Style: Progressive Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Will
Country: UK
Release date: 1 July 2022
It’s something of a cold comfort, when living through turmoil, that difficult times are often accompanied by interesting music. Despite the UK’s excellent pedigree in reactionary music, there has been precious little emerging from the Isles even after a number of years where the political situation has been more than a little tumultuous.
With their new album Trust No Leaders, with its Soviet Propaganda-esque album art, The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara (TCOMAS) aim to remedy that situation and speak truth to power via spoken word poetry, singing and screaming all set to a backing of growling metal riffs.
[TW for YouTube Video: Images of war, torture, genocide]
TCOMAS’s slick website features the fairly audacious claim that they are “‘pioneers of a new form of expression’ through the performance of poetry in music”. Though poetry set to music is often referred to as “lyrics”, which are believed to have been invented some time before this band. But, to give the band the benefit of the doubt, perhaps we might interpret this to mean their use of spoken word poetry in their music. This, of course, is completely original, revolutionaryand something that no-onehas ever thought to dobefore.
Though not as original as TCOMAS would like, their diverse vocals are genuinely effective. ‘Human Sacrifice’ features hypnotic almost gregorian-esque chanting punctuated with excellent raw vocals and objectively the best pronunciation of the word “order” ever put on tape; Stark looming environmental catastrophe soundtrack “Nothing but Dust” paints a chilling picture of the effects of climate change with an icy matter-of-fact delivery; And “Chefs Song” and “Scum of the Land” mixes playful skits and dark lyrics set to a nursery-rhyme style.
The vocals are well accentuated by the musical stylings of Andrea Papi who really knows his way around a riff from jagged, chaotic System of a Down licks on “Scum of the Land”, to more melodic and groovy backings on “Nothing but Dust” and even dark, moody soundscapes on tracks like “The Pied Piper” which couple well with Daphne Ang’s whispered beckonings.
The fundamental difficulty with Trust No Leaders is that no one seems to know exactly what kind of album TCOMAS is trying to make. On the band’s website Daphne Ang asserts “‘Trust No Leaders‘ is not about politics. It’s not about who or what is right or wrong.”. Yet the album features references to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Environmental Crisis, a wealthy elite who feed off the poor, the ever-hungry human condition puppeted by those in power and more. It seems to very much have an idea about what is right and wrong in ‘Count the Dead’ which declares “Now is the time for humanity to rise up / Our leaders have fed us lies for too long” or with songs which are literally entitled ‘Scum of the Land’. So, is Trust no Leaders a navel-gazy art piece about the human condition, political commentary or a protest album? These aren’t mutually exclusive (think King Crimson’s ‘Court of the Crimson King’) however, melding them is difficult especially if the end goal is as unclear as TCOMAS’.
The end result is an album without a cohesive tone, sometimes introspective, sometimes avant garde and other times blatantly political (yet claiming not to be). Songs like ‘Smell of Your Rot’ and ‘Prophet’ lean uncomfortably towards pretentiousness. While on other songs, meaningful messages are eschewed for flaccid platitudes: The otherwise powerful ‘Count the Dead’ ends with the words “What humanity needs is a great reset, to harmonise, not polarise, trust no leaders, but leave no one behind ” which rings more as an easier-said-than-done cliche rather than truth spoken to a government whose callous negligence has cost the lives of thousands.
Yet, there is something that begs us to give TCOMAS the benefit of the doubt here. There’s a real charisma to Ang’s vocals and passion in Papi’s musicianship and there are some genuinely powerful tracks buried here. In previous albums TCOMAS have shown they are capable of making something genuinely affecting, dark and primal and it’s frustrating that lens didn’t seem as focused this time around. Despite the myriad of interesting moments, diffuse aims means that Trust No Leaders doesn’t manage to come together as an album in the way that it could have done.
Recommended tracks: Human Sacrifice, The Chef’s Song, The Pied Piper (Also listen to their last album Full Spectrum which has some really cool stuff on it)
Recommended for fans of: System of a Down, Tool, Slice the Cake, Caligula’s Horse
You may also like: ???
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara is:
– Andrea Papi
– Daphne Ang
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