Style: experimental rock, noise rock, post-rock, post-punk, avant-folk (mixed vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Sprain, Swans, A Silver Mount Zion, Slint, Maruja, Talk Talk
Country: California, United States
Release date: 1 May 2025

Stitched together out of thousands of hours of studio recordings, Talk Talk’s 1988 painstakingly crafted masterpiece, Spirit of Eden, was a landmark album for post-rock. The band sat in a blacked out room equipped with an oil projector and strobe light twelve hours a day for several months, listening to the same six tracks on repeat; session musicians would jam for hours on end only for Talk Talk to use mere seconds of the result; and the group recorded with a twenty-five person choir only to decide “nah, this ain’t it.” Spirit of Eden is a mosaic, and the tiles are treasures plundered from endless hours of tapes. That the project came together as seamlessly as it did is remarkable—one could not listen to Spirit of Eden for the first time and discern that it was sutured together note by note.

To create their debut record Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”…, Shearling—born out of the recently defunct noisy post-rock band Sprain—have similarly sewn together segments from hundreds of hours of largely improvisational recordings. The result is a single, monolithic (Motherfucker is a single sixty-two minute track) slab of noisy post-rock, avant-folk, and obnoxious British post-punk.

Motherfucker is cinematic in scope, driven by the lyrics which cover a bifurcated narrative—one side about Idaho; the other, Eden. Prosaic yet poetry, the wordsmithing is intriguing with the two stories weaving in and out of each other in a stream-of-consciousness rambling. Occasionally, the poetry touches on brilliant. Highlights include: “And the spots on our Appaloosa¹ hide / Might be mistaken for constellations at night / By obligated stars and half-imagined lines / Splattered intentionally there against the night sky” and the vulgar honesty of “I know I’m naked / Eve’s cunt obscured now / By the branch of a huckleberry bush / Adam’s cock now / So tightly sheathed by a palm frond / Before the mirror I too place a hand over / My little Appaloosa / Tucked silently away in his little stable.” The storyline reads as an allegory for queer shame from growing up in Idaho—the Appaloosa taking on an apotheosized and subverted role². The intricate symbolism is maddeningly dense, however, and some of the literary devices are implemented on the amateurish side, albeit fitting the crazed descent into madness of the storytelling.

The bard of this chaotic story, Alexander Kent, provides an impassioned vocal performance that will make or break the album for many. His first vocal entry after the first 4:00 of instrumental noodling, dissonance, and feedback is an incredibly unpleasant moan. From there, he ranges from dramatic spoken word to the rambled shouting of a madman, from operatic croons to gruff, almost-growled barks and wailing moans. His voice drips with pain—maybe some malice—from years of shame and stigma, and the screams can be cathartic (the intermittent large climaxes are the prime examples), but for an unfortunate portion of the time, Kent’s atonal shouts and vocal deliveries are grating, horrific for listening; he needs to save the aggressive shouts for the crescendos lest they ruin their gravitas… which they certainly do. The godawful singing fits the vulgarity and verisimilitude of the lyrics, but Kent should focus on a more subtle delivery when the music calls for it. 

The music on Motherfucker traverses a diverse range of influences. The record is spliced together from a mix of phone-recorded demos, jams, live recordings, and traditional studio sessions, Shearling carefully attempted to put together the recordings into a cohesive sonic epic à la Talk Talk… emphasis on attempted, though. The songwriting of Motherfucker transcends stream-of-consciousness into the nonsensical. Climaxes materialize out of nowhere; Pharoah Sanders-esque saxophone parts or home-made Gamelan bells are equally as likely to be played by Shearling; ethereal industrial styles reminiscent of Lingua Ignota make their appearances in between the abrasive noise rock; and non-Western drumming styles may transition into glitchy electronic beats. Nary a consideration is made for transitions, either. Even the final five minutes after the final epic climax—the clear high point of the album is from 38-46 minutes as the bass pulsations lead into increasingly potent doses of screaming and crushing instrumentals—feel like they have little thought put into how they fit into the flow, with flatulent, deflated horns and some final random screams closing out the track. Shearling ensure the listener never knows what’s coming next.

Producing an album sewn from several different recording methods proves difficult for Shearling, too. Unlike Spirit of Eden which feels impossible to know was blended together as it was, Motherfucker’s collage never coalesces completely. Whatever instrumental section currently backs the vocals is unduly emphasized in the mix, and the clash of dynamics and styles renders Motherfucker a disappointingly and disjointedly assembled album. Shearling achieved an opus as haywired as it is intense, yet they get lost in the sauce doing so, the songwriting too scatterbrained for its own good. 

Many post-rock albums have suffered from over-ambition in the past forty years, and Motherfucker suffers for it, too; yet, Shearling have certainly achieved something admirable here—granted, over-long, insane, and extremely challenging (and frankly painful). To improve on the deep compositional flaws, Shearling ought to look back to Spirit of Eden. Finally, that Motherfucker is part one of a massive two-part epic must be mentioned. Clearly, Shearling are overflowing with ideas—hundreds of hours of them—so I hope they manage to restrain themselves without losing the ambitious charm so central to their identity.

Recommended tracks: it’s a one track album…
You may also like: Cime, Natural Snow Buildings, Ken Mode, Sumac & Moor Mother
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Shearling is:
Alexander Kent: Vocals, Engineering, Production, Cover Art Design, Guitar, Synthesizer, Trombone, Samples, Hammered Dulcimer, Banjo, Harmonium, Accordion, Singing Saw, Percussion, Taishogoto, Organ, Glockenspiel, Mellotron, Mandolin, Autoharp, Piano, Bells
Sylvie Simmons: Guitar, Synthesizer, Organ, Hi-C Programming, Samples
With guests:
Wes Nelson: Bass, Upright Bass
Andrew “Hayes” Chanover: Drums
Rachel Kennedy: Vocals
Mate Tulipan: Tenor Saxophone, Trombone
Ian Thompson: Alto Saxophone

1. The state horse of Idaho with a splotchy hindquarters resembling a Dalmatian. ︎
2. I mean, check out that album cover. In the context of this being a queer narrative, it is certainly striking. ︎

The post Review: Shearling – Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”… appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Dark folk, Drone, Choral (Clean vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Les Mystères des Voix Bulgares, Nytt Land
Country: The Netherlands, Belgium
Release date: 11 October 2024

Though religion has always been a guiding force in music, many artists in the modern day use ecclesiastical themes as a means to transcend religion, whether it be exploring sentiments unrelated to the church or as an act of religious subversion. Lingua Ignota’s Sinner Get Ready, for example, soaks itself in bloodstained religious fervor with the goal of processing a bevy of painful and complicated emotions both related and unrelated to Kristin Hayter’s relationship to Catholicism. While not nearly as extreme and macabre as Sinner Get Ready, De Mannen Broeders’ Sober Maal approaches music from a similar perspective—Amenra frontman Colin van Eeckhout and Flemish folk musician Tonnie Dieleman use religious themes as a framework for coming to terms with death and grief. ‘Sober maal’ is a Dutch phrase that in a Christian context describes a small meal one has in the name of practicing gratitude; let’s count our blessings and fully digest the contents of this sober maal.

Recorded in a church in Zeeland, Sober Maal favors simplicity in its folk compositions: opener “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” (All Fame Is Out of the Question) utilizes very little outside of a droning hurdy gurdy and sparse piano to build to its choral conclusion. The rest of Sober Maal follows suit, as tracks begin with a simple idea that is surreptitiously expanded upon, like the slowly accelerating percussion of “Verteere Heel” (Digest Whole) or the teetering motif that conjures funereal reflection on the title track. Sober Maal also features several spoken word segments that act as palate cleansers between some of the more monolithic hymns.

While simplicity often betrays a dearth of compositional ideas, for De Mannen Broeders, it is a vessel for accessibility and deep meditative atmospheres. Everything from the production to the songwriting feels salt-of-the-earth, even down to the poetry: despite my limited experience studying Dutch, I was able to follow along with several pieces without needing to translate due to its relative simplicity. “Verteere Heel” begins with just a simple one-two percussive pattern, but the weight of each hit is felt deep as its sonic footprint is carved into the church’s negative space; moreso as both the percussion and the accompanying vocals increase in intensity and speed near the song’s conclusion. Similarly, “Sober Maal” utilizes a repeating melody that is accentuated by piano stabs, imposing a weighty heartbreak through its mournful rumination on a single idea.

With a keen sense of space, De Mannen Broeders take full advantage of the ecclesiastical setting: buzzing folk instruments and somber musings reverberate endlessly along the walls of the church, creating an all-encompassing sound that flirts with mysticism all within a minimal palette. “Grafschrift” (Epitaph) is mostly comprised of mandolin and vocals, but the power and fullness in their delivery is augmented by a persistent reverb, vocal lines punctuated by the relative silence in their separation. “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” most directly utilizes drone ideas, guiding the listener into a trance before concluding with a moving choral passage. “Onze Lieve Vrouwe” (Our Dear Lady) takes the opposite approach to “Alle Roem”: a hurdy gurdy briefly establishes the mood as the space is filled with transcendent choral passages, only being brought back to the forefront as a complement to the choir in its closing moments. “Omer III”¹ opts for a more subdued approach, as its central focus is a spoken word passage over contemplative droning.

Sober Maal’s poetry sits in stark opposition to its musical pieces, putting into perspective the fullness evoked by the instrumentation and choir. De Mannen Broeders’ ability to create such powerful tension and release through simplistic compositions and clever use of negative space by juxtaposing full reverberating soundscapes with sparse silence is laudable. “Ons Nu Voorbij” (Past Us Now) does the best job at organically incorporating these poems through a seamless transition from former track “Onze Lieve Vrouwe,” evoking the feeling of a speaker closing a funeral service after a hymn. Additionally, “Omer III” does well with its spoken word, though it is accompanied by musical backdrop, distinguishing it from other poetic passages. 

The spoken word approach does not pay off entirely, however: “Asemruumte” (Breathing Space) is a bit too repetitive and is clunky in execution, setting a negative precedent for the otherwise decent spoken sections later on Sober Maal. Moreover, the transition from “Alle Roem” to “Asemruumte” is relatively sudden, the lack of an audio cue making the poetry feel unprecedented and jarring. “Van Licht Ontdaan” (Bereft of Light) sits somewhere in the middle, posturing as a decent if somewhat forgettable palate cleanser. Moreover, while the choir performance forms one of Sober Maal’s central points of interest, some of the lines are rhythmically awkward: “Alle Roem Is Uitgesloten” and “Grafschrift” are particularly guilty of shoving too many syllables into lines, though “Grafschrift” handles this better as it only features two singers as opposed to an entire chorus, which stops the track from becoming too muddied with voices.

In its last moments, De Mannen Broeders encourage us to move forward even while holding on to grief: closing poem “Ons Nu Voorbij” asserts that bringing together people who care has real meaning, and that it’s important to look after ourselves in the name of those who have left us. There is space inside us for the people we have lost, but still space to continue growing and experience life in full, as our deceased loved ones surely would have wanted. Sober Maal is a beautiful and cathartic folk release, effectively using a religious context and a simple songwriting approach to articulate the complications of loss and grief, and ultimately serving as a reminder to give space for the things we are grateful for.

Recommended tracks: Onze Lieve Vrouwe, Grafschrift, Omer III, Verteere Heel
You may also like: Natural Snow Buildings, Hellvete, The Visit, Sangre de Muérdago + Judasz & Nahimana
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify

Label: Relapse Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

De Mannen Broeders is:
– Tonnie Dieleman (banjo, mandolin, vocals)
– Colin van Eeckhout (hurdy gurdy, percussion, vocals)
– Pim van de Werken (piano, organ)

1. I’m being told by my official Dutch fact-checker (aka co-writer Tim) that this text is from Omer Gielliet (1925-2017), a catholic priest and artist from Breskens, The Netherlands. ︎

The post Missed Album Review: De Mannen Broeders – Sober Maal appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Héctor Pineda

Style: Post-metal, black metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals, uhhh, talking?)
Recommended for fans of: Behemoth, Solstafir, Enslaved, Cult of Luna, Tool
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 25 October 2024

Hailing from Switzerland, Schammasch has been one of the most consistently unique black metal acts of the past decade or so. Their debut album was primarily Behemoth worship, but ever since their sophomore, Contradiction in 2014, they’ve become notorious for their intense, hypnotic approach in which they combine a base black/death-ish metal sound with tom-heavy tribal drumming and varying quantities of post-metal, progressive metal, ambient, and a host of other influences. Their new album The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean is a continuation of their 2017 EP The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite, a thirty minute track split into seven parts in which Schammasch explored dark ambient, post-metal, and tribal drumming to create an otherworldly occult experience. Hermaphrodite is my favorite work of theirs, so the question is can Old Ocean live up to its forebear?.

Hypnotizing charm has certainly not left Schammasch—their intense ritualistic playing style remains as engrossing as ever. B.A.W’s percussion is especially crucial for this: his trademark tom-heavy style is played and mixed both superbly and spaciously: you can feel him move around the kit, each drum, tom, and cymbal possessing  their own coordinates in the mix (reminiscent of Baard Kolstad’s performance and sound on Leprous’ The Congregation). The man utilizes the entire kit, so when he lets loose the effect is akin to a brain massage. He also knows restraint, though, showing both a capacity for ambience with cymbal washes and sparse tom rhythms, as he shows the tact to keep the rhythms simple when the song calls for it. Often I find myself so captivated by his playing I forget the rest of the music—if we did awards for instrumental performances, B.A.W would certainly get my vote for drummer of the year.

But enough about drums, let’s talk songwriting. Like on the previous installment, Old Ocean is primarily a post-metal record, embracing Cult of Luna-esque crescendo structures and including more gentle parts, melodies, and clean singing, while most black metal aspects of Schammasch’ sound have been relegated to textural roles, only really coming to the forefront during the climactic parts, while their death metal leanings only shine through in the darker riff that underpins the crescendo of “Your Waters Are Bitter” and in C.S.R’s harsh vocal style. This approach pays enormous dividends because Schammasch are experts at keeping the listener engaged throughout their elongated buildups, consistently developing the atmosphere in interesting ways before any one idea can grow stale, avoiding the most common pitfall of the genre. In this sense, it helps that Schammasch is not a pure post-metal band and has other sources to pull from.

Take “They Have Found Their Master” and its quiet opening two minutes: under the guidance of a fingerpicked melody the atmosphere is developed first with tribal drums and breathy percussive vocals; after a minor crescendo, they up the anticipation with ethereal blackgaze strumming before the track explodes into their intense trademark style. Similarly, opener “Crystal Waves” manages to enthrall the listener for an even longer stretch with its occult atmosphere before any metal comes in, and the gentle interludes “A Somber Mystery” and “Image of the Infinite” are magical, too. Of course, the heavier moments also demonstrate tremendous craftsmanship. Besides B.A.W’s godly drumming, Schammasch uses a triple guitar attack so that each guitarist can cycle through riff, lead, and atmospheric duties depending on what the song needs, creating a densely layered soundscape at all times in which distinct genres can exist simultaneously—the almost power metal lead melody that drives “I Hail You, Old Ocean” particularly standing out amidst the song’s otherwise extreme metal character. With these elements, Schammasch crafts tremendous crescendos in basically every song, and makes the journey towards them compelling as well.

However, there is one minor criticism I have of Old Ocean, which is about C.S.R’s clean singing. He’s decent at it, but it lags behind the quality of his harsh vocals. Furthermore, some of the melody writing is a bit odd. One of the curious things about Old Ocean is that its lyrics really just read like a philosophical essay with little care for vocal melody or fitting the song’s rhythm. To accommodate this, C.S.R spends a lot of time literally just talking into the mic, sometimes in a normal voice, other times growling his speech. The man’s really good at this whole talking shtick, and it fits seamlessly into the band’s occult atmosphere. However in the sung parts, this odd approach to lyric writing can make the melodies sound a bit clunky. “Crystal Waves” does have good vocal melodies, but on “Image of the Infinite” and during the mid-section of  “They Have Found Their Masters” the melodies sit awkwardly in between singing and talking. On the former track C.S.R’s relatively lacking singing abilities are also especially apparent when Kathrine Shepard (Sylvaine) comes in as a guest singer and completely outperforms him. Fortunately, he doesn’t sing a lot on the record, so it’s only a minor blight.

At the end of the day though, my critiques subtract very little from Old Ocean. Schammasch have once again shown why they are one of the most exciting projects in black metal around, as have they proven to be at the forefront of post-metal innovation, delivering a dark, hypnotic, intense, occult, ritualistic experience that is very easy to get lost in. I do slightly prefer Hermaphrodite still for its consistency, but Old Ocean is a very worthy addition to The Maldoror Chants series, and easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

Recommended tracks: Crystal Waves; I Hail You, Old Ocean
You may also like: Sermon, Antipope, Dark Fortress, Ultha
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Schammasch is:
– C.S.R (vocals, guitars, bass)
– B.A.W (drums)
– M.A (guitars)
– J.B (guitars)
– P.D (bass)

The post Review: Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde/symphonic death/doom, ambient dubstep, post rock, krautrock (harsh vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Godspeed You Black Emperor, Virgin Black
Review by: Andy
Country: France
Release date: 23 March, 2023

Now two weeks since the release of Ne Obliviscaris’ landmark fourth album, Exul, I’m back in the trenches reviewing albums that are unfortunately not Exul. In order to be a fair critic to what I claimed, I knew that I needed to pick something drastically different from the typical fare this week: “normal” progressive metal just wouldn’t have a fair shot compared to the resplendent musical perfection of NeO. While scraping the bottom of the underground barrel, I found a Bandcamp only project of artist Matthieu Ducheine, converging his two disparate entities–Contemplation and Chrono.fixion–into a single project, Brain Mechanics. And the mixing of a symphonic death/doom band and an ambient dubstep band is just as weird and different as I’d hoped. 

In Contemplation’s “Préparation Mentale,” violins hum a melody redolent of a film score, replete with drama and tension as the dynamic pizzicato swells into the first movement of the triptych suite, “Brain Mechanics.” Ducheine’s hefty guitar work alternates between simple doom riffs and the occasional piercing lead, reminding me of Virgin Black. Moreover, the simplistic death/doom riffage provides a template for more interesting orchestrations to ornament. When the Chrono.fixion aspect of Ducheine’s brain takes control such as in Part 2 of “Brain Mechanics,” even more interesting things happen. Bass-heavy synths drone in an almost krautrock way, and the way in which the natural sounding strings interact with the more electronic ambient dub astonishes.

Woefully, next to the Chrono.fixion or fully collaborative sections, Contemplation alone feels a bit hollow–as if the riffs lack an extra captivating factor, especially in segments without careful string accompaniment. Contemplation does at least utilize the strong string compositions most of the time, of course, but except for the climax of “La Révolution n’est Pas un Dîner de Gala,” a moment I’ll return to, the doomier side of this project lacks something that Chrono.fixion has. For instance, in “Brain Mechanics, Pt. 3: Propaganda,” the bands (or separate aspects of Ducheine’s own creative mind, more accurately) craft a song which borders on Bruit ≤ almost with pulsing, electronica-influenced post rock and spoken word. Since Brain Mechanics is a one man band, I find it a little strange you can tell where the Chrono.fixion elements and Contemplation ones switch off in these collaborative songs–gentler transitions between the styles would work better. 

The two halves work on their own best in the second half of the album, leading to a bit of backloading, but the consecutive “The Contemplators” and “La Révolution n’est Pas un Dîner de Gala” show off Ducheine’s multifaceted strengths as a composer and performer best. In Chrono.fixion’s “The Contemplators,” intriguing strings mix with those bass-forward synths, and on top of it all, Chrono.fixion impose a groove like Future Jesus & The Electric Lucifer that seriously makes me want to get up and bust a move. The previously mentioned climax of “La Révolution…” transitions from a riff with stringent violin until it dramatically cuts back to spoken word, then a grand pause, into a huge metal section. And finally, the song bursts open to the heavens in a luxurious, black metal crescendo. Ducheine’s ability to build-ups and release tension throughout Brain Mechanics is quite impressive but none more so than this orchestrated black metal maelstrom. 

I’d love to hear more of this project where Ducheine fully commits to merging the two bands instead of keeping it so strangely segregated. Dis Pater (Midnight Odyssey) once released a three-way split with himself (as in all three were his own one-man projects, a hilariously absurd prospect), but on his next release, Shards of Silver Fade, he condensed all the ideas and executions of those bands into a single behemoth album, which is often lauded as his magnum opus. Ducheine doing something similar would certainly yield the best results if Brain Contemplation and its strengths are any indication. 

Recommended tracks: Brain Mechanics, Pt. 3: Propaganda, The Contemplators, La Révolution n’est Pas un Dîner de Gala
You may also like: Vitam Aeternam, Future Jesus & The Electric Lucifer, Bruit ≤, Rise to the Sky, Colosseum
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Contemplation and Chrono.fixion are:
– Matthieu Ducheine (vocals, instruments)

The post Review: Contemplation & Chrono.fixion – Brain Mechanics appeared first on The Progressive Subway.