Review: Nambil Mas – Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade

No album artist credited

Style: Blackened doom metal, progressive metal, sludge metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Acid Bath, Crowbar, Mastodon
Country: Georgia, United States
Release date: 22 May 2025

Ah, the epic. Perhaps one of the most iconic facets of progressive music, alongside odd time signatures, genre experimentation, and being huge fucking nerds. Yet prog is not the only genre known for such indulgences – far off in the swampy, bong-clouded realms of doom metal, its own acolytes have long been toiling away on leaden, album-length opuses that make the likes of “Supper’s Ready” or “Octavarium” seem downright breezy by comparison. Despite both genres sharing a predilection for track lengths well past the double-digit minute count, though, their approaches are often diametrically opposed. While prog epics are often crafted in an effort to transport listeners on a journey through the wildly varying ups and downs of a suite’s many movements, doom epics are glacial and ponderous, aiming to smother listeners in a consistent atmosphere of musical and, often, emotional heaviness. 

But what if an artist made an effort to unite these two seemingly incompatible approaches? Could it be possible to craft an epic that incorporates both the gargantuan, lumbering tread of doom and the kaleidoscopic variety of prog in one complete whole? Bravely leaping into this challenge is Nambil Mas, a project helmed by a single Nambil Mastermind known as Sam Libman, with a ninety-minute, four-track slab of interestingly titled progressive sludge metal over a decade in the making. While some of the genre tags and Libman’s Atlanta roots may lead one to expect some simple Nambil Mastodon worship, the sound here leans slower, heavier, and more experimental, blending viscous, dense doom with the odd meter riffs and synthy atmospheric passages of prog, plus a shot of blackened, shrieking extremity for good measure. It’s an impressive feat of ambition for one largely unknown fellow; we shall see if he has crafted a Nambil Masterpiece, or if Nambil Más is more like Nambil Menos.

Alright, let’s rip the bandage off: while Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade certainly wins points for effort, much of the music on offer across this gargantuan sonic tetraptych is a painfully unpleasant slog to wade through. One problem, immediately obvious on the opening title track, is that the production and guitar tones frequently cross the line from “endearingly lo-fi” to “agonizingly amateurish”. The abrasive walls of distortion overpower the undermixed drums and often bizarrely distant-sounding vocals to create an effect that is nothing short of migraine-inducing, which wouldn’t be that huge of an issue except, let me remind you, every song is over twenty minutes long. Sure, there are softer, less grating sections on occasion to give hapless listeners a break, but it doesn’t change the fact that minute after minute of those goddamn guitars jackhammering my eardrums is enough to have me reaching for the ibuprofen and giving a Nambil Massage to my poor, aching temples.

This leads us, naturally, to the other main issue with this album: namely that Libman never met an idea he didn’t want to extend well past its sell-by date. To put it bluntly, each track (well, most of them at least) consists of roughly eight minutes’ worth of musical ideas stretched across twenty in much the same way a medieval prisoner is stretched upon the rack, riffs beaten so hard into the ground that nothing but a smoldering crater remains. Now, some might say, “Hey, that’s not fair – this is (partially) a doom metal record, after all. Isn’t repetition and slow pacing part of building an immersive atmosphere?” And to that I reply: doom’s slow burns only work if the atmosphere they’re building is worth a damn. From the fuzzed-out, Sabbath-esque jams of Dopesmoker to the weeping, funereal melodies of Mirror Reaper, doom’s most well-regarded epics all paint an immersive sonic landscape that listeners can genuinely get lost in: a far cry from the insufferably basic “throw a bunch of distortion on a guitar and play slow” approach that Nambil Mas so often resorts to. Thus this attempted Nambil Mashup of subgenres leaves us with a set of tracks that are too clunky and repetitive to work as proper prog epics, but too texturally dull and obnoxious-sounding to muster the impact of good doom metal – the worst of both worlds.

It’s a shame, too, because when Libman exercises his more progressive instincts, there are plenty of moments that, while a bit undercooked, show genuine promise. The aforementioned title track’s back half offers an off-kilter vintage Sabbath/Zeppelin style passage that could be a fun little diversion if its clean vocals weren’t so strangely quiet, and the following psychedelic synth section is one of the few long, repetitive parts of the album that actually manages a somewhat pleasant atmosphere. Closer “The Nambil Masochist” offers some genuinely energetic, mosh-worthy riffs in spots, and the high, wailing vocals at the end are almost impressive enough in their range to distract from the painful, cringy edge of its lyrics¹. “Nambil Masturbation” is somehow the strongest of the four, softening the unpleasant guitar tone with layers of orchestral synths while crafting a surprisingly stirring sympho-black climax that made me wonder if, just maybe, I’ve treated this album a bit too harshly.

Then “Nambil Mastication” comes on, and I realize that, if anything, I haven’t been harsh enough. Remember how I said only most of the tracks had about eight minutes’ worth of musical ideas? That was because this pathetic excuse for an epic has far, far less. Picture, if you will, the bummiest dude at the local Guitar Center, high on weed and low on talent, trying out a distortion pedal. He strums a few basic chords before letting the sound hang for an uncomfortable length of time, possibly mustering a “Duuuude” or two as he stares into space, before playing a couple more and repeating the process. Now imagine this going on for nine fucking minutes straight, and you have the intro to this abysmal, godforsaken waste of runtime². No percussion, no structure, no texture beyond the shittiest bargain-bin distortion imaginable for nine of the precious, finite minutes I have left upon this Earth. And somehow the next four minutes are even worse! At least the stoned Guitar Center guy played fucking notes – this is just vaguely gurgly, deeply unpleasant noise with the occasional bit of guitar feedback whining above it. The mediocre death-doom of the track’s final third almost comes as a relief by comparison, though it’s still not up to the already-shaky standards of the other three.

“I’ll drag myself through miles of shit and mud”, screams Libman on the aforementioned track, perhaps unwittingly creating a perfect metaphor for the experience of sitting through much of Welcome to the Nambil Masquerade. Though there certainly are tiny flashes of gold, or maybe pyrite, to be found amidst this fecal torrent – some solid odd meter riffs here, an inventive bit of atmosphere there – I sure as hell don’t feel in the mood to stick my pan back into that malodorous slurry and start sifting through it all again anytime soon. What a Nambil Mess.

Recommended tracks: Nambil Masturbation, really none of them but that one’s the least bad
You may also like: Sumac, Simulacra, fuck it I don’t care anymore get me out of here get me out
Final verdict: 2.5/10

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Nambil Mas is:
– Sam Libman (everything)

1.  From that song: “So for this night, I take, this knife  / stick it in, ‘til I break skin / I’ll, starve myself. I’ll… fuck myself!” Truly a poet. ↩︎
2. Perhaps the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had from a highly-rated album on this site was Sumac‘s The Healer, an album opening with ten-plus minutes of utterly pointless, structureless instrumental dicking around while some dude gives halfhearted growls from the next room over. This shit makes Sumac sound good. ↩︎