Style: avant-garde metal, progressive metal, chamber music, progressive rock, Romanticism (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Mertz, Liturgy
Country: California, United States
Release date: 1 August 2025

What makes metal metal? Indubitably, it’s some blend of attitude, riffs, lyrical themes, instrumentation, and “heaviness” (that last one is to say, you know it when you hear it). Until 2020, I would have thrown in distortion to the list of essential characteristics, but Kaatayra’s Só Quem Viu o Relâmpago à sua Direita Sabe, currently still my album of the decade, changed that as a fully acoustic yet recognizably black metal album. New avant-garde metal band Rintrah push my conceptions of metal even further, abandoning even the harsh vocals of Só Quem. That’s right, The Torrid Clime is classical acoustic guitar, drumming, and reedy, belted clean vocals. So what makes Rintrah metal? 

Their unabashed veneration for the Romantics. I mean, ask anybody; Romantic poetry is hella metal. But seriously, since metal’s earliest days, its practitioners have been neoromantics, intentionally or not. The genre’s acolytes are obsessed with individuality and freedom of expression, an idealization of the past and the exotic (through incorporations of folk music, for example¹), and, above all, a singular desire to attain the sublime. Metal mainstays—crushing heaviness, screamed and growled vocals, blast beats, crazy displays of guitar wizardry, singing of gore and nihilism—all act to make you, the listener, feel small compared to the display of sonic power. As eminent Romantic philosopher Edmund Burke said: “Whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”² Like Romanticism, metal is, at its heart, a rebellion: against the shackles of a boring life, from the very start in the industrial hellscape of Manchester. It’s designed to make you feel something profound, with heaviness as its modus operandi.

Simply put, metal is obviously Romantic, and Rintrah fully embodies the philosophy more explicitly than any other band I’ve ever heard, so those dulcet acoustic guitars and blast beats are more than enough to be metal to the philosophical core. Rintrah’s Romantic aesthetic is, in a word, audacious. Adorning the album cover of The Torrid Clime’s is the 1818 painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, a work which is literally first on Wikipedia if you search “Romantic art.” The lyrics across Rintrah’s debut record are pulled from various Romantic poets—William Blake, Percy Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Charles Baudelaire, and Charlotte Smith.³ There is even a Mertz piece, “Nocturne, Op. 4, No. 2,” on the record fitted in as a mid-album interlude. 

So yeah, The Torrid Clime is pretty damn metal, although musically it’s a far cry from what I’d expect. There are no grandiose orchestrations here à la Mahler, Mendelssohn, or Dvorak. Classical guitarist Justin Collins manages to make his instrument sound like a harp, while Arsenio Santos on bass (Howling Sycamore) gives The Torrid Clime a Rush-like rhythmic edge. The vocals provided by Otrebor (Botanist) and William DuPlain (ex-Botanist) are also Rush-y, powerful, nasal-y tenors; like Geddy Lee, I could see Otrebor and DuPlain’s vocals being a sticking point for listeners. Yet their delivery of the various poems is admirable, with drama, bombast, and spot-on cadence. It’s quite the bardic performance, in fact, and one could easily imagine one of the vocalists with the charmingly strummed guitar lines traveling city to city performing their poetry.⁴ The guitar tones are succulent with plenty of technical embellishment, keeping the music quite harmonically complex. During the faster moments, like those in “Ozymandias” and “On the Giddy Brink,” I even hear strong hints of Kaatayra with the rhythmic intricacy of the guitar parts—not to mention the wonky rhythms of tracks like “The Chariot.” The compositions are also full of masterful transitions which perfectly underscore thematic shifts in the text, such as the transition between the main riff and the softer, richer one in “Fearful Symmetry.” 

For much of The Torrid Clime, the frantic blast beats are in wonderful juxtaposition with the calmer classical guitar and breathily belted vocals, but at times Otrebor’s drumming becomes completely detached from the plot as Collin’s guitar and Santos’ bass fall out of rhythmic contact with him—the vocalists are off doing their own thing in the stratosphere most of the time, regardless. Rintrah’s unique combination of sounds works in its favor until their delicate synergy becomes unraveled. Thankfully, for most of the tracks on The Torrid Clime, Rintrah stay in their lane, letting those euphonious guitar lines, thumping bass, unique vocals, and blast beats all interact with surprising cohesion. The tracks that change up Rintrah’s characteristic sound are also strong points on the record: instrumental “Nocturne, Op. 4, No. 2,” blast-less slow track “Mutability,” and a cappella finale “Into an Echo.” Even within the band’s focused sound, one can never know what to expect. 

The Torrid Clime is a unique album driven by guitars that sound like harps and charismatic vocalists who could travel town to town in some idyllic reimagining of the past. Fraught with gentle tension and unruly percussion, The Torrid Clime doesn’t induce the sublime as obviously as in lots of metal but rather in a wholly unexpected way; as I kept returning to the album, it revealed itself to me in the dramatic performance of the lyrics, in the percussive transitions between riffs, and in the complex, expansive chords. Rintrah is an intriguing project, undoubtedly not for every metalhead, but for those with an open mind and an appreciation for the philosophical, the sublime awaits.

Recommended tracks: Fearful Symmetry, On the Giddy Brink, In Tempests, Into an Echo
You may also like: Botanist, Forêt Endormie, Howling Sycamore, Kaatayra
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: Fiadh Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Rintrah is:
– Justin Collins – guitar
– Otrebor – drums, backing and lead vocals
– William Duplain – lead and backing vocals
– Arsenio Santos – bass

1. The Romantics’ glorification of the past, promotion of shared heritage, and emphasis on extreme emotion all contributed greatly to the rise of nationalism. This is also how I believe NSBM became such a problem in the black metal world. Metal’s full embrace of the Romantics’ philosophy comes with its negatives, too. ︎
2.  From A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. ︎
3. Rintrah don’t even quote some of my favorite basic-bitch Romantic poets like Colerdige, Wordsworth, and Keats. Definitely look into all of these Romantic poets, though! ︎
4. The bard is a common Romantic motif in their exaltation of the past. ︎

The post Review: Rintrah – The Torrid Clime appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Doom metal, drone, post-metal, sean-nós (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sumac, Myrkur, Agalloch, Unreqvited
Country: Ireland
Release date: 3 February 2025

With a recent series of reviews under my belt featuring analyses on traditional folk styles and music hearkening back to ancient times, I find myself becoming enamored with ethnomusicology: not only am I now tasked with understanding and analyzing artists’ points of view, but when reviewing music that uses traditional ideas, writeups end up involving a ton of up-front research about the styles and their context in both the ancient and modern musical zeitgeist. There is a wealth of fascinating history in music and its evolution across time and cultures, and now that I am drunk with the power of knowledge, there is nothing you can do to stop me from telling you about it. To further instill my position, we will discuss the recent Fós release, Níl mo chroí in aon rud (Irish for ‘My Heart Isn’t in Anything’), their use of sean-nós vocal style, and how they integrate this centuries-old approach into a decidedly modern metal context. Even if composer Fionn Murray’s heart isn’t in anything, is there heart to be found in Níl mo chroí in aon rud?

Níl’s style is a bit difficult to pin down, sitting somewhere between ethereal post-metal that builds on a central vocal idea (“Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”¹), grungy doom metal with scratchy guitar textures (“Bádai na Scadán”²), and the more experimental end of Sumac’s droning and improvised sludge metal (“Táim i mo shu픳). Hazy and occasionally surreal passages are punctuated by ethereal singing that uses the aforementioned sean-nós technique. With a presence in Ireland stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years, sean-nós (Irish for ‘old style’) vocals are centered on free-time melodic ideas and a healthy dose of ornamentation, indulging in flourishes as long as needed; the lyrics utilized in these songs can be seen as a reflection of a community’s ideals and stories,⁴ while the emotions imparted into these lyrics show the individual’s relationship to these stories. While typically performed unaccompanied, the principles of sean-nós are utilized wherever possible on Níl, whether the vocals are calling from between free-time dissonant guitar stabs on “Táim i mo shuí” or ringing out proudly over the sounds of a fire on “Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”.

The central focus of sean-nós is its dialogical nature, placing a strong emphasis on an individual conveying the feelings of a story to a community as opposed to adhering to strict technique and form.⁵ On Níl, vocalist Susan ní Cholmáin explores a wide range of emotions to great success, turning the conventional sentiments of Irish folk songs on their heads with the help of Murray’s instrumentation. “Táim i mo shuí” is likely the most subversive and the most stunning, repurposing a tale about lovesickness into a churning, ominous, and surreal nightmare; the end result is an anxiety-provoking testament to unrequited love. The use of free-time is particularly clever on “Táim”, allowing gorgeous and ethereal vocal lines to breathe organically while crunching and droning guitars betray the continual decay of the narrator’s wellbeing. At one point, the guitars drop out completely and ní Cholmáin’s voice is accompanied by little other than manic percussion and creaking soundscapes, bringing the unease to a powerful climax. Even though “Táim” breaks from the traditional mold with a prominent musical accompaniment, it’s a consummate example of sean-nós’ effectiveness in a more contemporary musical context.

On the flip side, “An Mhaighdean Mhara”⁶ explores more majestic and wondrous sentiments, telling the story of a selkie who must return to the sea after a life on land. In the original telling, this is a bittersweet lament for a woman who has to give up life as she knows it; “Mhaighdean”, however, betrays optimism and wonder at a new-yet-familiar chapter in life, like returning to a beloved hometown after a decade away. While its opening and closing moments almost reach the transcendent heights of “Táim i mo shuí”, its middle section stumbles through extended awkward rhythmics. The synthesizers augment the track’s feelings of optimism, but they are timed in a way that wholly clashes with the magnificent vocal performance, diminishing its mythical atmosphere. The unaccompanied vocals beforehand set a fantastic precedent for “Mhaighdean” and the fuller instrumentals later in the track gel much nicer with the vocals for a satisfying conclusion, but this center section is a difficult-to-ignore blemish.

Where Níl suffers the most is in its myriad interludes and its one weaker track, “Slán le Maigh”.⁷ The album’s three small interludes add little to the already potent atmosphere and lead to a sense of incompleteness in an already short album—their absence would would do wonders for the flow if trimmed down and incorporated more holistically into the present songs. Additionally, short albums suffer harder at the hands of weaker tracks, and “Slán le Maigh” is, ironically, the runt of Níl despite being its longest piece. The vocal melodies are undoubtedly lovely, but its rhythms don’t play nice with ní Cholmáin’s voice and its central ideas never really take off in a satisfying way. And it’s not because Fós struggle with this style of songwriting either, as “Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin” follows a similar structure to great success. One of Níl’s most triumphant moments, “Molly” intermixes free-metered ideas with gorgeous ear-catching melodies augmented by an explosive second half, showing an acumen for post-metal songwriting that is woefully missing from “Slán le Maigh”.

Fós carve out a compelling niche for themselves on Níl mo chroí in aon rud, smartly utilizing experimental metal in conjunction with an ancient vocal technique. While Níl’s title tries to suggest otherwise, Murray wears a profound love for Ireland’s cultural history on his sleeve through his thoughtful incorporation of sean-nós. At the same time, Murray displays a willingness to push the envelope by subverting the traditional sentiments found in many of the island’s renowned folk pieces. Despite the presence of a few momentum-breaking interludes and weaker passages across its runtime, I have my ear close to the ground in anticipation of Fós’ next exploration into Irish musical history.⁸

Recommended tracks: Táim i mo shuí, Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin, Bádaí na Scadán
You may also like: SubRosa, Thragedium, The Angelic Process, Nadja
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Fiadh Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Fós is:
– Susan ní Cholmáin (vocals)
– Fionn Murray (everything else)

1. ‘Curly-haired Molly Nee Chullinan’ ︎
2. ‘The Herring Boats’ ︎
3. ‘I Am Awake’ ︎
4. A particularly notable example of sean-nós is “An Chéad Mháirt de Fhómhair” (The First Tuesday in Autumn). Originating in Ranafast, “An Chéad” was spontaneously composed by a man after learning of his son’s death by drowning. While mourning and lamenting his son on the beach, others heard his song and it resonated so deeply with the community that it became an emotional outlet for those affected by the tragedy and lives on today as a Ranafast musical tradition. ︎
5. Sean-nós is clustered to three different regions of western Ireland, all coming in different flavors depending on local tastes and traditions. Facets like amount of ornamentation and nasality show general patterns across regions but can all be different between individuals, depending on how they wish to express themselves. Additionally, because sean-nós is so deeply personal to the individual and their respective community, songs are typically associated with their place of origin; Níl features songs from County Donegal (“Badaí na Scadán”¸ “An Mhaighdean Mhara”, “Táim i mo shuí”), County Limerick (“Slán le Máigh”), and County Ulster (“Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”). ︎
6. ‘The Sea Maiden’ ︎
7. ‘Farewell to the Maigue’ ︎
8. If you’re interested in learning more about sean-nós, I strongly recommend this article by Julie Henigan in Ulster Folklife. It takes a deep dive into the style’s history and its cultural importance across Ireland. ︎

The post Review: Fós – Níl mo chroí in aon rud appeared first on The Progressive Subway.