Exivious has cornered the market on metal meets jazz-fusion and post-rock music, because they might be the only ones in that space, at least as far as I know, and their latest album Liminal is well worth a listen.

I'll be honest, when Shakefire sends me music to review I usually cringe. The stuff I get is often the most terrible screaming growling waste of talent the world has to offer. Musically messy and lyrically incomprehensible, the assault on my auditory senses leaves me battered and bloody, and not in a good way. So it was with a heavy heart and a preparatory wince that I pushed play on Exivious' Liminal...

What I heard sent me to Google to figure out what exactly I was listening to and this is how I found them, Exivious, an instrumental band fusing metal, jazz and more into an auditory delight. For the next just-shy-of 50 minutes I listened to the 8 tracks of the disc, each one well crafted and evocative.

The only thing wrong here is that I just don't hear the "metal" in this fusion. If I had to equate the sound that Exivious has cultivated to another, it would probably be more like a Joe Satriani or Steve Vai sound with a little less focus on guitar work to let the other members of the band shine as well.

In any event, this album may well find a permanent place in the soundtrack of my life. It's just that good.