If the world were just, Kevin Hufnagel would be a guitar hero. Guitar magazines would feature him on covers, and people would play his tunes with plastic toy guitars. But Hufnagel does not tease his hair enough for magazine coverage. Nor does he play trendy music. Instead, he has pursued idiosyncratic musical paths. Dysrhythmia, an instrumental trio, is his main band. With Dysrhythmia bassist Colin Marston, he does Byla, an avant-garde ambient project. He also records solo acoustic guitar records under his own name.
Hufnagel can play circles around more famous guitar "shredders." The conventional model of a guitar hero is a lanky fellow emitting streams of notes during the middles of songs. Such playing is usually linear, one note after another, and often depends on rhythm guitar underneath to keep the song going. Hufnagel has no such luxury, nor does he need it. As Dysrhythmia's sole guitarist, he renders obsolete terms like "rhythm" and "lead guitar." He plays high, he plays low, he plays everything in between. Hufnagel does not play notes so much as describe worlds. In this way, he recalls Al Di Meola, who uses his immense speed not towards left hand heroics, but towards percussive picking patterns. Hufnagel sketches outlines of chords, then fills them in with various tones and adds outside notes for color. The result evokes audible alien paintings.
Dysrhythmia's sound hasn't changed over time so much as come into focus. Their songs are instantly recognizable for their chewy tones, muscular dissonance, and roiling percussion. If 1990s noise rock had acquired shredder chops, it might sound like Dysrhythmia. The band has a few sonic cohorts, like Don Caballero and Keelhaul. But Dysrhythmia is more willing to soar above its odd-metered foundation. Hufnagel can unspool leads as elegantly as Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. However, he reins in this aspect on Psychic Maps. The record is Dysrhythmia's darkest and densest yet. "Festival of Popular Delusions" approaches thrash and death metal at times. The precise picking of "Iron Cathedral" suggests Megadeth in the 31st century. "Reactionary" is thrusting and elastic, like an angry Primus. "Room of Vertigo" lives up to its name, as Marston unleashes torrents of throbbing low end. "Lifted by Skin" is the exception to such relentlessness, with hummingbird picking forming webs of electric ambience.
Never the most accessible band, Dysrhythmia have become even more inscrutable on Psychic Maps. Its beefy tones and immense virtuosity are almost like armor. This yields a more difficult listen than the band's last few releases, which wielded more space and quiet. Now the band feels big and menacing. It's almost a prelude to Gorguts, the legendary Canadian death metal band that recently recruited Hufnagel and Marston. Perhaps these tunes are best suited for the live setting, where the band is formidable. It's arty, it's math-y, and one can definitely headbang to it.
