Candiria are often regarded as a cross-genre band, although many listeners don’t include prog rock among those genres. Hailing from New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, their first two albums were impressive enough. But 1999’s The Process of Self-Development remains the best example of their prowess, power – and progressive tendencies.
Though it was a famously difficult decade for traditional heavy metal, the 90s still managed to spark several fresh revolutions. Echoing the groundbreaking efforts of Tool, Meshuggah and Devin Townsend, New York City produced one of the most inventive and original bands in heavy music history.
Candiria were the living embodiment of all those clichés about the Big Apple being a perennial melting pot,. The emerged from the streets of Brooklyn with a sound that incorporated almost everything the city had to offer.
Built upon wild, intricate riffs and liberated jazz sensibilities, their songs were both challenging and thrillingly visceral, with elements of hip-hop, bebop and abstract noise woven through a central core of out-there riffing and brutish, hardcore punk vocals courtesy of livewire frontman Carley Coma.
Very much a work in progress on 1995 debut album Surrealistic Madness, Candiria swiftly evolved into something extraordinary. Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1997) was a significant step forward – but it was their third album that gleefully blew the doors off.
Released at the arse-end of the decade, The Process Of Self-Development was the mindblowing antithesis of the knuckleheaded rap-rock that was dominating the airwaves. Ferociously intelligent and utterly fearless, it still sounds ahead of its time.
If prog metal has a tendency to rely on well-worn, decades-old tropes, nobody told Candiria. The Process Of Self-Development is dominated by punishingly heavy but irrevocably weird songs that are driven by obtuse, freewheeling riffs that often make Meshuggah’s bewildering polyrhythms seem neat and straightforward.
Infused with the head-nod spirit of urban rap, and prone to sudden, surreal embellishments sent from deep leftfield, songs like Three Times Again, Temple Of Sickness and Elevate In Madness turned metal inside-out, reimagining it as a logical progression from Miles Davis’ electric era as well as the gritty clangour of New York hardcore.
Elsewhere, on the perverse, psychedelic Pull, and particularly on the smoky, brass-led Matter. Anti. Matter, Candiria explored their jazz influences with a casual authenticity that cannot be faked.
In contrast, Method Of Expression and Down To The Last Element were brooding, edgy hip-hop cuts, and an impressive demonstration of Coma’s rhyming skills.
Concluding with the esoteric funk grooves and tribal percussion of the title track along with the spaced-out dub of Leaving The Atmosphere, Candiria’s farewell to the 20th century boasted more smart ideas per square inch than most bands could muster in a lifetime.
Later albums continued the New Yorkers’ ambitious approach to varying degrees of underground success, but it was The Process Of Self-Development that most accurately defined their boundary-shattering bravery, and proud stewardship of the musical city that never sleeps.
