Style: post-metal, sludge metal, shoegaze, noise rock, stoner rock, post-hardcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of:  Parannoul, Asian Glow, Neurosis, Boris
Country: South Korea
Release date: 15 May 2025

Modern medicine is amazing. People have lived well over a year with an artificial heart, and doctors can perform entire heart transplants. Alas, the human being still needs a heart, be it a machine or originally somebody else’s, and a person would wither and die almost instantly without the blood-pumping organ. South Korea’s Baan have a mission: rip out the still-beating heart from four genres and try to keep the result alive for sixty minutes. According to their Bandcamp, Baan aim to be “Doom but not boring / Screamo but not crying / Hardcore but not macho / Shoegaze but not sucks.” Dodging all four of those pitfalls while playing those genres is gonna require a musical miracle to occur on Neumann. Do Baan achieve what doctors cannot?

Let’s proceed one by one. Neumann certainly avoids the crying part of screamo by not being screamo beyond some halfheartedly shouted harsh vocals; the record also contains some amateur cleanly sung, crowd-chant adjacent cleans. Both vocal styles are completely obliterated by the mix to the point of being nearly inaudible—they may have recorded them from across the street—rendering them a strident nuisance. Similar to the self-described “screamo” aspect of Baan’s sound, the macho part of hardcore, by virtue of mostly avoiding true punkiness, is eschewed by Baan. Those two soul-of-the-genre omissions are cheating, though, and Neumann is really post-y, noisy, atmospheric sludge metal, with the atmospheric part coming from shoegaze and stoner rock influence.

Thankfully, the doom metal (read: sludge and post- metal) parts are not boring, and the shoegaze aspect don’t sucks [sic]! Fuzzed out guitars and Baan’s love of noisy amplifiers drive Neumann, and the South Korean band have a keen ear for melody and rhythm, with wistful yet hard-hitting guitar parts and dynamic, Mastodon-esque drumming. “Birdperson 새사람” has the first shoegaze part around 3:40 with airy guitars above pummeling double bass, but it’s not until the second track “Early Bird Dies Fast” where Baan hit their stride, the spacey trem picking of the simultaneously woolly yet shimmery guitars playing a beautiful tune—almost nostalgic in tone, as if Astronoid wrote stoner doom. The strongest asset in the band’s arsenal, however, is their weaponization of noise, with exemplary moments like the middle breakdown of “Sing a Brave Song 2 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 2” and the sludgy violence of “Reversal of a Man.” The bass playing is also killer, but unfortunately it almost never makes an appearance with the exception of “Sing a Brave Song 1 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 1” where it gets significant time leading. 

Despite the strength of the riffs and drumming, the album wears itself thin within forty minutes, the schtick played out. By the end of the three-part “Sing a Brave Song 씩씩한 노래를 불러라,” I’m snoozing at the prospect of more Baan, and the boring track “Not Yet” contributes nothing that previous songs like “Histrionic” hadn’t done better. Moreover, the closer, “Oldman 헌사람,” plays into a tedious atmospheric intro that lasts for several minutes before recapping with uninspired shoegaze vocals from Asian Glow; so, I’m forced to admit that while the shoegaze instrumental sections don’t sucks, the shoegaze vocals sucks. Baan clearly had fun tinkering with their amplifiers and jamming out—at the expense of a more concise, better album. 

South Korea is truly a hotbed for noisy, homemade shoegaze recently (Parannoul, Asian Glow, Huremic), and Baan have certainly made a name for themselves with the release of Neumann. Their mix of energetic, growly, and fuzzy guitar tones with passionate and delicate melodies contributes something new to their scene. The band just needs an editor and a better singer. But fans of everything from post-metal to punk will find something to enjoy in Neumann—I certainly did.

Recommended tracks: Early Bird Dies Fast, Histrionic, Sing a Brave Song 1-3 씩씩한 노래를 불러라 1-3
You may also like: Meth., The Angelic Process, Glassing, Huremic, Sadness
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

Baan is:
반재현 [Baan Jae-hyun]
김진규 [Kim Jin-gyu aka April 28th]
이성재 [Lee Seong-jae]
장진웅 [Jang Jin-ung]

The post Review: Baan – Neumann appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Vojtěch Doubek / Moonroot Art

Style: Progressive Sludge Metal, Melodic Death Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mastodon, Gojira, Tool, Baroness
Country: Sweden
Release date: 16 May 2025

Some words just hit different. We hear them and our minds are transported immediately to the far fields of imagination. “Gigafauna” is one such word for me. Whether I speak it, hear it, read it, or even think it, my mind’s eye alights upon creatures of infinite scale; sometimes describable (Godzilla), other times possessed of such nightmarish configurations as to defy all manner of human logic and reason (think Lovecraft’s non-euclidean treasure trove of horrors). Shearing through the gravity of worlds with lumbering tread, stars falling cold under their shadows. Immeasurable in might, unknowable of purpose, their very designs eschatonic in nature. To conjure even the idea of such a lifeform cements a sort of existential calamity for Humanity; in the wake of such an unfathomably colossal entity we would be but ants—smaller, even. Our great achievements, all the collective strength and technological power would do little but delay the inevitable snuffing of our flame. Faced with the incomprehensible, we would be forced to turn inward, a final reckoning with our very selves. The only victory left within our grasp.

Likewise, Swedish outfit Gigafauna lumbered into my awareness with the suitably eye-catching (and eldritch) album art for their sophomore LP, Eye to Windward. Proper to their namesake, the band proclaim to be treading through some hefty subject matter, including “environmental decay, existential dread, and the search for meaning beyond the confines of time and space.” And what better way to do so than via the conduits of sludge and melodic death metal, two genres capable of tectonic heft and grand, driving compositions alike. Having no prior encounters with this particular lifeform, I was excited to trawl in the wake of Gigafauna’s passage. Let’s see what we’ll uncover on this tenebrous safari.

Gigafauna delight in a forward-moving blend of sludge and melodeath; thick yet nimble riffs spiral around dexterous kitwork and a grumbling low-end, often signaling their approach well before vocalist Matt Greig’s arsenal of resonant cleans and surprisingly hefty growls hits the eardrums. The band crash through the metal undergrowth at a persistent clip, keen to reach their destination yet hardly afraid to make time for some detours along the way. Listen to “Drowning Light,” where stampeding Mastodon energy falls away to the kind of abrasively inquisitive guitar and bouncy tribal drumming that would feel at home in a 10,000 Days-era Tool track. Or the Gojira-esque grind-and-squeal guitar which dominates the main riff in “Pyres,” even as the track expands to include discordant soloing a’la Meshuggah before morphing again into an almost early aughts metalcore passage as Greig screams “God chose me!” The band whip together Amon Amarth melodeath with Avenged Sevenfold-flavored guitar lines on cuts like “Plagued” to create a slab of burly grandiosity that ends on an almost Primordial note.

Like a musical Man o’ War jellyfish—a creature composed of multitudes of separate organisms operating as a singular whole—Gigafauna pull these disparate sonic qualities into a symbiotic relationship, resulting in a majestic entity possessed of a maximal grace despite their gargantuan stature. Transitions between elements are seamless, yet never lose sight of nor erode a track’s original destination. Unlike the Man o’ War, carried across the sea on the whims of the wind, Gigafauna are unbowed by external forces. Eye to Windward represents a band in full control of their journey. Songs move with purpose, driven by the Almighty Riff, refusing to collapse into overwrought diatribes in favor of tight, consistent songwriting, and propelled by a punchy mix that adds considerable reach to every slick tendril of Gigafauna’s cosmic form.

But Gigafauna don’t quite have that mystic X-factor that takes good music to great and beyond. Perhaps it’s a matter of the sonic whole failing to rise above my storied connection to its many constituent parts. The aforementioned Tool-inspired bridge of “Drowning Light,” or the Gojira-isms lurking in “Pyres” and the closing moments of “Vessel,” for example; each stands strong as a solid element, yet fails to manifest the same kind of hypnotic pull as an actual Tool or Gojira. Perhaps that’s partially due to my long-standing history with those acts, whereas Gigafauna is new (though I’ve certainly been accused of recency bias, too). Regardless, I think that these “nameable” slices of Gigafauna’s aural makeup presenting as the most memorable, while the whole which they comprise cannot fully strike up a permanent residence in my brain, says enough as to why Eye to Windward falls just shy of ascending to greater form.

But that’s the thing about a journey: it needn’t always be new to feel exciting or satisfying. As I conclude my safari alongside this Gigafauna, stepping out from under its titanic shadow to rejoin the rest of the world in the sun, I must confess to this feeling of satisfaction. Though we may see in the celestial Gigafauna measures of terrestrial familiarity, that does not make them any less worthy of our attention. And should the earth tremble and the heavens quake beneath their returning tread, rest assured I’ll be there to walk bestride them once more, eager to hear what new stories they bring us from beyond the stars.

Recommended tracks: Plagued, Beneath Sun and Sky, Pyres, Drowning Light
You may also like: Dimhall, Void King, Blood Vulture
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Independent

Gigafauna is:
– Jens Ljungberg (bass)
– Rickard Engstrom (drums)
– Arved Nyden (guitars)
– Matt Greig (guitars, vocals)

The post Review: Gigafauna – Eye to Windward appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

No album artist credited

Style: Blackened doom metal, progressive metal, sludge metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Acid Bath, Crowbar, Mastodon
Country: Georgia, United States
Release date: 22 May 2025

Ah, the epic. Perhaps one of the most iconic facets of progressive music, alongside odd time signatures, genre experimentation, and being huge fucking nerds. Yet prog is not the only genre known for such indulgences – far off in the swampy, bong-clouded realms of doom metal, its own acolytes have long been toiling away on leaden, album-length opuses that make the likes of “Supper’s Ready” or “Octavarium” seem downright breezy by comparison. Despite both genres sharing a predilection for track lengths well past the double-digit minute count, though, their approaches are often diametrically opposed. While prog epics are often crafted in an effort to transport listeners on a journey through the wildly varying ups and downs of a suite’s many movements, doom epics are glacial and ponderous, aiming to smother listeners in a consistent atmosphere of musical and, often, emotional heaviness. 

But what if an artist made an effort to unite these two seemingly incompatible approaches? Could it be possible to craft an epic that incorporates both the gargantuan, lumbering tread of doom and the kaleidoscopic variety of prog in one complete whole? Bravely leaping into this challenge is Nambil Mas, a project helmed by a single Nambil Mastermind known as Sam Libman, with a ninety-minute, four-track slab of interestingly titled progressive sludge metal over a decade in the making. While some of the genre tags and Libman’s Atlanta roots may lead one to expect some simple Nambil Mastodon worship, the sound here leans slower, heavier, and more experimental, blending viscous, dense doom with the odd meter riffs and synthy atmospheric passages of prog, plus a shot of blackened, shrieking extremity for good measure. It’s an impressive feat of ambition for one largely unknown fellow; we shall see if he has crafted a Nambil Masterpiece, or if Nambil Más is more like Nambil Menos.

Alright, let’s rip the bandage off: while Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade certainly wins points for effort, much of the music on offer across this gargantuan sonic tetraptych is a painfully unpleasant slog to wade through. One problem, immediately obvious on the opening title track, is that the production and guitar tones frequently cross the line from “endearingly lo-fi” to “agonizingly amateurish”. The abrasive walls of distortion overpower the undermixed drums and often bizarrely distant-sounding vocals to create an effect that is nothing short of migraine-inducing, which wouldn’t be that huge of an issue except, let me remind you, every song is over twenty minutes long. Sure, there are softer, less grating sections on occasion to give hapless listeners a break, but it doesn’t change the fact that minute after minute of those goddamn guitars jackhammering my eardrums is enough to have me reaching for the ibuprofen and giving a Nambil Massage to my poor, aching temples.

This leads us, naturally, to the other main issue with this album: namely that Libman never met an idea he didn’t want to extend well past its sell-by date. To put it bluntly, each track (well, most of them at least) consists of roughly eight minutes’ worth of musical ideas stretched across twenty in much the same way a medieval prisoner is stretched upon the rack, riffs beaten so hard into the ground that nothing but a smoldering crater remains. Now, some might say, “Hey, that’s not fair – this is (partially) a doom metal record, after all. Isn’t repetition and slow pacing part of building an immersive atmosphere?” And to that I reply: doom’s slow burns only work if the atmosphere they’re building is worth a damn. From the fuzzed-out, Sabbath-esque jams of Dopesmoker to the weeping, funereal melodies of Mirror Reaper, doom’s most well-regarded epics all paint an immersive sonic landscape that listeners can genuinely get lost in: a far cry from the insufferably basic “throw a bunch of distortion on a guitar and play slow” approach that Nambil Mas so often resorts to. Thus this attempted Nambil Mashup of subgenres leaves us with a set of tracks that are too clunky and repetitive to work as proper prog epics, but too texturally dull and obnoxious-sounding to muster the impact of good doom metal – the worst of both worlds.

It’s a shame, too, because when Libman exercises his more progressive instincts, there are plenty of moments that, while a bit undercooked, show genuine promise. The aforementioned title track’s back half offers an off-kilter vintage Sabbath/Zeppelin style passage that could be a fun little diversion if its clean vocals weren’t so strangely quiet, and the following psychedelic synth section is one of the few long, repetitive parts of the album that actually manages a somewhat pleasant atmosphere. Closer “The Nambil Masochist” offers some genuinely energetic, mosh-worthy riffs in spots, and the high, wailing vocals at the end are almost impressive enough in their range to distract from the painful, cringy edge of its lyrics¹. “Nambil Masturbation” is somehow the strongest of the four, softening the unpleasant guitar tone with layers of orchestral synths while crafting a surprisingly stirring sympho-black climax that made me wonder if, just maybe, I’ve treated this album a bit too harshly.

Then “Nambil Mastication” comes on, and I realize that, if anything, I haven’t been harsh enough. Remember how I said only most of the tracks had about eight minutes’ worth of musical ideas? That was because this pathetic excuse for an epic has far, far less. Picture, if you will, the bummiest dude at the local Guitar Center, high on weed and low on talent, trying out a distortion pedal. He strums a few basic chords before letting the sound hang for an uncomfortable length of time, possibly mustering a “Duuuude” or two as he stares into space, before playing a couple more and repeating the process. Now imagine this going on for nine fucking minutes straight, and you have the intro to this abysmal, godforsaken waste of runtime². No percussion, no structure, no texture beyond the shittiest bargain-bin distortion imaginable for nine of the precious, finite minutes I have left upon this Earth. And somehow the next four minutes are even worse! At least the stoned Guitar Center guy played fucking notes – this is just vaguely gurgly, deeply unpleasant noise with the occasional bit of guitar feedback whining above it. The mediocre death-doom of the track’s final third almost comes as a relief by comparison, though it’s still not up to the already-shaky standards of the other three.

“I’ll drag myself through miles of shit and mud”, screams Libman on the aforementioned track, perhaps unwittingly creating a perfect metaphor for the experience of sitting through much of Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade. Though there certainly are tiny flashes of gold, or maybe pyrite, to be found amidst this fecal torrent – some solid odd meter riffs here, an inventive bit of atmosphere there – I sure as hell don’t feel in the mood to stick my pan back into that malodorous slurry and start sifting through it all again anytime soon. What a Nambil Mess.

Recommended tracks: Nambil Masturbation, really none of them but that one’s the least bad
You may also like: Sumac, Simulacra, fuck it I don’t care anymore get me out of here get me out
Final verdict: 2.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Nambil Mas is:
– Sam Libman (everything)

1.  From that song: “So for this night, I take, this knife  / stick it in, ‘til I break skin / I’ll, starve myself. I’ll… fuck myself!” Truly a poet. ︎
2. Perhaps the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had from a highly-rated album on this site was Sumac‘s The Healer, an album opening with ten-plus minutes of utterly pointless, structureless instrumental dicking around while some dude gives halfhearted growls from the next room over. This shit makes Sumac sound good. ︎

The post Review: Nambil Mas – Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Sludge Metal, Post-Metal (Harsh Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cult of Luna, EyeHateGod, Acid Bath, Khemmis, Dvne, Mastodon, Inter Arma
Country: United States, AR
Release date: 14 March 2025

Awakening from the Arkansas underground in 1996, Rwake are ancient, nearly thirty years into their journey at the time of this review, with a respectable body of work behind them. Rooted in sludge metal tradition, their sound fuses scathing hardcore vocals, mid-paced melodicism, doomy expanses, and tinges of death metal reminiscent of Acid Bath—a volatile mix that gives rise to brooding, multi-dimensional compositions. After a string of releases beginning with Absence Due to Projection in 1998, the band truly made waves upon signing with Relapse Records for 2007’s Voices of Omens, their most aggressive album to date. That release earned them a tour across the eastern U.S. and a spot at the Texas metal festival Emissions from the Monolith, lifting them from obscurity into the spotlight of the American underground. They followed it with Rest, after which the band stepped away, as personal lives took precedence. Over a decade later, Rwake finally reemerge with their long-awaited return: The Return of Magik.

Such a long wait naturally invites skepticism about the band’s current inspiration and creative fire. In the face of this anticipation, Rwake offer a lineup change involving Austin Sublett stepping in to replace longtime guitarist Kris Graves. With Sublett, the looming nods to traditional doom—shades of Black Sabbath and Mournful Congregation—have largely faded. In their place are more dynamic textures: mid-tempo rhythms, a gloomy but aggressive melodicism, and anthemic passages that at times recall the grandeur of Candlemass. Another notable shift lies in the vocal delivery. The Return of Magik trades out Rest’s hardcore punk snarls for a caustic palette of high-pitched screeches, broken only by measured eruptions of visceral, rebellious shouts.

The songcraft on The Return of Magik is monolithic and variegated in texture, with even its shortest tracks stretching just shy of the eight-minute mark. Structurally, the album splits into two modes. Three songs—”You Swore We’d Always Be Together”, “The Return of Magik”, and “With Stardust Flowers”—are more riff-driven and immediate. Following that are two sprawling epics: ”Distant Constellations and the Psychedelic Incarceration”, and “In After Reverse”. The epics struggle under their own weight, ambitious in scope but left wanting in their pacing, identity, and execution.

Within the style that Rwake indulge in, several key metrics define the greatness of a composition: balance, variety, pacing contrast, and an intuitive flow that ensures no passage overstays its welcome. “The Return of Magik” stands as the shining example of all these traits. It opens with tremolo-driven grooves, anthemic harmonies, and sharp melodic turns, before descending into a doomier section where bellowing punk vocals contrast tastefully with the caustic screams that came before. The song then circles back to a faster pace, closing with a final surge of urgency that ties the entire structure together. From the heterogeneous riffing to the overall balance each section brings, this track shows that Rwake are still as capable as they were the decade before.

The other two riff-driven tracks fall short of the excellence achieved by “The Return of Magik.” In “You Swore We’d Always Be Together,” tonal variety is present, shifting from dark dissonance to Mastodon-esque melodicism, but the pacing remains static, lacking the tempo changes necessary to create a structured sense of evolution. “With Stardust Flowers” carries a cry for greater ambition: the same ingredients that make the album’s title track so compelling are present, but the track ends too abruptly, feeling rushed and incomplete. Both songs are solid in isolation, but with greater dimensionality and structural expansion, they could have reached something far more impactful.

In the final stretch of the album, Rwake make bold leaps which stumble into drawn out messes. Here, the problem lies in failed experimentation. “Distant Constellations and the Psychedelic Incarceration” is an ambitious attempt at mystic intrigue that falls flat. Built around a spoken-word section that runs four minutes too long, what might have been an occultish—if vaguely hippie-flavored—atmosphere devolves into a long-winded rant that renders the rest of the track irrelevant. “In After Reverse” fails to a slightly lesser degree, pairing active riffing with a sluggish interlude. But that interlude, composed of whispered vocals and minimal ambient drones, feels bare and underdeveloped—an attempt at the quiet tension of a forest lurking with something unnamed instead evokes awkward emptiness. Both tracks cry out for stronger execution and a more refined approach to atmosphere and pacing.

Despite its fractured quality, The Return of Magik is a commendable return after more than a decade of silence. It is unclear if Rwake will release more albums in the future—but if so, then this album should serve as a moment of introspection. Let go of the ambitions of narrative-driven songs, tighten the standards for pacing and contrast, and lean more heavily into the band’s greatest strength: the volatile duality between harsh screams and hardcore snarls. There’s still power in Rwake’s sound, but it demands a clearer frame to truly shine.

Recommended tracks: “The Return of Magik”
You may also like: Mizmor, 16, Fange, Sunrot, Decline of the I
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Relapse – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Rwake is:
– Chris Terry (vocals)
– Brittany Fugate (vocals)
– Jeff Morgan (drums, acoustic guitar, 12-string bass)
– Reid Raley (bass)
– Austin Sublett (guitar)
– John Judkins (guitar)

The post Review: Rwake – The Return of Magik appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Atmospheric sludge metal, avant-garde metal, poetry (Spoken word, harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Isis, Neurosis, Chat Pile, Thou, Mizmor
Country: Canada / Maryland, United States
Release date: 25 April 2025

‘We didn’t demand more from a democracy of monsters.’

The grimy post-apocalyptic imagery conjured by post-rock and avant-garde artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Ashenspire are sharp critiques of the hostile world crafted by modern society. Canadian sludge metallers Sumac explored similar themes and soundscapes on their 2024 opus, The Healer, but with a balmy twist: Aaron Turner and co. find beauty and catharsis among the aftermath, exploring healing as a non-linear process in a series of cacophonous, improvised sludge metal pieces. On their latest release, The Film, Sumac join forces with industrial hip-hop artist Moor Mother, crunching the scope of The Healer’s pieces down to relatively bite-sized movements and giving them structure through spoken word. How does The Film play out?

The atonal warbling of Sumac’s guitars adorn the crooked canvas of “Scene 1”. Seas of crumbling gray buildings stretch beyond the horizon, and the mind desperately claws for tonality and rhythm among the scraping dissonance of Aaron Turner’s guitarwork. Figures and forms almost coalesce in the coarse and mangled chords; by design, they’re just a bit too out of reach to fully form into a cogent shape. The listener is left to sit in anxious ambiguity as a consequence. Then, a voice materializes from the rubble, a rudder to a vessel with no form. First distorted, then yanked into clarity, it calls out:

‘I want my breath back.’

Throughout “Scene 1”, Moor Mother sneers in the face of an invasive hegemony through spoken word poetry, unearthing a siren call against the Colonialist tendrils that push into the scree’s every crevice. We’re told over and over that the kudzu has died, but she insists that anyone with a keen eye can see how its roots continue to spread and how its vines choke out the grove’s most vulnerable.

‘That’s why we don’t believe. We don’t believe. We don’t believe. We. Don’t. Believe. WE—DON’T—BELIEVE.’

Among the swirling cataclysm laid down by Sumac, Moor Mother exudes both a razor-sharp focus in spoken-word verses and an assertive bluntness in her punctuated litany. By way of hypnagogic paranoia in “Scene 2: The Run”, war-torn landscapes in “Scene 5: Breathing Fire”, and frustrated inner conflict in “Camera”, Moor Mother anchors The Film, cleverly intertwining her poetry with amorphous and wailing instrumentation. Calls of ‘So long they’ve been hating, waiting, debating how to keep you enslaved / Better lose your mind, lose your mind, lose your mind, lose your mind / Run away, better lose your mind / Hurt off, dust off, hate off, change off, devil off / Better run and lose your mind’ on “Scene 4” exemplify The Film’s percussive lambasts, branding themselves onto the surface of your mind with each repetition and leaving behind no ambiguity in her snarling conviction.

Though some moments come across a bit referential for my tastes (e.g., a reference to the Whip and Nae Nae on “Scene 3”, and a callout to Blue’s Clues on “Scene 5: Breathing Fire”), Moor Mother’s approach is overwhelmingly effective as a whole. The sentiments on “Camera”, for example, are masterfully executed, cleaved in two as tension is forged between opposing forces. On one hand, her lyricism portrays a strong desire to be cognizant of injustices and engage in activism against them; on the other, a pang to ‘stick one’s head in the sand’ emerges, as the deluge of nightmares constantly surfaced is simply too much for a single person to bear. The effect is heightened when Moor Mother’s voice takes on an unearthly form, malleated into a down-pitched, ominous panopticon:

‘Let the camera do the talking. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Don’t. Look. Away. Let the camera do the talking. Get away, get away, get away, get away, get away, get away.’

Moments of clarity and conventional song structure occasionally bubble to The Film’s surface. “The Truth is Out There” utilizes consonance and pleasant textures, acting as a small palate cleanser before The Film’s mammoth closer. Even in its more melodic passages, though, Sumac opt to use oblique, eccentric chord choices to keep the listener from getting too comfortable in their sense of levity. “Scene 3” features a relatively standard post-metal song structure, slowly building into a massive apex and crushing the listener under pounding drumwork and frantic reiteration of ‘In the way of our dreams…’ by its end.

“Scene 2: The Run”, in contrast, teeters between the more constructed and the more nebulous: the thrumming, pulsating bass across its runtime acts as an oscillating searchlight, keeping its sparse soundscape grounded. Led by Moor Mother’s poetry, one has a brief window to dive between concrete crags and reach shelter between the rumbling flashes. Intensity ebbs and flows, exploring dissonant tremolos and weighty dirges but each time returning to the searchlight’s bassy thrum. The track’s closing moments unveil a climax of explosive drum grooves, hypnotic, swirling guitar chords, and ghoulish howls. The crumbled remains coalesce into a tumbling, horrific golem, shattering off pieces of itself as it thrashes about.

‘Memories. Looping. Dead. Sky is. Falling. Falling. Blood. Red. Blood. Blood. Red. Blood.’

“Scene 5: Breathing Fire” is a consummation of The Film’s elements, a Chekhov’s Arsenal of ideas and techniques introduced earlier in its runtime. Anchored by Moor Mother’s poetry, the track melts and morphs between stillness and intensity, smoothness and texture, consonance and dissonance; its introductory moments beget premonition of something more chaotic, more violent, and more powerful than anything encountered up to this point.

‘War breath always breathes—fire. Time’s in neglect, and I’ll see you on the other side. I’ll see you on the other side.’

The instrumentals bear a laserlike focus: whereas before the rhythms lumbered in dissonant chaos, they now punch the back of your head with militaristic precision.

‘I need a moment. I need a moment. Sorting through snakes and serpents. I need an omen.’

The patterns aren’t quite discernible at first glance, using basic rhythmic building blocks in spectacularly odd meter. Tension builds around drums that congeal through kinetic cymbal splashes.

‘We’re in the boxing rings and fighting for our lives. Fighting for our lives. FIGHTING. FOR. OUR. LIVES.’

An instrumental bomb drops. Sumac settle in to a bulldozing groove while Moor Mother summons an apocalyptic fury, snarling overtop magnitude ten forces.

‘I PRAY THE TIDES GO. I PRAY THE TIDES GO. I PRAY THE TIDES GO THE WAY OF THE WOLVES. THE WAY OF THE WOLVES. AND OUT COME THE WOLVES. AND OUT COME THE WOLVES. TAKE WARNING. TAKE WARNING. TAKE CAUTION, TAKE. OFF. RUNNING. TAKE OFF RUNNING. TAKE OFF RUNNING. TAKE—OFF—’

The gravity of the instrumentals outmatches their stability, and “Scene 5” begins to deconstruct. A familiar chaos creeps back in as guitars melt into buzzing warbles and the frantic jingling of chimes fill every inch of negative space. A wailing, trembling guitar solo attempts to push back against the bubbling waves of bass, but the exertion of the two is too much, and the entire piece collapses. Little is left other than guitar scrapes, squeaks, and cresting cymbal washes.

‘Basic instructions before leaving Earth. Basic instructions before leaving Earth…’

For the first time during The Film, an unabashedly tranquil space is broached. Guitars amble around plaintive chords, and drums gently lilt along. The final stretch of “Scene 5” exudes catharsis, releasing a tension that’s been building since the record’s first moments and giving the listener space to rest and reflect.

‘I. Want. My. Change. But what do we return to? But what do we return to? What do we return to?’

In The Film’s calm aftermath, only pebbles and ash remain; in this dust is the space for something new to grow. The Film is at the same time heartbreakingly concrete and nightmarishly surrealist, juxtaposing dissonant sludgy improvisation against a spellbinding voice that confidently leads the traveler through a forsaken barrens. Despite a spate of horrific injustices and efforts from every corner to oppress, intimidate, and silence marginalized groups, we must continue to strike away at what makes us human, and at the same time fight to make the world something more than a place not designed for us.

Recommended tracks: Scene 5: Breathing Fire, Camera, Scene 2: The Run
You may also like: BÅKÜ, Ashenspire, Five the Hierophant, Lathe
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links (Sumac): Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives
Related links (Moor Mother): Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label – Thrill Jockey Records: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Sumac is:
– Aaron Turner (guitars, vocals)
– Nick Yacyshyn (drums, percussion, synths)
– Brian Cook (bass)
Moor Mother is:
– Camae Ayewa (vocals, synths)
With guests:
– Candice Hoyes (vocals, track 3)
– Kyle Kidd (vocals, track 4)
– Sovei (vocals, track 5)

The post Review: Sumac, Moor Mother – The Film appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal, post-metal, stoner metal, sludge metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mastodon, Intronaut, Black Peaks
Country: Greece
Release date: 21 March 2025

In Hollywood there’s a phenomenon known as twin films: two films with very similar premises that release in the same year. White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen (2013); The Prestige and The Illusionist (2006); Deep Impact and Armageddon (1998); Oppenheimer and Barbie (2023) there are countless examples and one is usually better than the other¹. These cinematic twins often come out of what are known as Black List scripts; unproduced screenplays of potential floating around which one studio buys and the other unscrupulously plagiarises. But what of twin bands? Take Tardive Dyskinesia and Intronaut. Formed in Greece in 2003, and LA in 2004 respectively, both bands are clearly heavily influenced by acts like Mastodon, Gojira and Meshuggah, engaging in a heavily polyrhythmic take on progressive metal with psychedelic and sludge influences². But the main similarity is in the clean vocals: Manthos Stergiou and Sacha Dunable could be brothers judging by their voices and delivery. And if you’re wondering when this intro is going to get to the point then I have good news: Stergiou from Tardive Dyskinesia now fronts Calyces. This younger sibling band debuted with Impulse to Soar in 2020 and barely shifted style from the Tardive Dyskinesia days. Can their sophomore see Stergiou detwin himself from his former musical counterpart?

Short answer: yes, with a but. Fleshy Waves of Probability takes that Mastodon-esque style in a slightly more post-hardcore direction, culling the proggier excesses and leaning into the trappings of the adoptive genre. At two-thirds the length of their debut, this is a short but sweet follow-up; a tightening of the compositional nuts and bolts. It’s not as though this is a new gambit, as a few bands in the scene have blended the punch of post-hardcore with Mastodon sludginess—notably Cobra the Impaler and Black Peaks. But Stergiou’s gruff, Intronaut-y vocals, syncopated riffage, and adherence to the tenets of polyrhythmicism help them stand out a little against such compatriots. 

Calyces want to do two things on Fleshy Waves of Probability: riff out and be anthemic—their stance vis-à-vis bubblegum is unrecorded—and they do both with aplomb, be it the whoaaa-oooaaa-oooo’s in “Swirling Towards the Light”, or the rather uplifting chant of ‘break down their spines’ on the chorus of “Boneshatter”. “Voices in the Gray” may be the record’s punkiest outing, shifting into an Every Time I Die gear with its hardcore-inspired shouts, pacy riffing, and classic heavy metal style guitar solo. A couple of riffs skirt a little too close to Mastodon: “Swirling Toward the Light” is so Blood Mountain you’ll think someone’s trying to kill you, while the main riff of “Wastelands” has a touch of “Roots Remain” (Emperor of Sand) to it, but it’s homage over rip-off, and the composition manages a solid balance between the sludge and the post-hardcore.

Of course, this is a prog release and we don’t want to skimp on those more ambitious leanings. Most come in the form of instrumental bridges, such as “Wastelands” which takes its central riff on an evolving instrumental journey. “Lost in Phrase” has a doomier pace with another grandiose mid-section as Stergiou screams over the chuntering bassline. The closer “Lethargy” is the most progressively structured track, evolving through an intro section, a guest violin solo (an unexpected texture on a sludgy album), and a more ostentatious outro section which features a Gojira-esque tapping motif. It’s a cinematic way to end, but the prog showcase here does highlight the relative absence of compositional risk-taking elsewhere. The rest of the album can feel somewhat meat and potatoes, a bit bog standard; it’s good metal, well performed, and you’ll find yourself headbanging along or going “sick” when a tasty solo hits, but you’ll likely not be awestruck during your listening. 

A tightening of focus sees Calyces stepping out of the shadow of their older sibling Tardive Dyskinesia but the interjection of post-hardcore influences plays it safe with catchy hooks, sweet licks and punchy runtimes, all par for the course in this subgenre niche. You’ll probably enjoy the fleshy waves of sound emanating out of this sophomore, but it may not give you an impulse to soar.

Recommended tracks: Lost in Phrase, Boneshatter, Flowing Through Storm
You may also like: Cobra the Impaler, Boss Keloid, Pryne
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Calyces is:
– Manthos Stergiou (vocals, guitars, synths)
– Stavros Rigos (drums)
– Loukas Giannakitsas (bass, contrabass)
– Giannis Golfis (guitars)

With:
– Alexandra Stergiou (violin)

1. The Prestige and Deep Impact are the better films; White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen are equally dumb fun; Oppenheimer and Barbie was a joke that three of my colleagues insisted I include but which I don’t think is very good, so I’m using this footnote to call them out. ︎
2. There are differences, too: Tardive Dyskinesia lacked the overt jazziness and psychedelia of Intronaut but I’m not letting facts ruin my tortured intro conceit. ︎

The post Review: Calyces – Fleshy Waves of Probability appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: post-metal, progressive metal, sludge metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Isis, Cult of Luna, Neurosis, Tool
Country: Poland
Release date: 6 January 2025

Imagine drifting serenely through torrential waters, unbothered by the crashing waves above or ripping undercurrents below. Immersed but protected, you’re calm, undulating gently amid the ocean’s mighty forces. You find tranquility in watching the surrounding chaos, until you emerge safely as the storm concludes. For half an hour, Emovere, Obscure Sphinx’s latest EP, places the listener into this suspended state.

More than eight years after their last studio work, the Polish quartet Obscure Sphinx has resurfaced with Emovere, a lengthy three-track EP. The band is fronted by Zofia “Wielebna” Fraś, a vocal powerhouse whose silky singing and raspy screams sit at the center of the band’s sound. A dark, down-tuned brand of post-metal forms the soundscape around her, oscillating fluidly between crushing and calm; tidal-wave riffs and thunderous rhythms give way to shimmering bridges, only for the water to rise again. Obscure Sphinx composes with a deft hand, knowing how and when to move the listener from one passage to the next through seamless transitions; and the band’s ever-tight musicianship and feel for rhythm elevate the compositions. The result is simply enrapturing. The album is a cathartic journey—the word ‘emovere’ loosely translates to such—that’s awe-inspiring yet soothing, and deeply resonant.

“Scarcity Hunter” begins the album ominously with drums slowly pounding, a deep bass line following, and the guitar sitting lightly on top. Fraś’s vocals drone ritualistically, while portentous whispers accent the space behind her. Right as the track is about to reach the minute mark, it opens up and pummels the listener: the guitar turns heavy and distorted, accompanied by now-crashing drums and a thick bass you can feel in your chest, with Fraś letting out her first set of magnificent screams in a tone reminiscent of Sound of Perseverance-era Chuck. But before the intensity grows overbearing, the band dials it down and delivers an excellent instrumental bridge, flexing a keen sense of timing and showcasing Emovere’s melodic side. 

This measured ebb and flow between different atmospheres and dynamics is a defining characteristic of the record. The tracks unfold patiently but contain a wealth of instrumental nuance and never approach monotonous. “Scarcity Hunter” ultimately concludes with a long, Tool-inspired passage that builds deliberately behind Fraś’s elegant voice until it reaches a roaring, chill-inducing climax—one of Emovere’s musical and emotional high points. Another lengthy build into a climactic outro finishes the album in “Nethergrove,” but it doesn’t ring repetitious, thanks to fresh instrumentation and a dynamic vocal performance. “Nethergrove” is perhaps Emovere’s highlight: a thirteen-minute slow burner that meanders among harmonic peaks and depths before resolving in the album’s heaviest moment. 

Providing balance between the record’s bookends is “As I Stood Upon the Shore,” the shortest and most straightforward cut of the three. Its structure somewhat resembles a more accessible verse-chorus approach while still allowing space for textural shifts and changes in tone. “As I Stood Upon the Shore” is a welcome, enjoyable listen in its own right, and more importantly it exemplifies the compositional balance Obscure Sphinx achieves in Emovere—not only within each track but also in the flow of the work as a whole. 

The interplay between Fraś and the music surrounding her, enhanced by dense but pristine production, is aural velvet. When the record’s thirty minutes conclude, it’s challenging not to return to the beginning for another pass. Emovere’s primary drawback is that it’s an EP—if it ran for another twenty minutes at a similar quality, it would stand as a formidable album-of-the-year contender not a week into January. Nonetheless, Emovere commands mindful relistens, providing plenty to explore until Obscure Sphinx submerges us in its next sonic journey.

Recommended tracks: All three
You may also like: Blindead / Blindead23, Múr, E-L-R, Cavernlight
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Obscure Sphinx is:
– Michał “Blady” Rejman (bass)
– Mateusz “Werbel” Badacz (drums)
– Zofia “Wielebna” Fraś (vocals)
– Aleksander “Olo” Łukomski (guitars)

The post Review: Obscure Sphinx – Emovere appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Cover art by McVtx

Style: Post-Metal, Sludge Metal, Hardcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Chat Pile, (later) Norma Jean
Country: France
Release date: 8 January 2025

Originally emerging out of the post-hardcore proto goop, Membrane has changed their sound up only slightly over the years—imagine an angrier version of Snapcase morphing into a shadier, more haunting chaos—and Deathly Silence continues their embrace of post-metal heard on their most recent releases. Post-metal can be a bit of a minefield, with the term encompassing such a wide spectrum of sounds and emotions that it feels meaningless on its own. That wine needs a cheese pairing, and the curd for Membrane is a healthy slice of sludge metal on a hardcore platter.

Speaking of wine, I have to admit that vocalist (and guitarist) Nicolas Frère has a style that isn’t for me. He has a whiny timbre—even in his harsh vocals. However, he possesses a certain je ne sais quoi for infusing singable notes into his vocal fry and screams; Deathly Silen[t] he is not. I particularly enjoy the way he employs this panache on “Fire and Fear,”  interchanging it seamlessly with a touch of pure clean singing—ascending the peak of Mount Melody and hopping quickly back down into Harsh Valley repeatedly throughout the song. By the end of the track, I was completely vibing with the vocals. Frère also trades off between French and English throughout this LP and while I understand why a lot of acts choose to only use English even if it isn’t their nation’s primary language, the native tongue can really make a difference on the emotional impact of a song. Membrane succeeds at this aspect on Deathly Silence.

The lyrical themes are right up my alley, too. They’re clever in that they most prominently touch on humanity’s abuse of planet Earth, and in many parts you could easily superimpose a different interpretation of what or who is being abused within the context of the album. Differentiating between the lyrical themes and the lyrics themselves is important, though, because in many instances the latter prove to be about as poetic as fourteen year-old me: “In a world where greed is so profound / Man’s destruction knows no bounds.” That’s deep like a kiddie pool.

All of the vocal material is complemented by Membrane‘s unyielding focus on deep, heavy, open-stringed guitar riffs punctuated by dissonant, brash chords and arpeggios on the high strings. We’re tossing out structure in favor of atmosphere, here. It’s post-metal to a T, coincidentally my cup of tea. So why can’t I just love this release? For every bit or bob that has me nodding my head with a stank face—like the droning portions in “Raise” or the creepy bridge-to-outro of “The Soft Whispers”—I get another that just makes my eyes roll. Nearly all of the songs here transition into one of those typical hardcore shouted-spoken-word-monologue-over-eerie-melody moments at some point. That’s no cardinal sin on track one, but by the time you’re on track three it’s a novelty no more, and once you get to five (out of six) it’s downright grating. Plus, there’s just not enough variety or individuality in the riffs across these forty-one minutes. You could swap out heavy riff A in “Too Late” for heavy riff B in the title track and the character of each song isn’t going to change.

Ultimately, while Deathly Silence is a bottle of post-metal that pairs well with its sludge and hardcore accompaniments, the package as a whole turns out to be less than the sum of its parts. If Silence was a sophomore effort from inexperienced newcomers—instead of the seventh full-length release from a band going on twenty-five years—I’d be curious what was on the horizon for them. It’s fine to sip, but not to savor.

Recommended tracks: “Raise,” “Fire and Fear”
You may also like: Celeste, Meth, A Swarm of the Sun, An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | Metal Archives

Labels: Blind Prod / Ma Saret Records / Dayoff Records / Araki Records / Pogo Records

Membrane is:
Nicolas Frère – Guitars and Vocals
Nicolas Cagnoni – Bass and Backing Vocals
Maxime Weingand – Drums
Hugo Perestrelo – Guitars

The post Review: Membrane – Deathly Silence appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Sludge Metal, Post-Hardcore, Alt Metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, AFI, Mastodon
Country: Washington D.C., United States / Croatia
Release date: 16 August 2024

“Hello and welcome to The Progressive Subway!” a voice bellows from the sky.

 – “Ah! What? Who are you? What’s going on?”

“You’ll be listening to Wings Denied for your test review.”

 – “Test review? What?”

“Croatian band. You’ll need these.” A pair of waders materializes in mid-air in front of me, then falls, the rubber slapping onto the ground. “For the sludge.”

Fearing for my own safety, I do what is asked of me, don my new outfit, and drop a needle onto digital vinyl (I open Spotify) to listen to Wings Denied‘s sophomore release, Just the Basics.

…

Solidly sludge metal, this new album showcases a modest range of moods and styles. On Just the Basics, Wings Denied lean heavily on their pop sensibilities, only occasionally experimenting with meter, instrumentation, and song structure. The band wear their influences on their sleeves, but seem to have difficulty merging those ideas into a coherent theme. This album is more of a chain composed of links of different kinds of metal than an alloy formed by successfully melding those ideas together.

Opener “Plastic Tears” introduces most of the sonic themes heard throughout Just the Basics: clean, soaring vocals; sludgy, churning bass; twisty, shifting rhythms; and intricate, walking riffs. As with most of the following songs, this one unfortunately also seems to suffer an over-reliance on the chorus (repeated perhaps one too many times) and a missing middle, balancing – sometimes precariously – between sludgy lows and piercing solos, without much solid ground in the middle of that harmonic range.

The second track, “Black Legend”, is such a contrast from the first that it almost sounds like a different band. While “Plastic Tears” shows strong sludge / classic doom metal influence, the uptempo “Black Legend” is much more punk, with its snare-and-cymbal drumming, verse-chorus pop structure, and bass which has been mixed all the way back so that it’s hardly audible under the guitars. The first guitar solo of the album appears here, as well, at 2:25, and while nothing jaw-dropping, it serves the song well and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Abrupt stops in a handful of tracks on the album occasionally kill the momentum, often without leading into a satisfying drop or breakdown, which might make those short, sharp shocks worthwhile. “Lost in It All”, for example, features some of my favourite musical ideas on Just the Basics. It’s such a departure from the first three tracks: jazzy, airy, sultry. Like Christmas chocolates that have melted a bit from sitting too close to the fireplace, it oozes and flows in a supremely satisfying way. But a break at 0:42, followed by a pop-rock metal chorus, drops the listener in a bucket of ice water. The second verse brings back that oozing chocolate sound, but it’s hard to enjoy it the second time around. (“Fool me once…”) This track, like “Plastic Tears”, could do with a bit more development (maybe an extended verse, or a second bridge), rather than relying on the chorus to pad the runtime.

The next track, “Lifebroker”, is the only non-single off of this album with more than 1000 listens on Spotify, and for good reason: it’s a banger. “Lifebroker” enters on a churning, steam engine of a riff. An abrupt break starts the verse, which causes the song to lose a bit of the momentum it had at the outset, but it manages to recover and maintain that energy moving forward. The climbing bridge around 2:45 is one of the best riffs on this album by far, and wouldn’t be out of place on something by Mastodon. This song has a good energy, and I think is pretty representative of this band’s general sound.

The rhythms on “Saudade” make this Just the Basics’ stand-out track: the section beginning at 2:05 sounds to be in 12/8, but the guitars bob and weave around the rhythm section here, making it difficult to count on first listen. There is another abrupt break at 2:24 into a much quieter section, where twinkly guitars and vocals are soon joined by sparse drums, followed by strings and bass. 3:27 brings in a somber refrain (“we’re very sorry for your loss, he was a brave man”), which builds in intensity and sincerity until the mood is abruptly shattered not once, but twice. “Saudade” is “an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something”. Perhaps the abrupt changes of mood—from raging and chaotic; to disbelief, repeating the words delivered to the bereaved over and over; and back to anger—are meant to represent the tug-of-war between anger, denial, and depression, which those who have grieved for a loved one know well. “Saudade” is one of the strongest efforts on this album, by far.

Just the Basics is a solid effort: a mostly-sludge, mostly-metal album that leans heavily on pop song structure, punctuated by moments of impressive songwriting, both in terms of mood and melody. Wings Denied clearly have a wealth of great ideas, but these are diamonds in the rough; they need a talented producer to refine and polish them. I’m looking forward to moving past the basics.

…

P.S. Does anyone need a pair of waders?

Recommended tracks: Saudade, Mr. Nice Guy, Black Legend
You may also like: Exist Immortal, Aliases, Mycelia
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Wings Denied is:
– Luka Kerecin (vocals)
– Zach Dresher (guitars, synths)
– Wes Good (bass)
– Alec Kossoff (drums, glockenspiel, backing vocals)

The post Missed Album Review: Wings Denied – Just the Basics appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: dissonant sludge metal, noisecore (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Nails, Thou, Plebeian Grandstand, Black Tongue
Country: United States-IL
Release date: 2 February 2024

They say Catholic schools are atheist factories. It would have been had I not already disavowed my Catholic upbringing before high school. My dad still forced me through the Confirmation process—I held up my end of the deal that I wouldn’t fight my parents on it if they watched the entire seventy-two minute music video for Warforged’s instant classic I: Voice.¹ I largely despise the Church and most organized religion (although I’m a bit more private with it than an r/atheism subscriber), so I can strongly empathize with meth.’s vocalist Seb Alvarez on Shame. He screams in your face about residual harm from the Church in his adult life, namely alcoholism, Catholicism’s culture of guilt, and of humiliation—heavy stuff.

Each member of the five-piece is vital to the minimalist approach meth. takes to noisy, vitriolic sludge metal. Frontman and lyricist Seb Alvarez is a special talent and spits his vulnerable lyrics in a mix of scream and wail, throat-ripping and rather terrifying. Unlike a deathcore vocalist or Chip King (The Body), the monstrousness isn’t that his vocals sound inhuman; no, Alvarez sounds like he’s ripping his soul out of his body through his mouth with each line, like he’s sacrificing his larynx to force each word out in a display of raw emotion. His clean vocals, styled like Pyrrhon’s Doug Moore—in fact, the title track “Shame,” which has the majority of the clean vocals, sounds like it would be in place on Exhaust—also rip, chastising the Church and full of negative feelings.

Alvarez’s style of vitriolic hardcore vocals can only reach their emotional zenith when the lyrics match their intensity, and Shame’s lyrics are stunningly dark. I’m left haunted by several lines, but moments of repeated refrains like ‘I AM PRAYER’ in “Compulsion” and  ‘I AM SHAME’ in “Shame” hit hardest. There are a dozen such direct metaphors for the self, each one hard hitting and scathing. “Shame” features the heavy hitter ‘I am the weight of my hands, I am the knots in your voice… I am the guilt that feeds you,’ as well as the titular chant. Other tracks like “Blush” open up about Alvarez’s mental health problems like alcoholism. He truly spills his being onto this record. 

If anything, Shame is even more weighty musically than lyrically if such a thing is possible. From the first second of opener “Doubt,” Shame suffocates with a hugely oppressive opening chord—Meshuggah and Gojira wish they could be this heavy with their chugs. The open power chord repeats ad nauseam and while guitarists Zack Farrar and Michael McDonald do little on the track besides provide an absolute wall of sound, their performance is perfect. The tracklist is uniformly hypnotically repetitive and minimalist compositionally, but the destructive riffs are usually all the more powerful for it, creating a sense of claustrophobia as each repeated distortion presses down on your throat. Shame is monolithic, a fortress built of revilement. Nathan Spainhower on bass provides necessary opposition to the two guitarists, his instrument often taking the melodic lead of tracks—see “Blush,” “Shame,” and “Blackmail.” Similar to Alvarez’s Moore-like shouts, Spainhower also feels like he could be on a Pyrrhon album, although one significantly slowed down to a sludgy doom-crawl. Other riffs like the main riff of “Compulsion” which trembles and shivers down the scale with flurries of blast beats sound like they’d be at home on a Plebeian Grandstand album, disgusting and putrid yet coldly calculated. I am tempted to blow out my speakers and eardrums every time I spin Shame.

Finally, skin-beater (drummer) Andrew Smith completes the auditory assault with a stellar performance of his own. His cascading beats in “Compulsion” remind me of Sermon, and the tribalistic feel of the percussion on the slowest track “Give In” is fascinating although the minute-long drone fadeout on the song is superfluous. He fully dictates the pace of the album, and the varying tempos are often the most important differentiator on tracks (since unfortunately all seven can feel a bit too similar in their abrasive, dissonant assault). He never is too flashy for a song, but when he switches from sludgier sections to blast beats, he certainly stands out from the noise as well as helping create it.

Even at a reasonable forty-four minutes, Shame’s pure hatred and weightiness makes it feel longer, and that’s certainly exacerbated by lengthy sections of the same unremitting riff causing me to feel like I’m crammed into a small space cornered by a priest. I hardly even mentioned the glorious spinose dissonance: the album is ugly, too, profoundly uncomfortable to listen to. Shame is among the most grave records I’ve ever spun and achieves the highest recommendation to any lovers of music that makes you feel like you were force fed your own bile. I have become addicted to meth., and there’s no shame in that.

Recommended tracks: Doubt, Compulsion, Shame
You may also like: Knoll, Ken Mode, Glassing, Cave Sermon, Scarcity, LLNN, Pyrrhon
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

meth. is:
– Seb Alvarez (vocals)
–  Zack Farrar (guitars)
– Michael McDonald (guitars, vocals)
– Andrew Smith (drums)
– Nathan Spainhower (bass)

1. This really did happen and they really didn’t enjoy it. My dad doesn’t do much heavier than Dream Theater; my mom taps out around modern Leprous. ︎

The post Missed Album: Meth. – Shame appeared first on The Progressive Subway.