Current happenings make me want to talk Paraxism in here, so I figured I may as well write up a whole big fat post just on the subject of Paraxism to get that thing out of my system. Here goes nothing.
Once upon a time, I went on a death 'n' roll bender, something virtually unheard of. Usually, death 'n' roll is looked down on as worthless bastard spawn... obviously, I perceive said genre discarding as pretentious elitist gibberish. Thus, when on said bender, I had to check out Xysma, as Xysma are the actual forefathers of death 'n' roll. Forget Entombed, forget Furbowl, these Finnish kids were there way ahead of them. So, an obvious stop is Encyclopaedia Metallum. I go there, and I encounter a list of bands that "followed in Xysma's footsteps".
Hooray! More stuff to check out! Most of it turns out to be pretty formulaic death 'n' roll played by death metal bands that decided to change things up a bit and never recovered, but when it was Paraxism's turn for inspection, the music just... clicked. You know the feeling. My death metal excavation mood will eventually pass, but I will keep listening to a handful of bands, and Paraxism is definitely one of them. Their approach was to draw inspiration from many, often disjointed, sources, and somehow glue it all together and make it work. Their riffs have some of that "good death 'n' roll" swagger that makes all the difference, but there's more than enough uniqueness to not write the guys off as a Xysma clone. Wait, did I forget to mention the moog? I think I did. Yeah, so there's moog. There's also violin in places. But, in spite of all those proggish leanings, the music has balls and attitude. It never drifts off into meandering wankery with no point whatsoever.
Another thing that makes my mindset towards Paraxism what it is - the elusive final demo. In most cases, when I see some scattered release from space on Metallum that I can't get a hold of, I shrug and move on with my life. My feelings for Paraxism were too intense, and I didn't let go. I barked up virtually every tree possible, including some band members (I think I may be guilty of Mr. Paraxism changing his profile so non-friends can't message him, hurr durr derp), and ran into dead links, silent inboxes and fried hard drives. Eventually, with the invaluable aid of The Pro, I have obtained the missing demo. As well as two other tapes the existence of which I was not aware of, and a lone uncharted instrumental track (probably part of the 1996 rehearsal tape I saw in some trader's list... the guy didn't see it fit to respond). So, after a long search and bothering many people (turns out I met some high profile folks on the way, including a member of Agalloch, another of Adramelech... high profile names, yo), I obtained what I perceive to be their complete non-rehearsal-bootleg catalog.
The journey documented within the span is a thing of beauty. They started out as a bunch of kiddos playing death metal. I found some pics on Facebook (not that hard actually, there's a lot of them and all the guys all meticulously tagged in them), one of the guitarists looks like he's barely in his double digits. But the stuff they played... it was pretty ace. Not exactly Demilich tier, but it was melodic and catchy without degenerating into Gothenburger. After a transitionary tape, a distilled line-up and sound was presented in their penultimate 1995 demo. This was their peak... not to say that the stuff that came after was some huge degeneration, it was just different. After a mellower EP that the world is most aware of, they grunged up a bit, adding clean vocals and a more varied keyboard presence. Still, the songs were pretty darn nifty, and I like them a lot. Their swansong tape (one of those which the internet hasn't heard of) sees them write their longest tracks and change up the influence yet again, this time sounding a little like Apotheosis (Ger) on their final album. The best thing is that they could always pull it off - be it their pinnacle style hybrid, their death metal roots, their latter-day keyboard-drenched grunged up work, it all sounded awesome. And folks who are active in major, revered bands agree with me.
One of the folks tried to get Paraxism to release a compilation of their work, ages and ages ago. The band was negatively minded. I wrote a concise albeit elaborate message where I outlined the fact that there's a new generation of potential fans, when folks swallow the hook they go mental, and that they do care enough to actually toss up photos and meticulously tag everybody in them. Thus far, no response. Wrote the long-time drummer, tried adding the "real" Mr. Paraxism to walk around the message restriction... silent. I don't know who to bug, half the Paraxism line-up I located on Facebook only came in towards the end, and I'd feel a little silly asking the singer who only did a tape or two with them when there's a six-year-long heritage to work with.
Another problem to deal with - The Pro's rips are skippy. I don't mind, I can put up with the occasional squeal every now and then, but it's heavily unprofessional to actually release something like that officially. So, there's the option of doctoring out the skips (hard) or getting a better rip, either by having The Pro clean his CD and rip it more cautiously (that would involve The Pro putting in effort) or from another source, like someone within the band. I need to find out who's responsible for handing this thing out in the first place, and tap into that source, bypassing others who may see it as bugging. There's also the need for a bio or something... I could pen that, assuming I'd be given a brief rundown of what, where and when.
Why do I care so much about putting out the compilation? First of all, it could be called Collected Works and it would be awesome. Actually, the real deal is that the music is awesome and deserves to be documented - the guys had quite a trek, covering a considerable chunk of musical ground with quality to boot, and I'm sure that folks out there would appreciate such a release. The band would have a physical bit of testimony; the die-hards would get a bio, pics, and good rips (plus, potentially, tracks they didn't know yet); some of the leech downloaders from the compilation's inevitable entrance to the warez sphere may just catch the bug and write more "reviews" where Paraxism's greatness causes the apocalypse.
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