Heavy Metal Be-Bop #5: Gentry Densley

I'm very happy to announce that Heavy Metal Be-Bop #5, an interview with the guitarist-vocalist Gentry Densley, is now live after a long gestation period. Invisible Oranges is hosting an abridged version, by way of directing readers to the new online home of the series: heavymetalbebop.com, where future installments will appear, and where you can read a much-longer cut of the Densley Q&A. Densley's account of hanging out with Branford Marsalis is priceless, so don't miss it.

Gentry Densley has played in a bunch of bands, but he's best known for his work with Iceburn—a progressive-hardcore band that turned into a noise-worshipping free-improv collective—and the coal-black avant-doom duo Eagle Twin. As great as Iceburn was (I'd recommend Firon, Power of the Lion and Hephaestus to newbies, in that order), I think that Eagle Twin's debut full-length, The Unkindness of Crows, might be my favorite Densley release. It's an agonizing yet transcendent record.

As with previous HMB subjects, this is a man who has thought extremely hard about both jazz and metal, and how the tactics and lessons of each idiom can be fruitfully repurposed in service of the other.