Artwork by: Dmitry Rogatnev

Style: Avant-garde Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Deathgrind, Jazz Fusion (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cattle Decapitation, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, The Red Chord, Pathology
Country: Russia
Release date: 13 June 2025

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took insanely technical deathgrind, the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, and a smoky jazz joint on the harbor, then shot them through the musical equivalent of whatever hellish industrial-grade contraption processes chum? Me neither, but apparently ByoNoiseGenerator did. These unhinged Russians have crawled out from the briny depths of Perm Krai after seven years away, dripping seaweed and sheathed in the viscera of multitudinous aquatic horrors, bludgeoned into pulp and ready to serve via the stern and merciless hand of avant-garde deathgrind. Break out your bibs and fetch the butter—time to chow down on the band’s third LP, Subnormal Dives.

To anyone expecting the sultry and sophisticated sax-stylings of say, a Rivers of Nihil or Sleep Token, you may want to get back in your dinghy and row for the nearest opposite coastline. ByoNoiseGenerator, true to their name, are out here dropping sonic depth charges loaded to the gills with pure aural madness. Grooving slam breakdowns (“NULL.state = PERMANENT; return VOID;“), Primus-esque guitar funkery (“NoSuccessToday!”),  and skull-pulping grindcore all shoot through violent streaks of freeform jazz both manic and moody—often within the confines of the same track. For the first nine minutes,¹ ByoNoiseGenerator keep the pressure building as they cram multiple songs’ worth of ideas into tracks that nary crack the three minute mark. The band pull the listener deeper and deeper into this Subnormal Dive, gleefully assaulting our ears with a smorgasbord of hyper-processed violence perhaps only meant for the deepest of undersea dwellers.

It’s not until “LoveChargedDiveBombs” that we receive any surcease from ByoNoiseGenerator’s bio-organic brutality, with gentle radar pings, feathering drum and bass, and flickering saxophone doots creating an almost pleasant atmosphere. Denigrating chaos returns soon after via trampling blast beats and vocalist Tim’s inhuman growls, but the preceding forty-five seconds go a surprisingly long way towards letting me catch my breath before the band force me back underwater. The choice to slow things down in the song’s back half, showcases how—when it fancies them—ByoNoiseGenerator are capable of creating some rather captivating stretches of music. This characteristic defines more than a few songs across the platter (“Eb(D#),” “I’mNot20Anymore (21Ne),” “4-HO-DMTNzambiKult,”), and the band often nail the transitions in spite of the general atmosphere of mad-cap insanity and sonic whiplash that underscores their efforts.

Elsewhere and everywhere across Subnormal Dives, however, chaos reigns supreme. For twenty-three minutes, ByoNoiseGenerator toss and tumble the listener across heinous tempo and stylistic changes that would give even the most seasoned diver the bends. Songs are less-definable by any idea of coherent structure, and more by what fleeting strips of music that may qualify as identifiable (and palatable) to you. For my money, I love when the band cut away the deathgrind to revel in the smoky notes of playful saxophone and fluttering cymbal work that give Subnormal Dives its Bebop aesthetic. Whether that’s the funky drum-and-bass sections (“4-HO-DMTNzambiKult,” “deBroglieNeverExisted”) or back alley neo-noir vibes (“LoveChargedDiveBombs,” “5mgInspiredVibes”), these parts stand out as highlights of ByoNoiseGenerator’s glittering talent. For others, that satisfaction may come from the relentless grindcore butchery staining every cut.

Wherever you land, Subnormal Dives is a journey taken with the highest of caution. Even well-adjusted metalheads may struggle to decipher the band’s non-euclidean configurations, driven mad instead by ByoNoiseGenerator’s insistence on an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it approach to songcraft. There’s something to be said for not beating a motif, riff, etc. to death, but the opposite holds true, too. Take the scraping death metal ebb and flow at 1:38 in “IQ69Exaltations,” which serves well in hooking the listener—but just as you’re really starting to nibble, the moment is gone, a fish fry-flash in the pan, and we’re on to new flavors. Fortunately, with grindcore you’re never in for that long of a haul. Subnormal Dives’ twenty-three minutes fly by like a marlin on a mission. And when shit is this gleefully unhinged, it’s hard not to have a good time. Just… maybe don’t ask how they make the fish stix.

Recommended tracks: Eb(D#), LoveChargedDiveBombs, deBroglieNeverExisted, 5mgInspiredVibes
You may also like: Blastanus, Malignancy, DeathFuckingCunt, Diskord, Veilburner, Bloody Cumshot
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

ByoNoiseGenerator is:
– M1t (bass)
– NOx (drums)
– Tim (vocals)
– HaL° (guitars)
– Sh3la (saxophone)

1.  That’s five whole tracks here. Grindcore is wild, I tell yah what. ︎

The post Review: ByoNoiseGenerator – Subnormal Dives appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Mohammed Khoirul Anam

Style: Deathgrind, Grindcore, Technical Death Metal, Progressive Death Metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cattle Decapitation, The Red Chord, The Number Twelve Looks Like You
Country: Finland
Release date: 20 April 2025

The first time I heard saxophone in metal was “The Silent Life”, off Rivers of Nihil’s masterwork album, Where Owls Know My Name (2018), and needless to say I was hooked on those sultry tones and how they fed deliciously into the song’s thunderous grandiosity. Since then, I’ve heard it more and more, utilized by diverse acts like Operation Mindcrime, The Anchoret, The Faceless, White Ward, and Sleep Token, each time popping up like a reward; a tasty treat for my musical palate. But, I am admittedly, on occasion, a gluttonous being, not always well-known for regulating my sweet-tooth. I want saxophone to be more than a gimmicky addition, but it often feels like a dream, one never to be realized.

Color me shocked when I discovered dreams can come true in the form of Blastanus, a DIY deathgrind/epicsaxgrind act hailing from Finland. They dropped two loads in the late aughts / early 2010s (Odd and Collapse) then promptly vanished to a changing room before returning a decade later to squat out a single “Agathusia” and full-length Beyond in 2022. Now in 2025, the ass-blasting trio of Antti Oksanen (vocals, guitars, bass), Henri Fredriksson (drums), and Kari Vakiparta (vocals) have returned freshly-britched and with longtime session brasskicker Jussi Hurskainen (saxophone) in tow for another toilet-terrorizer in Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave. Can these Finnish flatulators convince me of the saxiness of their particular brand? Or will I need to break out the Febreze?

I’m not one to normally pledge to the cause of grindcore, though I do find its compact stylings and breakneck insanity an occasional source of catharsis when the sadboi-core just ain’t cutting it. There’s an artistry to crafting bite-sized vectors of songcraft from which genuine listening value can be excised. The genre also lends itself to heightened levels of emotion (usually aggression, angst, pain, etc.), with acts like Closet Witch unloading dark matter heaps of suffering in a minute or less, leading to a hyper-injection of feelings that my instant-gratification lizard brain sometimes craves. Blastanus are certainly poised to scratch that scaly itch. On the (w)hole, Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave rips through its thirty-five minute runtime with all the jarring lethality of a post-McChicken bathroom break after clearing the obligatory mid-paced sampler platter that is opener “Inauguration”—a roller-coaster climb before the cheek-clenching freefall into the corkscrew riffage, machine-gun drumming, shredding roars and porcine squeals, and decadent saxophone to follow.

Oh, the saxophone. I wasn’t prepared for just how entrenched Mr. Hurskainen is on the album: he appears on twelve of the fifteen tracks, and in various configurations: Smooth n’ sexy (“Mephitic,” “Drones”), moody and accentual (“Bloodlines,” “Justice System,” “Janedoe”), and as a Weapon of Jazz Destruction (“Cencorship” [sic]). The way he weaves and saunters around the general chaos of his bandmates’ sonic slaughter is, quite honestly, impressive and a genuine highlight of the record. It’s nice to hear the instrument included in a full capacity rather than clinched to a particular moment or style, to be shaken down for its prog-points and then discarded.

Sadly, the rest of Blastanus’ ripping and tearing feels rote and unfortunately forgettable when stacked against the brass. Most of Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave whips through one ear and out the other; few things in its thirty-five minutes generate the staying power necessary to achieve the kind of earworm constipation I seek from music. There’s an entertainment factor here, for sure, but the realization I came to as I spun the record again and again was this: Hurskainen is the not-so-secret saxy sauce. Take him out of the mix and what remains is admittedly fun, but mostly forgettable technical deathgrind. The guitars rip like a renegade chainsaw. Fredriksson’s drumming would make The Flash quake. There are inspired moments where Blastanus clench up on the aural chaos to drop some interesting nuggets: a power metal-flavored solo on “Class Warfare,” the neo-noir bass-and-saxophone chill of “Drones,” “Justice System’s” knuckle-dragging slam, or the weirdly epic ten-minute closer “Don’t Vote,” which serves as a sort of super-cut of what the album offers across its more bite-sized morsels. But despite all the flavoring, there’s little that holds me beyond the simple dopamine hit that ridiculously brutal music can provide—not even Oksanen’s railing against our corrupt governments and generally trash society. His vocals are fun and fit the style, but lack the kind of soul-flensing evocations a’la Mollie Piatetsky (Closet Witch) capable of transporting me to states of emotional extremes. Also, why is “Jane Doe” so loud? It hits like a jump scare, feeling at odds with how the preceding tracks had been mixed.

While discussing Blastanus with my fellow Subway riders, a colleague referred to the inclusion of saxophone as a “dumb gimmick.” I didn’t necessarily agree, but repeat exposure has revealed a kernel of truth here: The biggest reason to recommend Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave is the novelty of Hurskainen’s saxophone. Without him, there’s little staying power in Blastanus’ latest gas. That’s a shame, too, because I love how fully they’ve incorporated the saxophone into the totality of the album. However, by making the sax less of a feature it’s oddly become something of a bug, breaking the album by revealing the relative banality of what surrounds it. If brutal noise and sultry tones is your jam, then you’ll probably have fun with Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave. I sure did. Like SpongeBob ripping his pants, though, there’s only so many times you can do something before the schtick starts to get old and it’s time to look elsewhere for entertainment.

Recommended tracks: Bloodlines, Drones, Justice System, Don’t Vote
You may also like: Closet Witch, Nightmare Unit, Infiltration, Replicant, Brain Stem
Final verdict: 4/10

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

Label: Independent

Blastanus is:
– Antti Oksanen (bass, vocals, guitars, songwriting, lyrics)
– Henri Fredriksson (drums)
– Kari Vakiparta (vocals)
– Jussi Hurskainen (saxophone)

The post Review: Blastanus – Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde metal, brutal prog, deathgrind (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oingo Boingo, Mr. Bungle, Pig Destroyer, Cardiacs, We Butter the Bread With Butter
Country: international
Release date: 19 July 2024

Musical chameleonism is often a trait of being a musical genius (see Ulver, Devin Townsend). Neither artist plays more than a couple releases in the same style in a row before growing restless and switching it up completely because their brains must be overflowing with grandiose creative ideas a single genre limits. Musical eclecticism is a far less desirable trait in my opinion. Bands who constantly switch genres within a single track often do so by forcing styles together with a lack of finesse and without the requisite knowledge, skill, or wherewithal of when, how, or why to merge distinct styles convincingly. Usually, it comes off as an immature gimmick. Throughout their four-year career, Circle of Sighs have done a bit of both, starting with progressive doom metal, switching to abstract hip-hop-and-electronica-infused metal, and now cranking out a brutal prog EP Ursus of avant-garde, genre-switching, grindy metal. 

Ursus follows the lineage of the Hollywood blockbuster, the cinematic masterpiece, the certified fresh (ok, maybe not that last one) Cocaine Bear. The story which the album follows concerns a bear who takes ayahuasca and in its state of ego dissolution “melds consciousnesses with a trans-dimensional being.” Admittedly, this is a riotous concept, hilarious in scope and executed quite spectacularly from the evil Care Bear on the album cover to the little Midatalantic man’s spoken word about grizzlies in the track intros to the cassette version of the EP coming literally embedded inside of a behemoth, orange-flavored gummy bear. It’s stupid humor, but it’s so over-the-top it works, and Circle of Sighs came up with the only logical improvement of Cocaine Bear: Ayahuasca Bear.

The music is similarly immoderate, smashing together deathgrind and brutal prog, but it’s nowhere near as fun as the concept. The metal parts are produced horribly with the drums overpowering and obnoxious to the point of being headache-inducing. Ursus also has a distinct lack of riffs—everything just kinda sounds like a chugging blob with blast beats and snarls without melody or even interesting rhythmicity. And as alluded to in the intro, eclecticism does Circle of Sighs no favors on Ursus with the jazzy and cabaret flourishes amateurish, immature-ish on a songwriting front, and completely detached from the metal. The saxes, banjos, theremins, and flutes are a mixing of musical shades that come out like when you mix a bunch of condiments and you’re left with a vomitous shade of brown: the taking-no-prisoners production just has the distinct genres fight for which style of instrument can make the most noise without any thought about what sounds tolerable or pleasant. I get Circle of Sighs are quirky for quirkiness’s sake (their Bandcamp bio states, “Mime metal. Blackened juggling. Definitely not a cult.”), but I wish their music had the strength of execution of their silly concept. 

The worst moments take place in the latter half of the EP with annoying circus music and extended ambience in “Ursus 5,” the awful lyrics and spoken vocal performance in “Ursus 4” (a snippet of lyrics: “The feast rages into the long night our worlds now and forever linked through the chasm of glowing emerald crystals that sprung from the ground where once there were car dealerships, Ikea, Starbucks and Taco Bell.”), and the annoying nothingness of the cover of“Horsehead” from the OG obnoxious prog Cardiacs. Unfortunately, it’s not just painful to listen to from the production, it’s actively annoying and cringey circus prog. Even at only twenty minutes, I feel like I’m being strapped to a chair and forced to listen to this for an eternity as a prisoner of war. 

I don’t think musical chameleonism is a trait of musical geniusness in this case, sadly, but rather an unfocused and sloppy idea of what Circle of Sighs wants to be as a band. Instead of honing their skills to master a style, they switch from one mediocre attempt at genre to another. The poor eclecticism is just the cherry on top. If Circle of Sighs want to ever write something of substance, they need to stick with one genre for a little bit longer both in each song and from album to album.

Recommended tracks: Ursus 2
You may also like: Maladie, Eunuchs, Lou Kelly, The Beast of Nod
Final verdict: 3/10

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

Label: independent

Circle of Sighs is:
Collyn McCoy – Vocals, Upright Bass, Electric Upright Bass, Bass Guitar, Guitar, Samples, Percussion
Chris Soohoo – Vocals, Mime, Projections, Puppetry
Ryan Thomas Johnson – Vocals, Keyboards, Banjo 
Ian Schweer – Drums 
Geoff Yeaton – Saxophones

The post Review: Circle of Sighs – Ursus appeared first on The Progressive Subway.