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20 Buck Spin proudly announces the sophomore full-length album of Canadian Sci-fi Technical Deaththrashers DISSIMULATOR, entitled "Artifice Dissolves", set for release on October 2nd 2026.
A first track, "Alloyed", is streaming below:
Vocalist / Guitraist Claude Leduc comments: “‘Alloyed’ is a philosophical musing about Günther Anders’ concept of Promethean shame - the idea that deep down human beings feel inferior or diminished against the perfection of their technological creations. The song highlights the band’s syncopated riffing style chugging in lockstep with the lyrics, which describe this self-alienation metaphorically through the motivations and consequences of undergoing a procedure to become fully cybernetic. It is a reminder that the real danger of our relationship to technology is not that machines will surpass humans, but that humans will lower themselves to machines.”
With "Artifice Dissolves", Montreal's DISSIMULATOR accelerate beyond the formidable sonic coordinates established by "Lower Form Resistance" and plunge headlong into a future world where technological hegemony and catastrophic entropy exist in perfect equilibrium. Their jagged sci-fi Death-Thrash has evolved into an ever more labyrinthine construct, fusing serrated riff matrices and volatile rhythmic architecture into an algorithm-obliterating neural hack.
"Artifice Dissolves" propels itself like an untethered artificial consciousness recursively rewriting its own code, with each movement revealing another phantasmagorical dimension within DISSIMULATOR's bionic mythology. Razor-wire guitar lines, alien yet familiar, whiplash and intersect at impossible angles whilst the rhythm section drives songs like "Alloyed" and "Neon Metropolis" through perpetual states of intensifying velocity, collapse, and reassembly, creating a surging sense of momentum undeterred by its relentless intricacy.
An awe-inspiring convergence of futuristic world-building and unrestrained, unapologetic technical aggression, "Artifice Dissolves" is a cyborg hallucination of a civilization wasting away in the sunless gutters of its autonomous megacities, the warped fever dreams of an omniscient God-machine, and the malignant side-effects of its cybernetic enhancements. And beneath the album's dazzling precision and violent thrust DISSIMULATOR maintain a timeless human striving for order and transcendence beyond the technological.
Tracklist:
1. Apophenic Rage
2. Hungry Ghosts
3. Artifice Dissolves
4. Alloyed
5. Proprioceptor
6. Dusk
7. Neon Metropolis
8. Anodyne
9. Robostrobos
Additional vocals in "Artifice", "Alloyed", "Proprioceptor" by Laurent Bellemare
Cover artwork by Noah Cutter Meihoff (Ghost, Imperial Triumphant).
ONLINE
LINEUP
Phillipe Boucher – Drums
Claude Leduc - Guitar / Vocals
Antoine Daigneault – Bass
BIOGRAPHY/LOGO
Dissimulator is a Canadian technical death/thrash metal band formed in Montréal, Quebec, in 2021 by guitarist and vocalist Claude Leduc, bassist Antoine Daigneault and drummer Philippe Boucher. Although relatively young as a band, Dissimulator brings together three highly experienced musicians deeply rooted in Montreal's extreme metal underground. The members have been involved with a number of notable acts, including Chthe'ilist, Atramentus, Beyond Creation, Sutrah, First Fragment and Incandescence.
Dissimulator quickly established a musical identity that differs considerably from the members' other projects. Drawing inspiration from the technical and progressive side of late-'80s and early-'90s death and thrash metal, the trio combines intricate riffing, abrupt rhythmic shifts and aggressive momentum with a distinctly futuristic atmosphere. The band's music carries a particularly strong Canadian character, with the angular and unconventional approach of Voivod serving as an obvious point of reference, while elements of early technical death metal and progressive thrash also play an important role.
The band's first release was the independently issued two-track demo Warped, released in October 2021. Featuring the songs "Warped" and "Mainframe", the demo provided an early glimpse of Dissimulator's technical approach and science-fiction-oriented aesthetic. Rather than pursuing straightforward thrash or death metal, the trio developed a more complex hybrid in which tightly controlled aggression is combined with unusual harmonies, dissonant guitar work and constantly shifting song structures.
Following the demo, Dissimulator signed with 20 Buck Spin for the release of their debut full-length album. Lower Form Resistance arrived on January 26, 2024 and significantly expanded upon the ideas introduced on Warped. Consisting of seven tracks, the album presented a dense and highly technical mixture of death metal and thrash while retaining enough directness and momentum to prevent the material from becoming purely an exercise in musicianship.
Science fiction and technology form an important part of Dissimulator's identity. Mechanical imagery, artificial intelligence, cybernetics and dystopian concepts are reflected both in the band's lyrics and in the cold, futuristic atmosphere surrounding the music. This technological focus complements the precise and almost machine-like execution of the musicians, while the unconventional guitar leads and progressive structures give the material an unpredictable quality.
Despite Dissimulator's strong technical foundations, the band remains firmly rooted in extreme metal rather than modern technical showmanship. Their approach draws upon an older tradition in which the boundaries between thrash, death metal and progressive metal were considerably less defined. As a result, Lower Form Resistance recalls the adventurous spirit of early technical metal while presenting those influences through a contemporary and distinctly aggressive production.
With Lower Form Resistance, Dissimulator established themselves as another formidable product of Quebec's long-running technical extreme metal scene. Combining the musicianship and experience accumulated through their numerous other projects with a focused science-fiction concept, the trio has created a sound that bridges the pioneering Canadian progressive thrash tradition and modern technical death metal without simply reproducing either.
DISCOGRAPHY
Warped (Demo, 2021)
Lower Form Resistance (Album, 2024)
Artifice Dissolves (Album, 2026)
GENRE/COUNTRY
Technical Death Metal/Thrash Metal
Canada
