Style: pop sludge (clean vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: US-AR
Release date: 20 August, 2021
Did you ever hear about pop sludge? I know I hadn’t, at least not until attempting to review this album. I was drawn in by what seemed like a combination of sludgy riffs, Iron Maiden harmonies, and entirely clean vocals. Turns out, there’s an entire rabbit hole of this type of stuff, and it’s been named “pop sludge” for its sugar coated sound. It’s a small rabbit hole, but a rabbit hole nonetheless. Other bands I was pointed to in this niche are Torche, Netherlands, and Lo-Pan. I didn’t look into them extensively, but sampling around a bit they indeed sounded similar, albeit each from a slightly different angle. But let’s talk Terminus, a band from Arkansas (despite not sounding like a pirate’s version of Kansas thanks to extra arrr’s), and the 16th group on Discogs with that name (for maximum distinguishability), for this is their third album: The Silent Bell Toll.
Silent however, this album is not (and I haven’t heard a single bell sound either! Liars!). Because extra thicc sludgy riffs permeate every fibre of this record. They’re quite basic sludge riffs, but the way they’re incorporated in the songwriting and the great production value makes them very effective. Sometimes they lean more into the doom aspect, other times they smack you with a midtempo pummelling, and during the remainder they rock you with these delicious groovy riffs. Neither of these elements are particularly unique (albeit nice to have if done well), but that’s where the other notable factors that make up Terminus’ songwriting come in. The Silent Bell Toll is entirely clean vocals. They have this poppy stoner rock vibe to them, with a smidge of post-hardcore sassiness in the lyricism. Mixed with some delicious Iron Maiden-esque harmonies and guitar solos, the music suddenly gets a huge pop vibe.
But this is a prog blog right? What’s a pop album doing here? Well, there’s quite a bit actually. Admittedly, it’s more of a prog-lite thing than a dazzling display of technical musicianship, but it’s there. The bridges are frequently sprinkled with Mastodon-isms like psychedelic noodling and tempo change-ups, and there’s quite a bit of hard-soft dynamics going on. In the latter half of the album the track lengths go into prog territory too going up all the way to the doomy 10 minute closer “Oh Madrigal”. I didn’t really like this one though unfortunately. I’m very picky with my doom, and when it just sounds like another genre slowed down I tend to zone out, which is very much the case here I felt. It takes five minutes to get going, and shortly after there’s a 1.5 minute minimalist guitar break which took too long for my liking. The extended guitar solo closing the song that comes out of it is pretty great though, so there’s that. They also put in three instrumental tracks, which are generally quite psychedelic in nature and all opt for a post-metal type crescendo structure, giving you a good amount of breathing room amidst the heavier tracks.
There’s not much to fault this record about, but I can talk about the pacing. I mentioned the closer being a more doomy cut, but the title track preceding it (not include interlude) is also one of the slower songs on the album, making the album suddenly seem much longer than it really is. I imagine this is not a problem for the doom fans reading this, but it was for me. I feel like they start repeating themselves too much as well in the second half. The songs are just as competent as before, but there’s not enough new tricks to keep me from being bored. Musically they rehash more or less the same ideas, and there’s not enough variety vocally as the dude remains in the same small range with the same exact timbre all the time and his delivery doesn’t change much either. I imagine someone who’s sunk deeper into the swamp wouldn’t share these criticisms nearly as much as I do, if at all, but as someone who only has a casual adoration of the dredged parts of metal, I did get bored towards the end of it.
But that’s gonna do it for me with this record. I greatly appreciated the new angle this band brought to expand my musical horizons in “pop sludge”. The catchy melodies are true earworms, and hearing sludge with guitar solos is amazing. However pacing issues in the second half and a lack of overall variety managed to drag it down for me. I do highly recommend it for the more die-hard slow and/or fuzzy metal fans though. They’ll likely get more out of this than I do.
Recommended tracks: Black Swan, Origin of Fossils, The Silent Bell Toll
Recommended for fans of: Torche, (hard-rock era) Mastodon, Lo-Pan, (early) Trouble
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Terminus is:
– Sebastian Thomas (vocals, guitars)
– Julian Thomas (bass)
– Scott Wood (drums)
0 Comments