The Basement Paintings from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan got together in the winter of 2011 and quickly got to work recording a full length debut album which was released in March of 2013. The follow up EP, titled Time Lapse City was released in March of 2014, and their next release was Mystic. The band has a mix of progressive rock, metal, experimental, and post rock sound that they manage to pull off quite well.
The songs are all instrumental and at times have a touch of Tool in sound, but never enough to make them a copyist, just like adding a touch of salt to your food; it seasons it enough to make it tasty. This band has a lot of talent, they play with such precision and with feeling that you can close your eyes and just nod your head along to the tracks and drift away. Not saying that there isn’t some metal crunch, but the songs just flow so beautifully that you get into a trance-like state listening to it. All of the tracks except one, are all over eight minutes long, the last track is a whopping fifteen minutes long, so make sure that you have the time for this.
With such lengthy tracks, the band has a chance to go places with the listener that they wouldn’t if they were cut shorter in time. Grab a drink, pull up a chair and go on a long journey with these guys and see where you land.
-Rick Ecker