Hey there, tech fiends. It's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands to hear, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
Once more, we zero in on new music from relatively new acts, this time, from Tómarúm. A group whose take on tech-death draws heavily from atmospheric and progressive strains of black metal. By re-incorporating this variety of black metal influences back into proggy tech-death, Tómarúm has crafted something rarely heard in my opinion.
I'm excited to help Tómarúm launch an early stream of their new two-song EP, Wounds Ever Expanding, ahead of its release this Friday, February 7th. The impressive artwork alone should draw you in, but, the music itself has so much to offer that will keep you hooked for multiple spins as well. As is often the case, Wounds Ever Expanding is so eclectic and hard to easily describe that it's a much better idea to just listen to it than have it described to you.
In the interest of trying to get something from the artist about what is being premiered, Tómarúm shared with us that "We began work on this EP late last year when our former bassist James wrote “Crimson Severance” and presented it to the rest of us. The song didn’t fit stylistically with the rest of the material we had written for our debut full-length, but we didn’t want to just release it as a stand-alone single, so we decided to write another song to complement it and release the pair as an EP.
Compared to our 2019 demo, which was more mid-paced and meditative, this EP is more intense and energetic. Some of the progressive elements that we had previously only flirted with are a lot more pronounced, and the arrangements overall are a lot more complex, drawing a lot of influence from technical/progressive death metal in addition to the Wolves In the Throne Room inspired black metal present on the demo.
Lyrically the EP deals with depression and suicidal ideation. The main reason I started this band was to have an outlet to help me process negative emotions, so when writing lyrics I’ve always made a point to be open and vulnerable, to retain a certain level of simplicity such that the meaning doesn’t get lost in metaphor. James wrote the lyrics to “Crimson Severance,” and while those are a lot more figurative I feel he did a great job conveying his feelings.
This EP marks a huge step forward for us and we are all super proud of what we’ve created. This is our first serious, professional release, and to be able to work with both Mariusz Lewandowski and Colin Marston on it has been a dream come true. We hope you feel as strongly about these songs as we do!"
So do check out the two-song effort being premiered below. You can order the effort over on the Tómarúm Bandcamp Page and follow the group over on the Tómarúm Facebook Page.
