Reviews Archives - Page 44 of 601

BEST OF BRITISH: PRAVITAS / TELEPATHY / TIBERIUS

Apr 022025

(Andy Synn presents three more varied examples of shining British steel)

So here’s the thing… I almost didn’t manage to get this column written and published this week.

Not, I need to state, due to any issues with my motivation or time management, but because a particular album that I’d eagerly been looking forward to turned out to be incredibly mediocre and overhyped (here’s a tip: if you’re going to try and sell something as a progressive piece of cross-genre pollination it’s probably a good idea to not just deliver a bunch of interchangeable Nu-Metalcore tracks that quickly go in one ear and out the other) leaving me with a gaping whole in my usual three album format.

Thankfully it turned out Leeds-based Tech-Death types Pravitas also just put out their debut album, and so have ended up slotting into this article quite nicely, not only saving the day but also giving me another promising new band to talk about.

Speaking of which…

TÓMARÚM: “BEYOND OBSIDIAN EUPHORIA”

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Apr 022025

(We present Daniel Barkasi‘s review of a new album by Tómarúm, which will be released on April 4th via Prosthetic Records.)

When it comes to the more progressive side of music, no matter the amalgamation, the albums that take one on a journey are the ones that tend to stick in yours truly’s brain. Case in point: Atlanta’s Tómarúm burst onto the scene in 2022 with a mammoth slab of progressive black metal via Ash in Realms of Stone Icons that seemingly came out of nowhere. Sure, their 2020 EP Wounds Ever Expanding showed plenty of promise, but we didn’t predict a debut full-length so mature, potent, and expertly crafted.

Since then, guitarists/vocalists Kyle Walburn and Brandon Iacovella started a fascinating death/doom project in Lunar Chamber, and have been getting Tómarúm out there on the road with regularity. We managed to catch them once, and it was a memorable, hair-raising experience of intensity and technical precision.

Inevitably, the time for album number two has arrived, and with that brings the usual contemplation – can they build off of their massive debut and knock it out of the park again, or will growing pains become evident? A task especially difficult for a band who displayed such nuance and veteran-level songwriting prowess on Ash in Realms of Stone Icons. Additionally, the band officially became a five-piece within the last few years, and as a result, we have what is the band’s first written material in that formation outside of just Walburn and Iacovella, who previously were the sole craftsmen of Tómarúm. Continue reading »

DEAFHEAVEN: “LONELY PEOPLE WITH POWER”

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Apr 012025

(The following is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by San Francisco’s Deafheaven, released on March 28th through Roadrunner Records.)

Six albums into their career, these guys are not out to win over any new fans. Yet this might catch the ears of casual listeners who got lured in by the hype surrounding 2013’s Sunbather, which found these guys the talk of hipsters at craft breweries everywhere.

The band seemed to not give a shit about critical acclaim, and rather than try to double down on the post-rock formula that made Sunbather successful, they have ventured into darker corners and toyed with varied blends of shoe-gaze, black metal, and even thrashing screamo. This new album finds the band striking a perfect balance among these stark contrasts, and creating an album that is in some ways more experimental than Sunbather but also darker and angrier. Continue reading »

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Album Reviews 4 Responses »

Apr 012025

(Andy Synn presents part 1 – part 2 coming next week – of his regularly scheduled catch-up column)

Last month was so goddamn busy – both in terms of my own personal/professional/musical life and the sheer amount of albums being released – that I’m actually being forced (well, “forced”) to do not one but two “Things You May Have Missed” articles to catch up on everything that I/we missed during February.

Not that I mind too much – honestly, my biggest concern is falling behind on March’s releases while we’re still looking back at February – since although so far I’ve found 2025 to have gotten off to a pretty slow start (there’s been a lot of releases, sure, but only a handful that have really blown me away) I’m pretty sure that at least some of these records are going to find their way onto a few end of year lists.

So, without further ado, let’s enjoy the first of this month’s two-part round-up,

SHADES OF BLACK: IMHA TARIKAT, ELEVENTH RAY, WALD KRYPTA, VARNHEIM, ANGLACHEL, GEMYND BEADU

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Mar 302025

Imha Tarikat

(written by Islander)

Today is my wedding anniversary (it’s a big one, with a number that ends in a zero). Today the Associated Press highlighted some other events that happened on this day in U.S. history:

In 1822, Florida became a United States territory.
In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”
In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
In 1923, the Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived back in New York after a 130-day voyage.
In 1939, Detective Comics issue #27 was released, featuring the first appearance of the superhero character Batman.
In 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, Communist forces occupied the city of Da Nang.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr.
In 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.

Let’s celebrate! Continue reading »

THRONE OF ROACHES: “CHRYSALIS”

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Mar 282025

(Straight outta Malmö, Sweden, Throne of Roaches released their debut album Chrysalis last month, and today our writer DGR gives it an extensive review… after some extensive thoughts about what’s going on with death metal in the modern era.)

For those who’ve been paying attention to the recent spate of reviews the site has run – and those by yours truly – ever-observant as you are, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had a recent string of album arts in which the predominant color has been blue. Well enough of that bullshit, it’s time for a change. Now, we’re going with the color green for an album or two.

Every year tends to bring with it some sort of theme – other than usual overarching abject misery – that picks at the brain until it finally unclasps like a louse killed and rots away into dust. This year in particular has been poking the cortex with ideas of how metal has grown and evolved each year, and its myriad changes and how newer groups must navigate a landscape that isn’t just shifting so much as it is turbulent enough that even the FAA these days might detect that there’s something happening with a particular plane before it hits the ground. They don’t have enough coffee in the world to keep that one guy fueled.

Metal has blended many times over its generations and death metal especially has time and time again found itself bisected, dissected, vivisected, septrisected, and intersected to the point of unrecognizability. Pantheons and towers erected and destroyed in one fell swoop and just as many merged together to resemble the security guard cenobite from Hellraiser: Bloodline. What is and isn’t has proven fertile ground for those who wish to engage in perpetual argument. The concept of death of the author becomes hilarious in this regard when dealing with a genre obsessed with the actual physical undertaking and not the philosophical aspect. Continue reading »

THY KINGDOM WILL BURN: “THE LOSS AND REDEMPTION”

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Mar 272025

(As of late our writer DGR has been leaning into melodic death metal, and that tilted him into the new album by Finland’s Thy Kingdom Will Burn, released in January by Scarlet Records.)

Any long-standing musical genre will develop its own regional flavorings over time. Many of them are echoes of the first handful of groups to break through in that particular style, later to become ingrained in the blood of any following acts. The tower of influences effectively comes crashing down to be compacted into a simple statement ‘this is recognizable as having come from…’ and so on.

This is how people end up specializing in styles from certain countries, and with a practiced ear and enough familiarity, you can conjure the basic tenets of a certain region simply by seeing it referenced in front of a genre listing. Some are way more prominent than others and those that fly under the metal detection sphere instead feel like an undercurrent and noticeable pattern.

Finland has been a fun country in this respect because the one genre they truly seem to dominate is the folk-metal and folk-song-inspired genre-sphere. There’s a plethora of groups all specializing in music that sways with the rhythm of drinking songs and veers hard on the edge of feeling like an extreme take on power-metal’s sugar-laden hooks. Were Finland to wear crowns, that would be one of a scant handful teetering precariously upon its head.

No shock then, that many of those melodic sensibilities – and even particular recognizable motifs – seem to have bled through into the country’s other musical aspirations, including what seems to be a recent revitilization of its melodeath sphere. Continue reading »

EUPHROSYNE – MORUS

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Mar 262025

(Andy Synn explores the depths of grief with the debut album from Greece’s Euphrosyne)

As someone who was a big fan of Euphrosyne‘s debut EP, Keres, back in 2022 – so much that it took a spot in my “Top Ten EPs of 2022” (and arguably would have climbed even higher had it been released a little earlier) – it was a given that I was going to be the one to write about their much anticipated first full-length, Morus.

Unfortunately, time and tide (and other things beginning with “t”) worked against me a little bit last week, so I wasn’t able to cover the record prior to release.

But, hopefully the band will forgive me for the delay once they read what I’m about to write.

clipping. — “DEAD CHANNEL SKY”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Mar 262025

(This is our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth‘s review of the latest album by the clipping. trio from L.A. and their guests, which has been out on the Sub Pop label since March 14th. And it’s actually the second mention of them in our pages; the first time, almost six years ago, was here.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. There’s a very good chance that you’re not familiar with the noise hip-hop trio clipping., or if you are you may be wondering why they’re being discussed here on No Clean Singing. The answer to that question is because Islander said I could review their new album, mostly, but also because their music is uncompromising and esoteric and has plenty to offer to metal fans who are a little more open-minded.

The trio, comprised of multi-hyphenate rapper-actor-Broadway star Daveed Diggs (best known for filling the roles of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in the original stage production of Hamilton and the Snowpiercer TV series) and producers William Hutson (Rale) and Jonathan Snipes (Captain Ahab), recently released their fifth full-length album Dead Channel Sky, the album I am here to discuss. Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON – THE OSSUARY LENS

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Mar 252025

(Andy Synn takes a look at the new album from Allegaeon, where everything old is new again)

To misquote Oscar Wilde:

“…to lose one singer may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.“

Now, of course, I’m not blaming Allegaeon or saying they’ve done anything wrong, as the departures of both vocalists – with original screamer Ezra Haynes submitting his resignation in 2015 and his replacement, Riley McShane, handing in his marching papers in 2022 – seemed to be pretty amicable, all things considered.

But it’s certainly true that their vocal issues have a tendency to come at inconvenient times, just as the band are really hitting their stride (both creatively and commercially)… which is precisely why it’s understandable that the band would choose to bring Haynes back into the fold for another ride, as his instantly-recognisable voice and distinctive delivery definitely played a big part in putting the band on the map in their early years.

Of course, as we all know, trying to rekindle any sort of relationship after time spent separated is always a risk – what if you’ve simply grown too far apart to ever reconnect? – so the biggest question which The Ossuary Lens (out next week) has to answer is… is the chemistry still there, or is this rekindled romance doomed to fizzle out?

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