NOT MUSIC 001:
Potmos Hetoimos – Vox Medusae

Drumroll please!

I am more than pleased to announce the first release under our brand new Not Music label! And it’s Potmos Hetoimos‘ eleventh album: Vox Medusae, coming out on September 12. I started Not Music with the intention of further supporting and promoting music that I love, beyond what the blog alone could manage to do, and I’m proud to put my name behind that album as a proof that I support it completely and entirely.

When Matt, the sole member of Potmos Hetoimos, sent me early mixes of his new album, I was just blown away! … Read more

Merkabah – Million Miles

Moloch was a defining album for me. As one of the first, and, above all, best, albums truly bridging the gap between jazz and metal into a strange form of palatable yet challenging avant-garde jazz record. The Polish quintet is now back with their third release: Million Miles. Their newest takes up where Moloch left off – kicking and screaming –, and offers us an experience that’s almost as searing as its predecessor. However, instead of pure abrasive power, Million Miles is more delicate, tasteful, and mature than its older sibling. They obviously still share the same genes, but … Read more

Coma Cluster Void – Thoughts from a Stone



Thoughts from a Stone was actually the first ever teaser released for the Coma Cluster Void experiment, all the way back in 2014. Back then, I suppose it was going to end up on their upcoming full-length, with the slogan “Aural Representation of Pain and Suffering” – Mind Cemeteries –, but the composition probably expanded or reiterated to what it is now: a twenty-two-minute, six-part suite of contemporary death metal. Contemporary? Yeah, I feel that this adjective better suits their sound than the rather narrow definition of “tech-death” or the vague “experimental” and “avant-garde” tags. “Math metal” is a good … Read more

Squalus – The Great Fish

Bass, drums, keyboards, and vocals. Those are the building blocks of California experimental death metal band Squalus. Their debut album, The Great Fish, walks the line between death and doom metal, with a lot of atmospheric tendencies, some sludge, and synthwave, I guess, into a somehow cohesive whole. Bass-driven metal acts are not a new thing by any means, but there are many pitfalls on the way to make them interesting and appealing, into which many of the contenders inadvertently get trapped. Two of the most obvious ones are the frequency range and the timbral diversity. Squalus hopefully … Read more

Nyn – Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt

Nyn is a technical death metal project with a now solid history. Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt is the project’s third release and sophomore full-length album. This time around, Noyan Tokgözoğlu sought the talents of Tom Geldschläger, also known as Fountainhead, and Jimmy Pitts, of the Pitts Minnemann Project fame (among others). While I was no fan of Nyn’s first two releases, this one is different. Through the years, musicianship improved greatly, and so did composition and production skills. First of all, the bass and guitar parts on Entropy are some of the wildest available in the tech-death world. So … Read more