ASTROSAUR

ASTROSAUR. IT SOUNDS like it should be the name of some bottom-of-the-barrel stoner rock band that you’d catch opening for Sleep at 7pm. However, the moniker in fact belongs to one of the most truly progressive and original rock trios around right now. Guitarist Eirik Kråkenes, bassist Steinar Glas and drummer Jonatan Eikum co-founded this instrumental project in the mid-2010s, while they were studying at the Conservatory of Music in Kristiansand, Norway. Since then they’ve released three albums, the most recent of which, November’s Portals, pulls listeners through a universe of off-the-wall songwriting, jazz-level musicianship and heavy metal exhilaration. Portals’ first song, aptly entitled Opening, gradually introduces the album’s soundscape of grinding guitars and avant-garde rhythm work. After that, single Black Hole Earth ups the ante to mind-altering levels. The…