SUNLESS - YLEM - Review By Gravarson

CD-LP-TAPE released October 29, 2021

Sunless from Minneapolis, Minnesota delivers avant-garde, technical and chaotic dark, death metal with industrial sound to it .

Complex and technically performed, yet there is "harmony" to be found and overall an exciting album for the brain as it keeps the brain going kinda like jazz.

If you like your death metal progressive and kinda far out like DHG,CODE,VIRUS etc this might be the album for you.

Personally I liked it without knowing what I was listening to because I download a bunch of promo's and take all albums in a long playlist and when I heard this I had to check what I was listening to because it was outstanding compared to a lot of stuff I get.

I would guess Sunless is a love/hate affair, no in between as it demands a lot from the "unexperienced" listener but for a "trained" ear into metal this is not hard to digest at all.

Then again I could be wrong about this theory,but if you like the style of Obituary,Deicide etc you might want to listen to Ylem first, 'cause it's pretty far from the standard Tampa , Florida death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse etc.

Not that those bands are bad, this is just miles away from those bands musically speaking.

Sunless will take you to a dark dystopian place and leave you in the darkness using moans and riffs torture your soul, Ylem is not an album for the happy individuals.

It combines darkness,chaos,misanthropy and a dead end future without a Sun, in other words a dead world, another ice cold world which Sunless create harmony through disharmony and chaos and it works very well.

Be sure you are aware of what the words "harmony" means to you though.

Chaotic riffs and walls of noise is the essence of Ylem and what makes this album so great and the drummer does one hell of a job to complete the apocalypse.

Sunless is one of those bands I'd like to see live because I bet they would kick ass (and they have a lot to prove) Poor drummer..  

All of the musicians do an outstanding job and the vocalist is not in the front like it often is with death metal, more in the background keeping it all together and adding darkness to the music while painting an obscure image that would be banned if I explained it here.

I can also hear some hints of Ved Buens Ende type of riff, still I would not compare this to them, just the abstract painted pictures maybe.

The best thing about Ylem is that something awesome happens when you least expect it, expect the unexpected 'cause this album kill posers with bulldozers.

Absolutely worth checking out!

Gravason_almighty

Sunless Bandcamp

Mitch Schooler - Bass
Lucas Scott - Guitar and Vocals
Taylor Hamel - Drums

Engineered by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording in Minneapolis, MN.

Mixed and mastered by Colin Marston at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves Studio in Queens, NY.

Album concept, lyrics, art, and design by Andrew Notsch (Hollowdusk) in New York, NY.

Recorded in the circumference of the Second Sixth Day MMXX.