As stout as a caveman's club and as precise as a scalpel, Chicago's Veil of Maya have made one of the most thrilling American tech-metal albums yet with THE COMMON MAN'S COLLAPSE. Complex guitar leads wind and bend like a spider's web around thudding jackhammer rhythms that are as dexterous as they are punishing. Songs like "Pillars" accent the noise with shades of mood and texture, recalling intelligent hall-of-famers Meshuggah. Veil of Maya's jaw-dropping technical proficiency, however, is never used to camouflage a lack of songwriting chops or ideas. Their stuff is as perfectly resolved as an equation.