It made perfect sense for French prog-metal wizards Hypno5e to open their set playing off and along to the piercing tones of Bernard Herrmann's familiar shower murder scene music from the film Psycho. Just as they spent their hour-plus performance accompanied by a stream of video images projected behind them, the quartet plays a particularly cinematic brand of metal, using long streams of atmospherics and ample amounts of silence to play with a listener's emotions. That is right before they decide to pummel you with volume and breakneck energy.

Both sides of Hypno5e's personality - their more pensive artful side (this was a tour being billed as "Metal As Art" after all) and your typical metal attack - were in full bloom this evening, but as you might imagine, the finest moments came when they cleanly welded these two halves together. Much of that essence came from the surprisingly delicate drumming of Thibault Lamy. His ability to play around a straightforward beat, wrapping light cymbal runs and quick blasts of drum hits into the circuitous playing of his band mates would be a Herculean task for any sticksman, but Lamy hardly broke a sweat. And that he was able to keep up with the click track and samples that directed the band's set via the laptop he was connected to makes it all the more impressive.

Wisely, Hypno5e kept a fine balance between the art and the anger in their music. For a band who hasn't released an album since 2007 and whose music is hardly familiar to an American audience, it makes sense - you don't want to lose the people you are trying to draw in. Thoughtful instrumental passages were kept short and sweet, and there were very few moments between songs to catch one's breath. It was a tradeoff as you lost some of the more intricate playing of guitarists Emmanuel Jessua and Jeremie Lautier, but their feverish riffing and sludgy chords certainly made up for the lack of understatement.  [ END ]