KTHRTK’s debut album, Dreams Are The Only Safe Place To Hide, blends elements of metalcore, math metal, technical death metal, symphonic metal, groove metal, and nu metal. The brainchild of guitarist Doug Berns, the album features extreme metal/jazz-fluent drummer Alex Cohen and Sean Salant (guitar). On Dreams Are The Only Safe Place To Hide, Berns injects the raw harshness of heavy metal with orchestral euphony and an aura of harmonic coherence. Comprising nine tracks, highlights on the album include “Funeral,” heaving with dense guitars and black energy, energy emphasized by Cohen’s pummeling percussion, rife with brutal double-bass and rumbling toms-toms. Dark and chockfull of boiling guitars, “The Needle” features powerful, melodic vocals and the standard demonic groaning timbres, imbu...