Reviews: Final Light, Goatriders, Deep Space Mask, TCOMAS (Reviews By Rick Eaglestone, Rich P, Quinn Mattfeld & Matt Bladen)

Final Light – Final Light (Red Creed Records) [Rick Eaglestone]

There are certain releases that as soon as you hear about them you are immediately invested, and nothing can be truer than the off project Final Light – the collaborative effort between James Kent from Perturbator and Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson. Containing 6 tracks overall none of which are under 5 minutes so for its duration the listener is almost encouraged to stop whatever else they are doing and give this their full and undivided attention which aften hearing on its entirety I can confirm that a state of transfixion will happen not only once but with every other subsequent listen. 

Each tracks perfectly blend into one another seamlessly and at times it’s incredibly difficult to tear yourself away emotionally and pin down a particular highlight track but It Came With The Water for me personally is both fantastic and intimidating in equal measures, full of swirling synths and guitars, a heart beating drumming pattern throughout with harsh and purposeful vocal just encapsulates everything right with the release, it’s also one of those tracks that stay in your mind for a considerable amount of time afterwards, even when you are listening to something else entirely. 

It takes over and completely earworms you – If this was on the most recent soundtrack for Stranger Things people would lose their minds. Aesthetically this album is sublime – for example the final track of the release Ruin To Decay is 10 minutes of almost dungeon synth elements amalgamated almost into a sea of despair before it sweeps off into another dimension filled with heaviness and a myriad of soundscapes that you just cant tear yourself away from.

This will stay in my head for years to come 9/10

Goatriders - Traveler (Majestic Mountain Records) [Rich P]

Goatriders are back with a follow up to their strong 2020 debut release brought to us by the awesome Majestic Mountain Records. This time, the psych/fuzz foursome from Sweden offer us Traveler, which continues with their high-quality desert/space jams but takes that rock to the next level giving us a serious step forward from their first album The Magician’s Keep. First let’s talk about how this sounds. I love the production on Traveler. There is nothing sleek or overproduced which if it was that way would have lessened the impact of these jams. This needs to sound a bit more DIY/recorded in a cabin in the forest. 

Fellow reviewer David Karpel compared this record to early Screaming Trees which is perfect for the production value and for a song like Snakemother which sounds like it could have been on Invisible Lantern. But the old Trees on SST vibe totally comes through on Traveler. Where the Trees kept the songs on their early output to more of a three-minute straight-ahead psych influenced rock song, Goatriders go more for the longer psych freakouts like on the aforementioned Snakemother and the killer track The Garden where they go full on garage/psych slow burn. Atomic Sunlight is the perfect opener for Traveler; you can almost see this record as a concept album with the title protagonist beginning his quest in the forest and meeting a bunch of tweaked out characters along the way. It reminds me of the great Sleepwulf record that came out this year. I also get Witchcraft vibes from these guys. 

The proto is strong with Goatriders. Shrooms were consumed I can only assume while writing and playing Wayward Sun and may be best experience in that capacity (allegedly). Slow burn starts with some Tomorrow Never Knows type noodling into a total psych ripper. Glorious. Witches Walk is another stand out track which would have made an excellent closer as an eight-minute space rock ripper. The actual closer, Coven, is an acapella ninety-second ditty that could have been either left off or put right before Witches Walk to lead into what would have been an epic way to close out the journey. A real step forward for Goatriders and another excellent release from Majestic Mountain. I would not change a thing on production but maybe look at editing a bit or changing some of the track order, otherwise we have an excellent psych/space ripper that is highly recommended. 8/10

Deep Space Mask - In Tenebris (Argonauta Records) [Quinn Mattfeld]

Reviewing new music sometimes answers questions that you didn’t know you were asking. For example, hearing the sophomore album In Tenebris from French Doom Metal outfit Deep Space Mask answers the question, “What would it sound like if Vince Neil took over front man duties for Uncle Acid?” The sound expands beyond that bizarro-world mash-up after the opening track but the ominous lead single really does make one wonder how kickstarting Kevin Starrs’ heart with Pinot Noir and a stripey shirt would turn out and quelle surprise: it’s pretty fucking great! 

Deep Space Mask pick up the tempo immediately after Clinton Road opens a haunting doorway into the sounds that await us on In Tenebris. Dark Light (a reference perhaps to their debut album) dispenses with any reviewer’s goofy associations by achieving a Megadeathian pace under ex-Flinky Pie bassist and vocalist Raymz’ throaty howls of “We are Satan’s legions and here we rise again!” The album returns to doomier territory with the outstanding Into The Unknown but when the tonal gravity is compromised by a cringy chorus on the album’s second single Slave with “Pleasure and Pain / Let me be your Slave…” I start to think maybe Mӧtley Crüe wasn’t that unreasonable an association. 

Thankfully a return to the chugging, sludgy, heaviness comes in the form of the title track, a superlative lament that parallels emotional and sonic weight, smoothing over any remnants of sleaze-rock lingering from the previous track. The latter half of the record continues with Breakaway, a banger reminiscent of fellow French Death-Prog metallers Gojira before descending into album filler: Heavy Metal Thunder, a titular reference to Steppenwolf's coinage of the genre, peppered with clichés about being a "rock ‘n roll outlaw" and Breaking The Silence, a solid but uninspired placeholder before Deep Space Mask closes strong with the Saint. Vitus homage Strange Ways. 

For a guy who plays every instrument and sings, Raymz offers quite a bit of variety with some genuine strokes of brilliance. In Tenebris answers plenty of questions about how much Deep Space Mask has left to offer metal, whether we know we know we want it or not. 7/10

The Chronicles Of Manimal And Samara - Trust No Leaders (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]

Trust No Leaders is a pretty good mantra for the modern age, (though it's always been good advice). It's also second album from London based duo Daphne Ang and Andrea Papi an Singaporean and an Italian who came together as The Chronicles Of Manimal And Samara in 202O quickly recording their debut album Full Spectrum. On Trust No Leaders they display a more aggressive side than they did on the debut, perhaps the last few years bringing out the rage in the two of them. 

There's a wide range of influences here the overarching influence being the theatrical heaviness of Devin Townsend or Diablo Swing Orchestra and even some Mr Bungle too. The twosome approach music with no holds barred attitude to songwriting, recording this album at TCOMAS' studio in Camden Town, there's a grinding riff to Nothing But Dust, while Count The Dead has a repeating Tool-like riff as Daphne gives a chilling spoken word performance counterpointed to Andrea's clean and harsh singing voices. This style of matching the spoken word with extreme singing is oft repeated on the album but works well. 

It's a real mix of styles and sounds; the gloomy death doom of The Prophet, The Chef's Song being a quirky, extreme metal blast about eating politicians and while Human Sacrifice is sort of psych/black metal track Pound Of Flesh is raw death metal. It's all a bit mad, savage and fiercely political too. Not for all tastes but if metal with a flair for the Avant Garde is your thing, Trust No Leaders may do it for you, however I'd like to hear them take things a bit further musically. 6/10