A mixture of Voivod's otherworldly prog and Cryptopsy's jawdropping instrumental skills, combining psychotic death metal snarls and thrash metal aggression, Dissimulator are quite the discovery. Yes, of course they're Canadian! Hailing from Montréal and featuring members of acts like Chthe'ilist and Beyond Creation, the band play a quite unique form of death/thrash that's a combination of the best of each. And blessed with not just a production that highlights the twangy bass distortions to great effect but also some solid songwriting skills, Lower Form Resistance is quite an impressive debut album from the trio. The sci-fi theme is well-served by the janky music, equally capable of crushing thrash or skanking groove that verges on jazzy at times, not least the opening moments of the album as Neural Hack stomps in like Atheist with a bad case of nanosickness. Frequent shifts in riff and tempo become especially exciting as the band shift into almost blackened speed towards the end, a blizzard of riffs and drums ending abruptly and leaving you wanting more before the next track fulfils that need.

There's not a huge variety in song styles, the band generally making stormy assaults on the senses with technical riff-fests such as Warped, which slows the pace and intensifies the action a little. There are plenty of fun moments like the shift into French on Outer Phase or the limited use of vocoder instead of clean vocals across the album, which fits atmospherically but will annoy some thanks to how associated with Cynic they are. Still, it's an easy way to provide a sci-fi vibe and is infinitely better than the otherwise out-of-tune singing attempts! The use of longer song lengths to develop songs a little further is interesting too, several pieces here over six minutes with even an eight minute monster to test your ears. Said longest piece, Cybermorphism / Mainframe, starts slowly with proggy meandering melodies before launching into a thrashing headbanger with bursts of synth, keeping your attention fixed throughout.

Although this particular proghead would have appreciated a little more experimentation thrown in, by the time you've reached the closing title track it's hard not to be very impressed with Dissimulator. Leaning a little closer to Voivod in style initially before kicking up a gear with a speedy tech-thrash throw-down, slowing down again for some progginess with sneering Snake-like clean vocals, the track feels like both a tribute to a legendary band and a progression of their sound. Perhaps a little more originality will make any follow-up releases even better, yet for the moment Lower Form Resistance is one hell of a debut. It has the feel of some lost 90s classic and something fresh and exciting simultaneously, and there's little more electric than that from a new metal band. Highly recommended for thrash fans - the renaissance continues!