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NUCLEAR TOMB
Offer Your Life EP

Self-released (2022)
Rating: 7/10

This Baltimore, Maryland-based quartet – which formed over ten years ago – dabbles in a rather abrasive and at times progressive thrash style which is laced with a death metal coating. For me, the combo sits somewhere between Voivod and Pestilence which I also noticed in the promo materials after I listened to this latest four-track affair.

Offer Your Life offers good, often raw, material with some intriguing passages and technical segments. Vocalist Michael Brown (who also plays guitar) has a gruff tone, but he doesn’t care to dominate proceedings. Instead, the outfit excels more so in the abrasive, and at times jarring guitar tone which enables the sound to flit effortlessly between a Coroner-style of grey, melancholic wisdom to a slightly harsher, primordial streak whereby tracks such as ‘…And The Lamps Expire’ unravel like gloomy, suspenseful black / death grimness.

The only real hindrance here is the production, because although I love raw-sounding metal I feel that each instrument could do with a real boost. When the faster, aggressive passages emerge it does have a strong demo feel and the guys really deserve more because there’s a lot going on that you could easily lose in that lo-fi bombardment.

It’s not bewilderingly complex extreme metal but the guys certainly aren’t afraid to experiment with industrialised textures and scarring dissonance. This is particularly exhibited on the aforementioned ‘…And The Lamps Expire’ which really takes the band into cosmic regions, and where that primitive Voivod energy fuses well with a thrashier vibe like, say, Pestilence but thankfully not as jazzy. I’d like to hear the bass more because when Amelia Morris is able to escape the tangled mesh it really does have a gnarly drive, as does the excellent percussion of JD Lookabill.

As musicians, these guys have their thinking caps on. There’s some punky zaniness with ‘Human Error’, and then some swirling axe work too mixed with that Coroner-styled discolouration, but overall this is very much a death / thrash affair with interesting corners to explore while remaining spiky and energetic. I’m glad I came across this bunch.

Neil Arnold

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