Colossamite

Colossamite was a mid-to-late 1990s math rock band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Colossamite's members included Nick Sakes (vocals, electric guitar), Ed Rodriguez (electric guitar), John Dieterich (electric guitar), and Chad Popple (drum set); the group had no bass player. All were transplanted Wisconsinites.

Like similar groups such as Zeni Geva, Craw, U.S. Maple, or Dazzling Killmen (this last group for which Sakes sang previously) Colossamite's music was almost hyperbolically brutal, chaotic, and rhythmically and formally complex. Rather than relying, as most heavy metal bands, on guitar distortion to produce an intense sound, Colossamite instead often relied on very loud "clean" (undistorted) guitars, played dissonantly, in conjunction with vocals that were screamed rather than sung. Songs featured jarring shifts in tempo and mood, with the overall sound being extremely raw, heavy and often slow.

The group released three CDs on the Chicago-based Skin Graft label but it was short lived, perhaps owing to the fact that the extreme and uncompromising nature of its music (as with much contemporary classical music, which incidentally Colossamite's music resembles) appealed mainly to a niche audience, thus proving fairly uncommercial.

External link

• [Colossamite page at Southern Records site]