At this point we should probably just create a category, tag, or whatever for ‘no idea how we got this but we like it’.

Copenhagen Denmark’s Michael Ellis (note; not the name of a person but a group with some very spooky mystical origins) plays a variant on the familiar math/post rock sound that arose in the nineties in the US simultaneously in the Midwest and the northern part of the south (scenes sprung up of course quickly soon thereafter in California and New York sometimes consisting of a single group or an incestuous group of groups trading members of the ‘post math rock exchange’).

Michael Ellis themselves, however, are part of the international post math boom that proceeded the initial springwell within the US. Upon hearing the first track of their new lp, one might even think this was an AI picking and choosing yet in some ways aping the overlords and most technically impressive of the international intersection of what’s become the crossroads of math rock, post rock, and post-metal.

We’ve written extensively on the subject of what we’re calling post math (but which most would simplify into ‘math rock’ in which case they wouldn’t really be wrong but they’d be missing something); penning the particularly popular and illuminating ‘dichotomy of math rock’ in the early aughts. We wouldn’t say we’re experts, having only experienced a few key live performances (post breakup Polvo being our most infamous and enjoyable), however, we have been following and critiquing the movement since its early days.

Therefore we feel we are at least somewhat qualified to comment on the international development front. We’ve followed some of the groups from Japan, England, and New Zealand. What seems to be happening in general is what we warned about in our ‘dichotomy’ landmark piece (yes we are being sarcastic about our overqualifications and importance in the critique of this genre if you hadn’t caught on by now); the importance of professionalism and talent when it comes to the genre as opposed to experimentation and serendipity. The latter of which produced the likes of groups like our beloved Polvo, who were just as much lo-fi and noise rock like their contemporaries Archers of Loaf as they were talented purveyors of a new science of time signatures and post-prog it might have gone in this direction second guessing of classic rock’s many legacies.

Seminal groups like Breadwinner and Craw took the post math genre in new unbelievably weird and intriguing hybrid directions; in other ways the ‘post’ of post rock took over and the influence of instrumental chamber groups like Godspeed YOU!!!! Black !!! Emperor waned supreme.

Michael Ellis in a lot of ways is evident of the culmination of the ‘classical’ era of post math; one that seamlessly blends the post rock and math rock formats and enjoins it without irony or apology with professionally crunchy post-thrash metal. Plenty of groups in the US took the angular riffs of post math to dizzying new heights (Hella, Mars Volta), and Michael Ellis’ latest lp includes a healthy dose of these in spades as well. From the first notes of Modern Heresy it’s clear you’re dealing with auteurs here to say the least, versed in everything from the climbing arpeggiated maddeningly complex rhythms of Sweden’s Meshuggah back to the fusion of Miles Davis’ Live Evil and Bitches Brew and specifically the guitar work of John Mclaughlin as a shadowed but undeniable giant influence.

So to go over each and every track would be, in our opinion, to exhaust our knowledge of every influence, riff, and extraction in a way that would be undeniably even more boring than what we’ve written thus far.

Suffice it to say that Michael Ellis is formidable force in current international post math (they describe the influences as being from math rock, ‘heavy metal and game soundtracks’. They also as mentioned previously claim a mystical origin and perform in full regalia such as ‘suits and masks’, or martial arts smocks. Their kung clearly has fu. Despite their sound and the fact that, did they wish, they could take themselves way too seriously and would probably not even be too pretentious in doing so, instead they choose humility and humor. While at points such as the track Myrmidon they risk just that of pretention, they claw its ambitions back enough eventually that it’s clear they are genuinely just jamming on shit they like.

At this point the kind of instrumental every point and rhythm must be interesting and not repeated for more than thirty seconds Michael Ellis doles out is still entertaining and fun. But at some point we’re pretty certain groups like them will be listened to and remembered similarly to the Jeff Beck group. Your guitar or drumming teacher was really inspired by these guys and the heights they took the genre too, but they’re an obscure international group who you can find on Spotify, but only by sifting through all the other artists named ‘Michael Ellis’ (it really is strange that they’d choose such a common though from what we can tell completely irrelevant name) and looking for the kind of shit your teacher has recommended to you before while extolling the virtues and vices the overruse Jerry made of the mixolydian mode and how it really killed… whatever.

That being said, I genuinely hope they’re creating and performing this music in good will and more importantly, good humor. Because this is highly technical specialist supergeeky super savant music at this point. Executed flawlessly and with as many winks and nods to Don Cab as King Crimson, this is not very original nor distinctive. But for now, even twenty years after it was developed and 15 after it was perfected to the degree Michael Ellis continues, the unusually original AND distinctive genre of post math has the kind of power and entertainment that, to a geek like me, will bear repeated listening and enjoyment of. Thanks boys for your contribution to my undead love of this kind of music in this kind of genre — whatever it should be called — we’ll know it when we hear it twenty years from NOW.

Dictated but not read by Jessica Goldstein