Metal Anarchy

Time for the next edition of Metal Anarchy’s “new music showcase,” the feature where I introduce you to artists that readers of this site may find interesting. This time I have a Q&A with Jay Wolff of Divinex.

METAL ANARCHY: Tell me a little about your band:

WOLFF: Hey we’re Divinex, an instrumental progressive metal act from upstate NY and we’re focused on making music that’s captivating and climactic, technical, but memorable! (A slogan I just made up, haha). You’ll hear wild rhythms and fast riffs but you’ll still get the parts stuck in your head and move to the beat. Our live shows are high-energy as hell, and our records are all about creating a unique experience from front-to-back.

METAL ANARCHY: Who are your main influences?

WOLFF: At this point I think we’ve become our own animal, but early on we went after the sort of long-form, climactic style of BTBAM, with some guitar riff inspiration from bands like Protest The Hero, August Burns Red, and Monuments. There’s definitely a little Underoath, Bring Me the Horizon, Tesseract, Animals as Leaders, and Born of Osiris in there too. We take inspiration from a lot of different artists in different ways, but if I had to compare our sound to bands, I’d say we’re in the ballpark with Scale The Summit, older Intervals, Their Dogs Were Astronauts, or perhaps Earthside

METAL ANARCHY: What is your latest release and why should readers of this site check it out?

WOLFF: “Dreamscapes” is the big focus right now! That’s our full length after quite a long lull of new music since our last record. It comes out 6-16, but we’ve released the first single “CTRL+Z!” from it, and by the time this is published, “Presque Vu” will likely be out, which has a killer guest solo on it by Adam Bentley from Arch Echo!

METAL ANARCHY: What can people expect when they go to your live shows?

WOLFF: We’re one hell of a spectacle haha! There is lots of movement as we all sort of move around to highlight the important parts as they come in and out. James and I both play leads, so you’ll see us hop up when one of us has the lead focus, and drop back when we shift back to rhythm.

Lately we’ve also been experimenting with light shows too. I’ve been programming light shows that sync pretty closely with the music and I can get pretty granular, so we’ve had some really crazy lightshows to compliment our performances. Sometimes we’ll work with other lighting engineers as well, but at one point I had programmed entire lightshow for the entirety of our last album, which we then had to pitch because covid hit and we weren’t playing shows.

But yeah it’s definitely a really unique and high-energy show, especially if we’re headlining, which is when we try and get extra crazy with the lights!

METAL ANARCHY: Where do you see your band heading in 5 years?

WOLFF: That’s hard to say! I think our goals and the form it’s taken have changed a lot in the time we’ve been together but whatever form it takes I know we’ll always be making music to some extent. Lately we’ve been focusing more on the creative process and recording, but after this record comes out we’ll be looking to play more shows and maybe get wild and experimental with some new one-off recordings!