At the end of February, we opened our monthly poll to have you all vote on the next album Connor and I would review in podcast form. Intronaut’s sixth LP, Fluid Existential Inversions, won by a landslide. Admittedly, I may have gone a bit too obscure with the other contenders; nevertheless, we’re thrilled to share this discussion with you as we have both been aware of Intronaut’s presence for the better part of a decade, yet we have not descended into their discography until this release.

Intronaut is a Los Angeles-based progressive metal quartet that formed in 2004 and has released six LPs in their approximate sixteen-year existence thus far. From 2006 forward they had been producing one record every two years on average; however, the timing between this latest effort, Fluid Existential Inversions, and their previous, The Direction of Last Things, is the longest breather taken between outputs, five years. While we cannot opine on how this extended respite has influenced their tonal evolution (or lack thereof), song-writing chops, cohesiveness, or any other dimension related to their growth, we did discover an abundance of riffs, textures, atmospheres, and flora to marvel at.

Though not explicitly deemed a concept record, there does persist a thematic throughline of a psychedelic trip gone awry. This is woven together via intermittent audio transmissions that playback like an exhausted VHS tape, distorted and warped. Instruments expand this kernel by unfurling seemingly boundless swathes of alien terra firma which nourish the spry germinations of outlandish timbres. Air currents remain in a state of perpetual flux, swaying the tempo and intensity of a track’s biome at a moment’s notice. And as the color palette of the album’s artwork suggests, an illustrious spectrum of oceanic blues and verdant emeralds tinge the foray into the inner-self. Every track on this record breathes and Intronaut promulgates the sense that they, in fact, prevail somewhere in the unknown reaches of the interstellar canopy. Though foreign-sounding on the ears, there is something inherently organic permeating their constructions. There’s a whole lot more we have to say about Fluid Existential Inversions beyond what is written here. We sincerely hope you enjoy our exchange; thank you so much for tuning in.