Animals As Leaders

The instrumental progressive metal and djent group Animals as Leaders features three standout players: Nigerian-American guitar virtuoso Tosin Abasi, Berklee-trained drummer Matt Garstka, and classically schooled guitarist Javier Reyes. The trio surfaced in 2009 and scored its first major commercial hit in 2014 when the third album The Joy of Motion climbed to number one on the Billboard hard rock chart. Follow-up releases The Madness of Many (2017) and Parrhesia (2022) wove jazz fusion, funk, and electronica into the band’s already expansive and inventive style.

Having spent several years in the mainstream scene with the technically gifted Washington, D.C. metalcore outfit Reflux, seven- and eight-string specialist Tosin Abasi received an offer from Prosthetic Records, the label that had supported Reflux, to cut a solo project once that band disbanded. Abasi initially turned the idea down, calling the notion “egotistical,” yet later accepted and launched Animals as Leaders—taking the name from Daniel Quinn’s 1992 novel Ishmael—to serve as the outlet. The self-titled debut arrived in April 2009, with Abasi recording every guitar and bass line while engineer Misha Mansoor handled programmed drums and synthesized textures. Javier Reyes came aboard for the follow-up, Weightless, which surfaced in 2011 and became the first Animals as Leaders title to reach the Billboard 200.

The next year brought drummer Matt Garstka into the lineup and a new deal with Sumerian Records, the home of the band’s third album. The Joy of Motion appeared in 2014, rising to number 23 on the Billboard 200 and topping the hard rock chart. Drummer Matt Garstka labeled the 2017 fourth album The Madness of Many “the most collaborative effort for the band” to that point; the set leaned further into avant-jazz territory. Two years later the concert document Animals as Leaders Live 2017 debuted inside the Top 30 of the Billboard Independent Albums chart. After a six-year studio hiatus the trio returned with Parrhesia in 2022, balancing extreme technical demands with strong melodic focus.