(written by Islander)
As you may know, No Clean Singing is a lead sponsor of Northwest Terror Fest, and its 2025 edition kicks off tomorrow in Seattle for a three-day run. It’s a stacked lineup, but one of the bands I’m most eager to see is the Seattle outfit Turian. And the timing is perfect, because they’re just a few weeks away from the release of their new album Blood Quantum Blues on Wise Blood Records.
Anyone who has followed the upward trajectory of Turian knows that they’ve never felt hemmed in by genre boundaries. Each release has seen them mixing influences together in often mind-boggling ways, and rarely in the same way. “Expect the unexpected” is good advice for going into what they’ve done so far, and an even better piece of advice in the case of Blood Quantum Blues.
But don’t take our word for it. Take the word of some of Turian‘s members:
Photo by John Donovan Malley
From guitarist Ryan Metztli-Moon:
“We are always trying to push ourselves and make better music, so we are never married to a sound or ideology. A big push for us on this record was to make exactly the music we wanted to hear and not compromise on anything until we were all happy with it. That ultimately encompasses an enormous amount of influences and ideas.”
And from drummer Andrew Nyte:
“This is the first album where we truly feel like ourselves. Up until this point we were searching for our voice, but the influences were always there. Specifically, we wanted to bring electronic production into the mix, since a couple of us have been making electronic music longer than making metal. I think that was a huge change for us and one that felt completely natural.”
We should also add a few words about the new album’s lyrical themes, from vocalist Vern Metztli-Moon:
“As a Yaqui Indian, this album is about my ancestors, acknowledging their unheard grief and our transcendental connection to
one another. It’s also about my decision to confront and break cycles of destruction caused by multiple generations of colonial genocide.”
What we have for you today is the premiere of the new album’s title track, and it’s a powerful representation of everything you’ve just read from Turian‘s members. Regarding the lyrics of “Blood Quantum Blues,” we’ll turn again to Vern:
This song is calling out blood quantum laws for what they are: a tool of genocide… divisive pseudoscience. Resistance to eugenics that only serve to eliminate and eradicate indigenous communities. Blood quantum laws are a relic of racism. We see our populations decreasing, we see Blood quantum for what it is: ETHNIC CLEANSING. Blood quantum blues serves up a big fuck you to genocidal squatters.
I was inspired to write this song after having heard enough progressive white savior types speaking on native issues-claiming to be a voice for the “voiceless”. We’ve never been voiceless, we’ve always been vocal… I wanted to write about a very real native issue, from the perspective of a radical Indian. This is the most empowering song I’ve ever written and performed. I wrote it with my fellow NDNs in mind – it feels amazing to scream “fuck your manifest destiny” and “Indians don’t vanish” – I can confidently say that natives everywhere will fuck with this. Land back 🙂
And now let’s get to the song, which Ryan calls “the center point of the album on all fronts.” (Make sure your head is screwed on tight because otherwise it might spin off — while it’s simultaneously fracturing.)
The rage in the lyrics explodes throughout the song in the raw, blowtorch intensity of the vocals, and there’s fury in the music too. Turian lean into their hardcore influences — the song is a heavyweight slugger, anchored by bone-bruising grooves and fretwork that viciously jabs and menacingly seethes. But as expected, the song also makes plenty of twists and turns.
Siren-like pulses and throbbing bass beats infiltrate the pulverizing body blows and cutting riffs. Weirdly warbling and feverishly ticking electronics create surreal sensations. Shifting the groove and the riffage, and bringing in vivid drum-fills, the band also create sounds of desperate tension.
The music also seems to dismally spiral down, leading to a bunker-busting breakdown where the drums go off like guns, the bass punches through walls, and the fretwork delivers pile-drivers — with one final burst of lacerating vocal intensity and freakish tonalities to close things out.
Now let’s turn back to Turian members for some of their own insights about the song:
Ryan:
This song is the center point of the album on all fronts. Our biggest mesh of electronics and production as well as some of the strongest lyrics. Some of the ideas we were able to work into this song actually make me laugh (there’s a goddamn panther screech in there somewhere), it’s just ridiculous and honestly still a super fun song for me to listen to.
Drew Nyte:
Much like “Chemical Bath” [the album’s first single], this one initially sounded way different. It went from being an Odd Fellows Rest – era Crowbar tune to the wild fusion it is now. I remember Ryan joking about having an intro like Lil Wayne’s “A Milli”, and once that happened we spent the better part of 6 months trying everything under the sun until it worked.
TURIAN is:
Vern Metztli-Moon – Vocals
Cris Sanchez – Bass
Andrew Nyte – Drums
Ryan Metztli-Moon – Guitar
Carlye Nyte – electronics
Blood Quantum Blues was recorded by Nicholas Wilbur at The Unknown, and Turian at Buster Room. It was mixed by Jamie Uertz at Silver Cord, mastered by Johann Meyer at Silver Cord, and produced by Andrew Nyte. It features cover artwork by Diske Uno and layout by David Jaggar. The band have dedicated it to Gabe.
Wise Blood and Turian will release the album on June 6th on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats, and pre-orders are available now. It comes recommended for fans of Converge, Deftones, Code Orange, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Harm’s Way.
Below the links you’ll also find Turian‘s previously released lyric video for the afore-mentioned album track “Chemical Bath“, which is a wild pulse-punching and head-scrambling riot in every way. Among other things, the vocals are again cauterizing, the drumming is jaw-dropping, the other instrumentation is frequently freaked-out, but the song will make you bounce too!
PRE-ORDER:
https://turian.bandcamp.com/album/blood-quantum-blues
WISE BLOOD:
https://www.facebook.com/wisebloodrecs
https://www.instagram.com/wisebloodrecords/
TURIAN:
https://www.facebook.com/turianband/
https://www.instagram.com/turian_noise/