Since their 2010 debut album, The Contortionist have had two distinct but related phases. They've always fused mighty, grinding, metal riffs with prog's lofty melodic climes. But with original singer/keyboardist Jonathan Carpenter, they found more room for roaring, hellmouth vocals and mile-a-minute licks, as on the alternately soaring and bone-crushing "Flourish". After Carpenter was replaced by vocalist Michael Lessard and keyboardist Eric Guenther, complex, subtly textured tracks like "Language I: Intuition" became more common. But their prog-metal shape-shifting has always been a study in extremes.