antiMusic.com: Judgement Day - Polar Shift Review

Judgement Day - Polar Shift
by Kevin Wierzbicki

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Do you like to rock out with your cello out? Polar Shift contains a set of cello and fiddle-driven instrumentals that draw their inspiration from sources as disparate as fusion jazz act the Mahavishnu Orchestra ("Demon Fire"), pure classical music ("Prelude to D Minor") and fast hillbilly rockin' a la Charlie Daniels ("Redneck Rumble".) Judgement Day is a trio consisting of brothers Anton and Lewis Patzner, violinist and cellist respectively, and drummer Jon Bush. Anton often tours as part of Bright Eyes and Lewis honed his cello chops at Baltimore's Peabody Conservancy and the guys like to refer to their music as "string metal" although that's quite a misnomer; the wonky and brief "California Legislature" is appropriately noisy but it's better classified as experimental and that's as close to traditional metal as they get here. Some will see Polar Shift as modern classical music, others will hear classically-tinged jazz and still others might define Judgement Day as players of twisted newgrass or prog rock. It doesn't matter; they're all correct and they'll all be bopping along to the "shredding" on "Xenophonic" and the frenetic beat of "Darmok."

Judgement Day - Polar Shift
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