Dillinger Escape Plan’s milestone Calculating Infinity has become a leitmotif for a lot of bands. With that masterpiece, a new standard was set. More brutal, intense, fast and with a surplus of technique. Music for elite listeners? Fascinating, but yet unconventional. A few bands manage to make such music, I mean with an overdose of technique, go-stop-go fragments, and remain being enjoyable to listen to. Psyopus comes really far with their Our Puzzling Encounters. Like they isolated themselves with only a few records within reach: aforementioned ‘Calculating Infinity’, ‘Amenoza Del Mundo’ from Fantomas, ‘Within Dividia’ from The End and some demos from Discordance Axis. You can describe their new album as mix of those four.

But they sometimes go a little bit further. Sometimes there are so many riffs and tempo-changes in one song that it’s almost funny and cartoonesque.

But some parts are definitely intriguing. Like the vocals in ‘The Pig Keepers Daughter’ a woman is groaning every second (in the end) or ‘Whore Meet Liar’ where a female vocalist is just screaming ‘you said you loved me’. Really intense.

Further down the cd the music goes more the jazzy way. Jazzy and scratchy with tracks like ‘Kill Us’ and with a climax in ‘Siobhanis Song’. It’s all intriguing to listen to, but hard to get into. Musical exercise for experienced listeners or for people who just love to do the same for 400 times. Psyopus delivers what you want. With an eye for detail. Since Dillinger has decided to write more structured songs Psyopus is your alternative.