Lye by Mistake || ‘Fea Jur’ (2009)

Lye By Mistake is an American Experimental/Fusion instrumental metal that plays a mixture of styles from the likes of Dillinger Escape Plan, Frank Zappa and a jazz fusion touch that few metal bands are aiming for.

Fea Jur is their second release (first with “Black Market Activities” label).

• Review

I always find it hard to review ”experimental” music; I mean how can you review something that bares little resemblance with the usual mainstream releases and that few people will be interested in eventually. As a reviewer, what motivates me is the thought that real music enthusiasts searching online for such bands will come across LebMetal.com to find these ever so rare experimental bands with their mind-blowing, groundbreaking/genre-breaking releases!

Lye By Mistake is surely one of these bands and “Fea Jur” is a release that shouldn”t be underestimated. Fans of experimental metal and fusion don”t need to read this review to its entirety since they ought to know what kind of style I”m talking about. I”ll just redirect you people to this band”s official Myspace (see end of article) and I”ll provide a Youtube video of one of their songs for you to check out.

Now for you non-experimental oriented music fans, here”s the track-by-track review:

• Big Red Button! Probably the most technical piece of music I ever heard… This is just mind-boggling and way hard to digest from the very first listen; still this track is one of my favorite instrumental / technical tracks of all time. Just listen to the bass guitar and drum work! I can”t believe that this band is still relatively unknown in the metal world (and I”ve read on their Myspace that few people do attend their shows!).

Rating: 10/10

• The Condition starts off in a very calm jazzy matter (very enjoyable) then progresses into fusion and later on metal territories! The cycle starts again after that until the song”s end. It”s a really good song but I”ll go for others as highlights of the album.

Rating: 8/10

• Invincible Bad Ass is one of the few ”mostly metal” song on the album. I did admire the melody in this song and of course the technical work at the very end. I saw people compare some of the technical parts to Dillinger Escape Plan”s material, and I actually support that to some extent. Still, this isn”t exactly metalcore (with all do respect).

Rating: 8/10

• Vanguard to Nowhere is certainly the most interesting song on the album. It starts off with the bizarre nonsense noise and develops into a beautiful jazz-structured piece! A perfect experimental song with deadly riffs, drumming, melody and an impressive ease of cross-genre structuring. It”s really interesting how they were able to blend everything together – it”s simply amazing.

Rating: 10/10!

• Stag is another ”mostly metal” song on the album. Well yes if you compare this song to the others, you”ll find that this one doesn”t really cross musical genres and so on. Still, this is probably the song that I personally headbanged the most while listening to: its strength comes from those really interesting riffs that constantly stress a powerful mood.

Rating: 8/10

• The title track Fea Jur is the weirdest track on the album. I love the jazz bass solo (which kicks in right after some technical metal work – cool right?) and the fusion guitar groove right after it. This album contains experimental material but it”s really listenable and the genre-changes don”t happen too suddenly which I personally appreciate since it”s easy and common for experimental bands to come across alot of genres in one single song without actually knowing how to blend them together properly and easily. (Listen to Fea Jur on their Official Myspace page given below)

Rating: 10/10

• Links

Official Myspace