA)

9. Very progressive stuff. Though vocal-less, the guys in Dysrhythmia like to have a  lot of parts to their songs. In other words, they've got a lot of riffs to show for, assuming you can get past the uber-lengths of some of them tracks. But I do give credit where credit is due in terms of distinctly super musicianship! Darren - Under the Volcano (USA)

10. Instrumental albums, most of them, follow two ways. Or it becomes boring for the extreme tecnique demonstration or it becomes boring for the repetition. But it can be boring and good in the same time. Absolutelly, it's not this case . It's exetremely tecnic and sometimes repetitive but Jeff Eber (drums), Kevin Hufnagel (guitars) and D. Clayton Ingerson (bass) made it good. Basing on tecnic metal, but flerting with other styles and showing a lot of influences on the musics, Dysrhythmia made a good instrumental album. It's with eight musics in almost one hour of pure energy and mommens really aggressive. Obviously, it's a kind of song that has an especific public, but the variety of Dysrhythmia is so big that it'll satisfy the all styles lovers. The graphic side is not so good, but the song is really good... It really worth to see. 8.5 out of 10  Daniel Vilar - RENEGADE2K (Brazil)

11.  "progpsychos" 8 out of 10 - Metal Hammer (Greece)

12. The band is playing since march ´99. Kevin Hufnagel, Clayton Ingerson – both sonner in Grey Division Blue – and drummer Jeff Eber are playing a pure instrumental, thrash rock with influences from metal, punk, progressive, noise, indie, ambient and ethnic. The heavy sound often remembering to King Crimson is a enormous orgy with stylistic breaks, long solos, heavy bass-work and wild drumming. The tracks are between two and fourteen minutes long with a lot of statements/solos from jazzrock into the partly dry partly heavy bubble songs. In „burning cinders in a freefal“ the drums run over the ears, straight race into the auditory canal, the guitar strong sweep away. The bass is not only giving the basis. In „Rotary“ he is decisive the first minutes, while the song was going louder and louder. In „Lost in disguise“ the guitar is trying the metaljazz, the following „Yes, it´s a kind of oxymoron“ is staying between punk and beat. „Contradiction“ is the first CD from Dysrhythmia, any song playing in one take and provide with some overdubs. The production isn´t iron in month and cutted by computers but growing homogen. This good work is to get for slack $ 8 directly from the band. Volkmar - RAGAZZI (Germany)

13. An apt name for this group, Dysrhythmia is an all-instrumental trio from Philadelphia that plays a brand of hard rock/metal that has a wide range of influences and is very hard to categorize. After a quick spin the listener might think of a less melodic Maximum Indifference (if they've even heard of this indie trio), or see similarities to a couple better known acts such as Bozzio Leven Stevens or Liquid Tension Experiment-only not as, shall we say, textured. The guitar work of Kevin Hufnagel is obviously the centerpiece for the trio, but I feel that D. Clayton Ingerson's bass work is what defines the band's music. Ingerson plays  with a style that makes me think of Geddy Lee  backing a jazz/fusion band, such as on songs like "Ladder" and "Rotary". Hufnagel's guitar playing ranges from Beatles-esque style distortion (think "Revolution") on "Burning Cinders in a Freefall" to a short Dick Dale-style surf guitar intro on "Yes, It's Kind of an Oxymoron". Not to leave him out, drummer Jeff Eber does a credible job holding the (dys)rhythm downwhile Hufnagel and Ingerson cut loose. This disc isn't for everyone; while Dysrhythmiadoesn't go ape-shit like Primus used to do, at times the songs tread the line between art and noise, thus living up to the band's moniker. Those looking for a witches' brew of technical (and progressive) hard rock, jazz, and fusion laced with some good-old fashioned noise might want to check Dysrhythmia out. - Promethean Crusade (USA)

14. "A new USA instrumental trio featuring electric guitar, electric bass and drums, with a debut CD of wicked axework and strong rhythm section cohesion, right there up with Cuneiform label's Hosemobile & Djam Karet when it comes to scorching tracks that motor and drive, the guitar work just flying out in
a blistering setting, worthy of heavy King Crimson at its most bone-crunching. The opener, at nearly eight minutes, sets the scene to perfection with all the elements there in force, from chugging electric bass
through tight and strong drum work while the guitar soars and dives, solos and layers in a mighty, mighty track that takes no prisoners yet has a melodic heart - yes, there is a tune that runs through the middle, while all around burns like a brush-fire. The second track takes the intensity down a notch while the third one practically triples it, as a rock-fusion hybrid that will leave you breathless. The ten minute fourth track starts as a maze of twisting time changes and complex chording before it hits a riff and hammers home in a slower and more deliberate manner, but only briefly as the track switches pace and scope once again. Throughout the rest of the album, the combination of complexities and direct action, with the band on top form and the guitar blazing a path to the stars, is nothing short of riveting and a quite superb album is seen out to the end." - CD Services (Scotland)

15. "Christ! I've never heard anything quite so bizarre...Contradiction is an independent effort (you
could almost tell by the packaging) and what really makes it remarkable, is that it is a carefully engineered work of weirdness. It is an instrumental album that is unlike any instrumental that I've heard, which is definitely a plus point for musical ingenuity. With metal steadily becoming a more matured genre of music, it is refreshing to know that people are still conceiving new and interesting ideas. I salute Dysrhythmia for that.

The closest comparison I can liken the sound to would be Voivod, in the days of Dimension Hatross and Nothingface - yes it is that cool! Do rest assured that it is however much easier to get into. The pieces themselves are very natural and it doesn't take long for one to figure out the grand scheme of things.

Sadly, I would imagine that such talent would have problems going mainstream, because the material is just too radical. But then again, metal music has always been a little bit out of the norm, and I'm sure that this band would have absolutely no trouble in gaining a substantial cult following. If you're game for trying something new, try this for a change!" - Artifact [US]

anybody care to translate this next review for us?

16. Dysrhythmia – Contradiction
(58:57, Privatpressung, 2000)
Wann gibt es denn endlich mal wieder etwas ganz „Normales“ für den CD Player? In letzter Zeit häufen sich einfach die gewagten Klänge, wobei Dysrhythmia diese Reihe nahtlos fortsetzen. Man kann ja der Stile vieles Abartiges zusammen in einen Topf schmeißen, und so reicht bei dem amerikanischen Trio die Bandbreite von Progressive Rock, Jazz, Klassik Noise, Indie, Ambient bis hin zu Punk und Thrash Metal. Doch ganz so wild, wie dies auf den ersten Blick erscheint, klingt es dann glücklicherweise doch nicht, denn moderne Progressive Rock Strukturen, mit deutlicher Gitarrendominanz, sind die vorherrschenden Stilmittel, auch wenn es hier oder da doch schon mal über die Grenzbereiche hinausgeht.
Schlecht gespielt sind die acht Titel keineswegs, denn überraschende Stil- und Soundwechsel lassen den Zuhörer immer wieder gespannt aufschrecken. Doch die persönliche Grenze für offene Strukturen, muss schon relativ hoch bei dieser Art von Musik sein, obwohl es im Grunde genommen zwar komplex, aber immer noch nachvollziehbar und keineswegs avantgardistisch zu Werke geht. Die vielen Brüche innerhalb der Songs machen es einem extrem schwierig irgendwo Halt zu finden; gerade hat man sich mit einer Passage zurechtgefunden, dann geht es auf einmal ganz plötzlich wo ganz anderes hin.
Dysrhythmia machen ihrem Namen alle Ehre, denn „Contradiciton“ ist nicht disharmonisch, sondern disrhythmisch, und fordert den Kopf ungemein. So ist man entweder irgendwann einfach nur genervt oder hat sich mit den abstrusen Ideen angefreundet.  KS - Progressive Newsletter (Germany)