Having completely missed his debut solo outing from five years ago, I can thank the algorithm gods for placing Kirk Windstein’s sophomore effort into my feed suggestions. With 2025 being the year that I finally got to grips with doom as a sub-genre, and with Crowbar being something of an unsung sludge favourite of mine, I soon found myself approaching Ethereal Waves with a heightened sense of excitement. Whilst I cannot profess to being massively in love with Kirk’s vocal style, his riff mentality more than floats my boat.

As expected therefore, Ethereal Waves is stocked full of riffs. Soon enough I was nodding along respectfully, appreciating the Iommi-inspired chugs as they landed consistently in front of me. Not that this is solely what the record I about by any means. Windstein has some straight up heavy metal on display here also which makes for a positive slant on the aesthetic of the album overall. For all the misery that exudes from tracks such as ‘Eulogy’ there is enough mid-paced activity, including an unexpectedly upbeat cover of The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, to keep things interesting. Whilst the doom credentials are hard to ignore on the album, it does contain some depth for the bullet belt and denim cut trad metallers out there.

Having former Exhorder guitarist, Vinnie LaBella provide leads, as well as producing the record, certainly adds character to proceedings along the way. Whilst not exceptional, the solos are able to paint some further emotion into songs, that makes up for the singular style approach that Kirk has around his vocals. Lyrically, the album isn’t all that strong and they do come across as half-baked, if not borderline amateur on a couple of occasions. However, I am not here for the lyrics, more the huge riffs and those enriching leads. During the past few days of listening through this album, I have at the same time been visiting Dream in Motion and I have concluded that Ethereal Waves is a step up from the debut.

Possessing more memorability than its predecessor, Ethereal Waves avoids the need for catchiness still, coming off as a more succinct listening experience as a result. The instrumentation is well balanced across guitars, percussion and keys. The Hammond Organ sound on ‘Rise from the Wreckage’ is an absolute joy to my ears. For all the positives, I still only like the album, I am not madly in love with it. Whilst it most certainly is accessible enough without being mainstream, it lacks any true bite to make it outstanding at any point. We still have a perfectly respectable album from one of sludge metals legends, albeit him showing a softer side than usual in some places.

Throughout the years, I can honestly say that I've never had an issue with In Mourning. They have made some pretty solid progressive death metal throughout the 2010s, but every time I visit their music, it either comes at a time when I'm not really interested in that style of music, or another, more potent progressive death metal album has just released which keeps my attention longer. The Immortal is likely the first time I've been able to fully enjoy an In Mourning album and coming to realize just how good they are. The album might have progressive as a primary genre tag, but if you're expecting the kind of wonky, abstract prog metal of Dream Theater or Between the Buried and Me, you'll likely be let down. The songwriting is very solid with some very good melodic themes and dynamics. The growth of some of the themes might be a little lacking, but tracks like "Song of the Cranes" and the closer "The Hounding" show that fully developed motif. The album as a whole is a brisk listen with the expertly placed "Moonless Sky" interlude. My one complaint, which isn't so much of a complaint more than it is an observation, is Tobias Netzell's harsh vocals. For a death metal album, they do feel a little bit on the weaker side; they almost remind me of Matt Heafy of Trivium, which likely means the use of the fry vocal technique. It isn't a determent to the album; in fact, it probably gives the heavier sections a little bit more character than other similar death metal albums, it's just something I noticed that caught me off guard.

This record won't win any "heaviest albums of 2025" awards, but for a few moments, The Immortal was a captivating listen. The fullness of the instrumentation, combined with some very subtle progressive song structures make it stand out. Like In Vain last year, it's surprising that this album made it here as late into the year as it did, but better late than never I suppose!

Best Songs: Song of the Cranes, The Sojourner, North Star, The Hounding

P.S. I thought for sure that I had reviewed this album before once I saw the album cover. It bears a striking resemblance to ...And Oceans The Regeneration Itinerary. Just a friendly warning for those wanting to check this out.

Well, I'm one demo and two albums in, and it's becoming quite apparent that Sadus is one of those bands that has to write the same album in order to stay noticed.  And if I'm wrong, you certainly wouldn't know it from this sophomore effort, because Swallowed in Black sounds EXACTLY THE SAME as their debut, Illusions. Well, that's mostly true.  I'm not sure, but something about the bass feels toned down, like it's slightly adjusted but managed to trigger no real effect.  Because it sounds exactly the same, you may be pleased that the riffage and the heaviness are still on point.  This is in fact, Sadus.  But that can only justify so much.  To me, rewriting the same album with very few new techniques is just being lazy.  It's basically saying, "look at what we can STILL do because we're afraid to try anything new."  And the few little things that are new, like the intro to Good Rid'nz, are typically so quickly disposed of that it actually kind of feels insulting.  Thankfully, this doesn't always happen, with the midtro of Images being a good example of incorporating a somewhat slower tempo and a more intriguing yet monotone composition in the mix.  But once again, it still finds its way back to the same generic thrashing.  The album doesn't have a single song that shows the band focusing on a new direction until the six minute Arise which is the 10th out of 11 songs!  As a result, I am much less excited by the riffs and whatnot that were done so well on the first album.  They're fun for the thrash fan in the long run, but they feel mostly like empty shells, especially since the album's longer.  That which I called "face-melting" when reviewing the debut seems less so.  I know this is a thrash classic, is loved by thrash fans and is even bolded on Rateyourmusic, but I'm gonna be "bold" for a minute and say: I got more out of Kenny G's Duotones.

Even though Holy Terror remains an obscure band throughout most musical and even metal-based communities, the thrashers go crazy over their second and final album, and with excellent reason.  There are a few noteworthy changes between the debut and the sophomore.  First: the production is better.  I find that a bit interesting, considering the lo-fi nature of the previous album's production aged well.  However, it's not QUITE perfect, so it loses the acidic charm of lo-fi metal.  Second: the album is much faster.  The energy of the previous album was easily a saving grace considering that the songwriting didn't stand out, so this excess in energy helps this second piece to reach Kreator levels of energy.  Thirdly, the songwriting is a bit more unpredictable, surprising and sometimes progressive or a little neoclassical.  It seems that the group went through a major stylistic re-evaluation in order to make this album, and it worked out beautifully.  The Immortal Wasteland has a more cinematic and storytelling presence to it than anything that came before, a bit like a power metal song or something by Manilla Road.  In fact, that one song alone can symbolize how far they came since their enjoyable yet generic debut, but we get a three-part song immediately afterwards, almost a la Pink Floyd.  The title track is an absolute pace-changer than challenges out idea of proper songwriting while boasting about the jam-packed nature of the intro while the last 2.5 minutes of manage an actual song that has some amazing riffs, but needs the vocalist's singing to raise the volume a bit.  As well, it finally achieves a little sameyness by the end, which is unfortunate considering how surprising the album was.

So other than these three little gripes, this album would be flawless.  This is one of the most fun, jamming and heavy thrash albums of the 80's, and I'll definitely check it out a second time.

97

Yet another classic built on speed and aggression, once again there's not much in the stylistic department that separates this album from many classic thrashers of that day and age.  With their debut album, Sadus makes a point of raw, untamable, face-melting riffs that walked right out of the radioactive waste bucket.  Some of the songs from their Death to Posers demo make it onto this album with clearer production, which has little-to-no reverb and no noise in the background, being crystal clear without shoving effects in your face.  Major riffage and vulture shrieking, end all be all.  Now how does the composition stack up against the others?  The album is extraordinarily fast-paced, even for thrash, so the band is able to switch tempos like a possessed pocket knife releasing and sheathing its many tools.  But because many of these songs are between 1:40 and 3:00, this often comes at the expense of the songs feeling fully structured, like it's just plain missing verses that somehow got left out by accident.  In other words, this album is a raw exercise in metal energy rather than writing, so it manages to be quite a bit of fun for the thrash band and has aspects that are superbly well put together, but still manages to feel incomplete.

82