''The Didact'' is the self-produced debut album by Swedish progressive metal band,

Means End Means End was a Swedish progressive metal band from Stockholm whose sound is spearheaded by SATB choirs, operatic vocals, eight-string guitars, and jazz-fusion compositions. Their music is likened to an amalgamation of artists such as Eric Whitac ...

, released in 2013. The album name "The Didact" derives from the Ancient Greek word, "didaktikós", meaning to instruct or be taught.

Musical and lyrical style

The album contains intellectual and philosophical lyrics about numerous topics and melds them together as the lines between humanity and technology are thinned. The instrumentation incorporates electronic choirs,

polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...

ic riffs,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

-influenced bass lines, and dynamic vocals among many other things. The album also features a linear tempo rendition of Nox Aurumque, originally composed by

Eric Whitacre Eric Edward Whitacre (born January2, 1970) is an American composer, conductor, and speaker best known for his choral music. Early life Whitacre was born in Reno, Nevada, to Ross and Roxanne Whitacre. He studied piano intermittently as a child a ...

Track listing

Personnel

*Robert Luciani – lead vocals *Rasmus Hemse – bass *Christian Schreil – drums *Leonard Östlund – guitar
Acle Kahney (member of

Tesseract In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube. Just as the perimeter of the square consists of four edges and the surface of the cube consists of six ...

, ex-

Fellsilent Fellsilent (also typeset as FELLSILENT) were a British heavy metal band from Milton Keynes. They possessed a technical, polyrhythmic style, similar to bands such as Meshuggah and Sikth. The band also focused on some melodic elements. They rele ...

), of 4D studios, mixed and mastered this album.

References

*"Robert Luciani Vocalist of Means End on the Big Plantation 03.16.14." YouTube. YouTube, Mar 13, 14. Web. September 26, 2014. *Mike. "MEANS END EP (FREE MUSIC!)." The Circle Pit. N.p., December 26, 2012. Web. September 26, 2014. *Benanne. "Discography for Means End." Got Djent? N.p., August 31, 2011. Web. September 26, 2014.

External links

The Didact Progarchives
page {{DEFAULTSORT:Didact Means End albums 2013 albums