Review: Sullen – Nodus Tollens Act I: Oblivion

Style: Progressive Metal (Mixed vocals)
Review by: Chris
Country: Portugal
Release date: March 5, 2021

Sullen: /ˈsələn/ adjective : bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy.

I mean it kind of fits here. Sullen is a band out of Portugal releasing their sophomore effort Nodus Tollens Act I: Oblivion, a blend of some modern progressive metal ideas with tinges of melodic death and electronic elements. People more familiar with the idiosyncrasies of individual writers on this blog know I’m not always into the more modern progressive metal (I fell asleep during a Haken album and I will not apologize), and these days vibe a lot more with the progressive death tinged bands. I only lay that out to give an idea of where I lay on the preference scale, because it becomes pretty relevant for this record.

Oblivion (there’s no way I’m typing the whole thing over and over) starts out pretty interesting on “The Prodigal Son” with some double stacked vocals that are very reminiscent of Joey Eppard’s vocal work in 3, or the clean vocals in Extol (honestly this album has a lot of things like Extol). This vocal treatment stays pretty consistent throughout the album so if you like that kind of sound this album will do more than just tickle that fancy. Moments after the vocal only introduction the guitars and drums come dropping in with a quick transitionary section before getting into some riffing which treads a line between death style rhythms and modern prog tones pretty decently. After some more clean vocals, the harsh vocals make their first appearance. These sit much more in a death/core esque vein which I honestly found a bit jarring and out of place, but that faded as the album went on.

A lot of the album has a reliance on somewhat awkward or off-kilter rhythms combined with the sullen (hehe) vocals and ever moving drum parts. They do get into some odder territory in the more electronic focused pieces like “Soul Interrupted”, “Human”, and “The After”. All of those I found pretty interesting and nice album flavor, though I always felt a bit let down with what followed each of them, or in the case of “Human”, what it turned into.

I sampled some of their previous album Post-Human and it seems to me the main big shift they made was mellowing out the death stylings. Few songs on Oblivion fully embrace that anymore save perhaps “Memento”, even then some of the death esque parts are a bit generic. I’d say that’s my main issue with the album as a whole. While it’s definitely pulling from a few different places and doing a pretty decent job of combining them without being a mess, I’m not sure it ended up at something I found overly interesting. It has moments for sure but I think I spent a lot of it wanting more Extol than I got and getting more modern prog than I wanted. Its biggest failing isn’t being bad or a mess or unlistenable, it’s just being a bit generic and samey throughout the main songs to really leave much of an impression on me. It’s definitely solid enough to be given at least an exploratory listen; I think for many people it may land better than it did for me.

Recommended tracks: The Prodigal Son, Memento, Human
Recommended for fans of: Extol, 3
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent, Distributed by BloodBlast – Website

Sullen is:
– David Pais (vocals)
– André Ribeiro (guitars)
– Pedro Mendes (guitars)
– Ricardo Pinto (bass)
– Marcelo Aires (keyboard/drums)