No Living Witness - melodic extreme metal in Olympia, Washington state, U.S.

No Living Witness (2006-present), says Bandcamp, is a melodic extreme band in the city of Olympia, Washington, U.S. They are currently a duo of Sam Haglund on guitars and vocals, and LJ on vocals. The vocals are mostly low, growling, but with some higher growling-screaming. It is an uptempo form of melodic black/death proggy guitar, but not too proggy because they like to keep things in the headbanging and grooving tempos. Sometimes the music seems like neosymphonic melodic European black metal, and at other times the death metal seems more prevalent.

Despite the extreme metal sound, they want the songs to be skilled and beautiful, not just fast and heavy. No Living Witness has skills, guitar skills, songwriting skills, as my friend Napoleon would say. Here and there, they have some melodic singing, but it seems like they don’t use it a lot, which is unfortunate because when it appears, it sounds like a cool contrast. This DIY recording deserves for fans of melodic extreme metal to check it out. It shows a lot of hard work and also sophistication. The guitar melodies alone should tell the listener that it takes months, not days, and certainly not hours, to put together No Living Witness songs on this, their third album, and fourth recording overall.

Cosmic Simulacra by No Living Witness

https://www.facebook.com/nolivingwitness