20 Buck Spin US 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: In 2021 and 2022 respectively, extreme metal label 20 Buck Spin closed out their year of releases with firstly, a full-length from melancholic dream-doom death metallers Dream Unending, and secondly, the complex, blackened prog-death outliers Worm. In a conspiratorial twist to round a trifecta of year-ending projects, Starpath offers a split LP of sorts boasting 20 minutes of new material from both acts. The A-side delivered by Dream Unending imbues gothic post-punk melodies into their cosmic compositions whilst Worm pour their oily, grim malevolence over towering monoliths of cavernous doom.

Review: Canadian progressive death metal auteurs Tomb Mold have been relatively inactive since the release of their third full-length Planetary Clairvoyance in 2019. Returning last year with the Aperture Of Body EP, and reigniting listener thirst for head-melting, absurdly psychedelic tech-death, September of 2023 saw the trio announce their fourth album The Enduring Spirit, which would see release just a few days after unveiling. Mixed and mastered by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Code Orange, Trapped Under Ice), and accompanied by a statement from the band that detailed how they'd spent the past three years "spiraling in the cycle reincarnate necessity" and revealed that the "myriad of consciousness" has now coalesced into one hive mind. In layman's terms, this is avant-garde, complex, hallucinatory death metal far more interested in challenging our astral purpose within the cosmos than displaying macabre tales of viscera and gore.

Review: The fourth full-length from Canadian progressive death metal trio Tomb Mold marks their first full-length since 2019's Planetary Clairvoyance, but in the interim, they offered last year's Aperture Of Body EP, which served as a sonic signalling to the expansive and cosmic direction their next full-length would take. The Enduring Spirit weaves jazz-trio flourishes, prog-rock virtuosity, and dream-pop hues into a head-melting, other-worldly concoction of complex, dizzying and utterly frenetic tech-death, while never falling into the cracks of masturbatory pomposity. Though somewhat impenetrable to the unseasoned ear, what's most surprising is the manner in which many of the cascading compositional elements become regular motifs or "hooks" (if you will), leading to a project that does the unthinkable by crafting a prog-death metal opus designed to welcome and not negate. This isn't your granddaddy's death metal, mind you...