The Zenith Passage

Few Los Angeles metal bands are as entwined with The Faceless as The Zenith Passage, a technical death metal outfit founded in 2012 by friends Justin McKinney and Greg Hampton. Now signed to Metal Blade Records, they have made one EP, Cosmic Dissonance, and two albums, Solipsist and Datalysium. The traffic between the two groups runs both ways. McKinney became The Faceless's guitarist in 2015, replacing Wes Hauch, who had played on The Zenith Passage's debut album, and in 2021 Derek Rydquist and Brandon Giffin, veterans of Akeldama and Planetary Duality, moved the other way.

Cosmic Dissonance appeared on 29 January 2013, and a multi-album deal with Unique Leader followed that June. Solipsist arrived on 16 April 2016 with guest vocals from Fallujah's Alex Hofmann, a solo from Hauch and the band's first video, for "Deus Deceptor". Drummer Matthew Paulazzo left in 2018 to enter film school, then returned for "Algorithmic Salvation" in August 2021, a single that also introduced Rydquist and Giffin. Signing to Metal Blade came in December 2022, and Datalysium followed on 21 July 2023, previewed by "Lexicontagion" and "Divinertia II". They have also toured with Cryptopsy and Decrepit Birth.