Hey there tech-fiends, it's that time of the week again. I'm very excited to bring you all an early stream of the new Sunless album today. Before we dive into it, here's the usual weekly reminder that all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
There were a lot of killer new acts covered within Tech-Death Tuesday in 2016, but few of them broke as cleanly from the pack as Minneapolis natives Sunless did. Their two-song demo from last year spread like wildfire, covered not only here, but at many other fine outlets as well. This was no mere fluke, Sunless are the real deal, a gritty and abstract act who deliver an eerie form of technical death metal all their own.
If you're new to the band, they play a particularly dissonant focused and Gorguts influenced style of tech-death, which is becoming more prevalent and "overdone" in the eyes of some. A feeling I can understand, though there will always be a few who do it better than others, and Sunless definitely falls in that camp. On Urraca they deliver an experience equal parts blistering, doom enveloped, and massively black metal influenced. Overall reminding me of both Baring Teeth and Imperial Triumphant, but crossbred together into one bizarre forward-thinking force. Those comparisons if you didn't guess, are meant as a high compliment. As both those bands represent a high artistic mark for Gorguts and Deathspell Omega influenced modern death metal and black metal done with a unique signature twist all their own. Something Sunless has pulled off quite well, as Urraca never feels like a mindless derivative experience without anything fresh brought to the table of their own.
Ultimately, there will be a sub-set of tech-death fans that don't "get" what Urraca has to offer, and that's okay. It's not flashy or endlessly pushing high tempos every moment, but the world it inhabits should captivate the more adventurous metalheads out there. If you've been following this space closely, you might also be psyched to know Australis mastermind Lucas Scott plays guitar and does vocals in Sunless, as we featured an early 2016 stream for Australis last year. So check out our early stream of Urraca below, and if you're digging it, the album can be pre-ordered through the Sunless Bandcamp page ahead of its official release on Friday, February 24th. Be sure to follow the band over on the Sunless Facebook page too.
