Casserole prove their top tier musicianship on killer new EP, Worm King

Review by Austin Sher

Released this past week on August 10th, 2020, Casserole are back with their second EP, titled Worm King. Do yourself a favor and read along with us as we break down our thoughts on the record and provide some insight into the band.

Currently based out of Chicago's Logan Square, Casserole are a three-piece instrumental math-rock and prog project featuring Dennis Arkesteyn on guitar, Dan Van Lente on bass, and Chris Schustor and Drums. Back in early 2019, the band released their first EP titled Tuna Nuda which we would also highly recommend you check out. In this case though, the focus is on Worm King, which based on our listening, are absolutely in love with.

Coming in at a total track length of 5 songs at a run time of 17 minutes, this is definitely a record you’re not going to want to pass up. Any fans of progressive rock in the slightest will love it just after hearing the album opener, “Worm King”. There’s really something for everyone throughout the entire listen. Whether you specifically like to focus on an instrument at a time, such as just drums, guitar, or bass, there’s moments throughout that allow each member to shine.

Our immediate thoughts after finishing it up were just how unbelievable this would be to witness live. While the runtime is under 20 minutes, we’d hope that in a live setting it would be full of extended jams. A prog rock record in general, or at least in our opinion, will see the most success if it successfully plays around with experimentation. I suppose that’s where the “prog” comes from, but in this case specifically Casserole has a real winner on their hands based just off the amount of time signature changes happening all throughout. It’s always fun to try to time it yourself and see if you can figure out, but there was just so much going on at once it got tiring. In my mind, that’s what was really the most impressive.

At this point, we really do hope that you take the time to listen, we promise you it won’t disappoint. If the album opener doesn’t suck you in immediately, let’s be honest, you never had a chance anyway. Over here at We Write About Music, you could definitely consider us to be new fans, we can’t wait to see what’s next!

For all things Casserole, to listen to Worm King, and to stay up to date on the newest releases and information, please check out the following links below.

Listen to Worm King

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