Some instrumental records create atmosphere while others create movement. Fruits of the Decision Tree feels like it creates an entire environment. It’s unstable, mechanical, strangely beautiful, and constantly in motion. The solo project of Nick Skrobisz (Multicult, The Wayward), Overcalc exists somewhere between electronic experimentation, prog-level guitar precision, ambient drift, and full on sci-fi hallucination. Trying to pin it cleanly to one genre feels almost pointless. At different moments, the album sounds like warped drum and bass, krautrock, fusion, post metal played entirely on clean channels, or a lost soundtrack to a dystopian space sim. And yet, despite all of those moving parts, Fruits of the Decision Tree never feels random.
The backbone of the record is Skrobisz’s guitar work, which twists through dense electronic programming and synthetic textures with near obsessive precision. The playing recalls the intensity and technicality of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, but stripped entirely of distortion and aggression. Instead of detonating, the riffs spiral and loop through rigid drum machine grids, creating tension through repetition and motion rather than heaviness. The electronic elements are just as important. Synths pulse, hiss, and whirl around the mix like damaged machinery trying to communicate. Some passages drift into hypnotic ambient territory before suddenly snapping into intricate rhythmic patterns that feel almost mathematically impossible. There’s a constant push-and-pull between organic performance and programmed structure that gives the album its identity.
What makes the record especially compelling is its sense of scale. Listening to this album genuinely feels cinematic at times. It’s less like a collection of songs and more like moving through interconnected systems or environments. It’s easy to understand comparisons to artists like Mike Patton’s more experimental work, or the kosmische explorations of classic krautrock, but Overcalc doesn’t feel nostalgic about those influences. The album sounds futuristic in a way that’s oddly tactile and imperfect. That imperfection matters. The production intentionally avoids polish, leaving rough edges, clipping textures, and strange tonal imbalances intact. In lesser hands, that approach could feel unfinished. Here, it reinforces the record’s core tension between precision and instability. These aren’t clean digital constructions meant to feel frictionless; they’re dense, human performances colliding with machine logic.
At times, the album’s commitment to atmosphere and abstraction can make it difficult to fully latch onto individual tracks. Certain passages blur together, and listeners looking for traditional hooks or clear song structures may struggle to find footing. But that disorientation also feels intentional and is part of the album’s immersive design rather than a flaw to be corrected. What Fruits of the Decision Tree ultimately achieves is a rare kind of musical world building. It’s cerebral without becoming sterile, technical without losing curiosity, and experimental without collapsing into pure self-indulgence. It sounds less like a musician showing off and more like someone trying to map an entirely different reality through sound taking us to another dimension. And honestly, it’s kind of mesmerizing.
