![News Added Jul 13, 2015 ANIMALS AS LEADERS‘ impact on modern heavy music cannot be overstated. When Tosin Abasi released his debut solo album under that moniker in 2009, few could have foreseen the band’s meteoric rise. Although Abasi had earned acclaim as the lead guitarist in the Washington, D.C.-based metalcore act Reflux, it was […]](https://hasitleaked.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Cover16-320x320.jpg "Animals As Leaders : Animals As Leaders: Encore")
ANIMALS AS LEADERS‘ impact on modern heavy music cannot be overstated. When Tosin Abasi released his debut solo album under that moniker in 2009, few could have foreseen the band’s meteoric rise. Although Abasi had earned acclaim as the lead guitarist in the Washington, D.C.-based metalcore act Reflux, it was unthinkable that an instrumental album of progressive metal with jazz, electronic and ambient flourishes would develop anything more than a cult following.
The album quickly caught fire, though. Steve Vai hailed the band as “the future of creative, heavy virtuoso guitar playing”; Guitar World featured Abasi on its cover; the music video for “CAFO” began accumulating the first of its more than 6 million streams to date; the group was invited to tour alongside the likes of Deftones and Meshuggah; and soon enough, ANIMALS AS LEADERS‘ self-titled debut — produced, mixed and engineered by Misha Mansoor (Periphery) — became not only genre-defying, but also genre-defining, spawning a thriving instru-metal subgenre that continues to push musical boundaries today.
