Tooms Archives - NO CLEAN SINGING

(written by Islander)

On May 29th of this year Cursed Monk Records released Karst, the powerful second album from the Irish sludge metal band Tooms. Leading up to the release we premiered a song from it named “Lowlander“. In that context, we described the music as “dismal and disconcerting,” but “galvanic as well as distressing, intriguing as well as traumatic”.

As that song demonstrates, and as Tooms repeatedly demonstrate over the course of Karst, their music hits with heavyweight force and also explodes in episodes of searing intensity and battering fury.

Today we have a startling reminder of all that, and one that hopefully will seize the attention of people who may have overlooked Karst so far. It is an attention-seizing video for what Tooms call the darkest song they’ve ever written — “Whitethorn“. Continue reading »

(written by Islander)

The cover image on Tooms‘ new album Karst might make most people wonder about the musical direction this trio from the west of Ireland decided to follow over the years that have passed since their 2020 full-length debut, The Orb Offers Massive Signals. It doesn’t seem to match up with the band’s reputation for creating progressive sludge metal that delivers punishing heaviness and oppressive gloom, digging deep into the muck of life.

It might make a bit more sense in the context of what the press materials circulated on behalf of the band’s label Cursed Monk Records say about Karst, referring to the guitars’ “rich, snarling effervescence beneath a crust of dried blood and dirt” and the music’s “sense of life, in all its glorious, torturous, filthy, vivid vibrancy”.

But Tooms’ appreciation of life’s gritty vibrancy and their perception of beauty within it is clearly quite different from what’s represented in a floral arrangement. To understand that, listen to “Lowlander“, the song from Karst we’re premiering today. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: TOOMS — “WHITETHORN”

AN NCS PREMIERE: TOOMS — “LOWLANDER”