Metal Storm's outlet for nonmetal album reviews
The place where we'll talk about music without growls or blast beats
unless they still have those but still aren't metal
unless they still have those but still aren't metal
We here at Metal Storm pride ourselves on our thousands of metal reviews and interviews and article; metal is our collective soul and passion, which is why we bother with this junk. That being said, we'd be lying if we stuck to our trve-kvlt guns and claimed that metal is the only thing we ever listen to. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do check out some other stuff from time to time; some of us are more poptimistic than others, but there's a whole world out there aside from Satan-worshiping black metal and dragon-slaying power metal. We do already feature some nonmetal artists on our website and have a few reviews to back them up, but we prefer to limit that aspect of the site to those artists who have been a strong influence on the metal scene or who are in some way connected to it. This article series is the place for those artists who don't matter to metal in the slightest but still warrant some conversation - after all, good music, is good music, and we all know metal isn't the only thing on this planet for any of us.
Down below, you might find some obscure Bandcamp bedroom projects or some Billboard-topping superstar; as long as it ain't metal and the album itself isn't a best-of compilation, it fits. Obviously, we're certain that not everything will be for everybody (you guys can be viciously territorial even when metal is the only thing on the menu, and we're all supposed to like the same things), but we do hope you find at least one thing that you can enjoy, instead of just pointing and screaming in horror "Not metal!" as if that would be an insult.
Here are our previous features:
January 2026
December 2025
November 2025
And now to the music...
Zahn - Purpur
[Krautrock | Post-Rock]
With ex-members of The Ocean in the band (Chris Breuer) or recording the album (Peter Voigtmann), guest appearances from members of Årabrot and Radare, and Cult Of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg handling mixing and mastering, Purpur has a lot of heavy experimental pedigree within its DNA. The third full-length from Berlin experimental trio Zahn is a peculiar yet enticing mesh of styles including krautrock, noise rock, post-rock, post-punk, jazz and electronic music, primed to scratch the itches of fans of each of those aforementioned projects (as well as others such as Zombi) without owing much of its sound to the influence of any one artist or style.
Opener “Stroboskop” is a relatively sedate and measured introduction to the record, shaping post-rock soundscaping around a steady krautrock-inspired central bass groove, but Zahn’s weird side comes out not long after on “Gensher”, as the off-kilter and combative synth and guitar lead motifs, twisted rhythms and propensity towards meaty heaviness in parts bears some passing resemblance to the more recent material from Oranssi Pazuzu. There’s a playfulness to the oddness of “Diaabend”, and the trio can also explore more mellow sounds with the clean-toned and twinkly “Solex”, yet darker, esoteric heaviness is always lurking around the corner, such as on the likes of “Katamaran” or “Atoll”. Nonetheless, Purpur rounds out its unpredictable and mesmerizing journey on an almost triumphant note, backing up a punchy driving rock attack on closer “Butter” with grand, uplifting synths.
Bandcamp
by musclassia
Big Big Train - Woodcut
[Progressive Rock]
2021’s devastating passing of vocalist David Longdon could have easily spelled the end for Big Big Train, but after 30 years at the forefront of the British progressive rock song, Gregory Spawton and company were clearly not ready to call it a day. Woodcut is the second album featuring Longdon’s replacement Alberto Bravin, and is also the band’s first concept album to date. The titular woodcut is created by the album’s protagonist, The Artist, and acts as portal into a world of uncertain existence. The narrative is rendered with an hour of lush prog that resembles both the 70s heyday of British progressive rock and the understated emotionality of the turn-of-the-millennium modern prog scene populated by the likes of Porcupine Tree.
The album, while featuring its share of virtuosic moments, is more centered around crafting compelling songs with memorable vocal hooks, riffs and melodies. While Longdon leaves the kind of legacy that is futile for a new vocalist to try and take over from, Bravin is a perfectly competent vocalist in his own right for this kind of music, and equally fits the classic prog rock found in the likes of “The Artist” and “Albion Press” as he does the dark folk on songs such as “The Sharpest Blade”. Woodcut does start to flag with the concept at times in the second half, particularly with the back-to-back quasi-interludes of “Light Without Heat” and “Dreams In Black And White”, but overall it’s a perfectly worthwhile classic prog rock album from a legendary voice refinding its feet in the aftermath of tragedy.
Bandcamp
by musclassia
Mandy, Indiana - URGH
[Electro-Industrial | Noise Rock]
For a band whose name seems more fitting for indie rock or post-rock, but whose album title seems more fitting for the noisy electronic sound they go for, Mandy, Indiana is somewhat of a new-coming band. Despite being formed ten years ago they only started putting out stuff in 2020, with an EP and a full length released prior to URGH. Even from the start, the band played around with a bunch of punky electronic and noisy sound, with various degrees of industrial or post-punk or noise rock presence.
By URGH, that post-punk leaning has solidified into something closer to electro-industrial, while the rockier side sits closer to industrial/noise rock. There's a lot about the album's sound that feels very provocative, with the vocal processing on the album's opener being the biggest "take it or leave it" moment before the rest of the album channels its noise into something a bit closer to the cold repetitive rhythms exploding with noise that the genre is usually known for. Something about it, from the rhythms to the vocal performance, can feel a bit tongue-in-cheek, which does make for a more fun listen.
Bandcamp
by RaduP
The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis - Deface The Currency
[Jazz-Rock | Avant-Garde Jazz]
It's the best case of "judge the book by its cover" because everything about Deface The Currency's packaging screams "jazz", somehow just as much as their slightly different in aesthetic debut. Of course the big surprise is that the jazz that The Messthetics along with James Brandon Lewis are doing jazz in a pretty ambitious way. Not in terms of scale, since both Deface The Currency and the self-titled debut were fairly short, but in that they take the "rock" part of "jazz-rock" seriously.
Obviously it is jazz because it has a saxophone, but also because of how prominent that instrument is and how it's used, there's always a jazzy feeling to Deface The Currency even at its rockier moments, but a lot of it is jazz even outside of it, mostly in the avant-garde jazz fusion of the 60s and 70s style. What does take it apart is how the rock side of the music feels less indebted to the prog rock of the 70s and more indebted to the post-hardcore of the 90s, with some people drawing quite reasonable parallels to Fugazi.
Bandcamp
by RaduP
Tigran Hamasyan - Manifeste
[Jazz Fusion]
musclassia's pick
Tigran Hamasyan is one of the jazz musicians with the greatest crossover appeal with the metal community; the pianist initially wanted to be a thrash guitarist, and has gone on to develop a polyrhythmic, punchy piano style that has at times drawn comparison to acts such as Meshuggah (indeed, Animals As Leaders’s Matt Garstka performs drums on this new record). That said, Hamasyan is a jazz musician above anything else, and Manifeste is very much a jazz album. At just over 70 minutes, it is actually quite a bit shorter than 2024’s 2024’s The Bird Of A Thousand Voices, but it still has plenty of time to explore the various facets of Hamasyan’s sound.
The song “War Time Poem” is inspired by the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Manifeste as a whole features celebrations of Hamasyan’s Armenian heritage and culture, with traditional instruments such as the blul appearing on “Window From One Heart To Another – For Rumi”, as well as guests such as Asta Mamikonyan (“Per Mané – Eb Venice song”) and the Yerevan State Chamber Choir (“National Repentance Anthem”). Another Armenia-inspired track, “Yerevan Sunrise”, is a fascinating mixture of jazz (led by trumpet), electronica, and melodic sounds that could well appear in an anime soundtrack. Those looking for demonstrations of Hamasyan’s unique virtuosity can look towards the title track, “Ultradance” and “Seven Sorrows”, while “Years Passing – For Akram” and “The Fire Child – Vahagn Is Born” offer more mellow listening.
by musclassia
Bruno Pernadas - Unlikely, Maybe
[Neo-Psychedelia | Jazz Fusion]
RaduP's pick
There is something that makes dreamlike music in a language that you don't speak feel more ethereal. And there's something that feels especially ethereal about Portuguese, whether it's the Brazilian or the European version, in this case it being the latter. The previous time I've encountered Bruno Pernadas music, I quickly declared him to be among my favorite Portuguese artists, especially appreciating the joy and color in 2021's Private Reasons. Five years later, there's an universality about that joy and color that is continues even with a slight shift in nuance.
Private Reasons was, for all its color and nuance, an album I could call primarily a pop one. That pop element is still strong in Unlikely, Maybe, with the same progressive and psychedelic nuances to it, but some parts of the sound are more pronounced, enough for it to not feel like pop is the primary nuance, with the psychedelic and the jazz side of it, the latter especially strongly imbued in world music flavours, that make Unlikely, Maybe feel like such a warm listen, the kind of ethereal mood that feels more jovial than melancholic.
Bandcamp
by RaduP
Fågelle - Bränn Min Jord
[Indietronica | Post-Rock | Dark Folk]
I discovered Klara Andersson’s project Fågelle through the sophomore record, Den Svenska Vreden, which I reviewed 3 years ago. The album pretty much consumed me. It is an album I still heavily listen to as it has become one of my go-to non-metal albums when I need something quiet yet still filled with substance and emotion. You can imagine my excitement when I found out she was working on a follow-up. I don’t often pre-order records but I made an exception this time because I was sure that Klara Andersson would be cooking something intriguing. She commands a clever mix of ethereal sounds and influences. Ranging from different styles of moody electronica like glitch, industrial and ambient to more conventional but no less dark tones of nordic folk and minimalistic pop.
Just like with her previous album, Bränn Min Jord is a thought-provoking title. It means “Burn My Soil” and references the act of burning land to allow for new growth. The title cleverly hints at the album’s cyclic nature of building up complex songs only to let them burn down in the form of fiery, emotional climaxes only to restart the process once again. The repetition and groove on some of these songs made me think of the tension I’ve heard on some of Swans’ later post-rock work while the bursts of emotional turmoil would sit well with any fans of Anna Von Hausswolff (“Innan Malen Hittat In”, “Satans Jävla Fan” and the title track are great examples of this mix of sounds). Bränn Min Jord is more experimental than her previous work. With more tracks and much shorter running time, the album feels like a movie soundtrack. There are plenty of field recordings and some ghostly background vocals that add a sense of paranoia. While the post-rock touches and the different song structures are intriguing new elements, Fågelle’s sound remains the same I enjoyed so much last time. Her voice is as expressive as it has always been. In a way, her voice feels sadder but also angrier which matches the climaxes very well. Once again, the lyrics are all in Swedish. But that shouldn’t discourage you. If you are hungry for nicely-layered, moving, cinematographic music then this album is for you.
Bandcamp
by X-Ray Rod
Globular - Love Letter To A Lost World
[Psybient | Psydub]
Ever since discovering his collaborative release Messages From The Resonator in 2020, Bristolian producer Globular has been a reliable source of deliciously soothing psychedelic electronic music for me. Coming two years after the 75-minute colossus Lifts The Curse Of The Grey Goo Assimilators, Love Letter To A Lost World is firmly described as a change in mood compared with its predecessor on the album’s Kickstarter page. Framed as a subtler, gentler and more melancholic release, Love Letter To A Lost World expands on Globular’s ambient psydub sound by dabbling with 90s trip-hop, yet remains as effortlessly enjoyable to listen to as the artist claims it was to create.
A long, teasing ambient introduction gradually slides into psychedelia-tinged dub beats around halfway into opener “Aristotle’s Lantern”, but the subtle approach is clear from how spacious and nebulous portions of the opening tracks are, although following song “Somniferous Idyll” sounds classically Globular when it hits its own groove, with enchanting wordless vocal melodies and trippy soundscapes. Love Letter To A Lost World, while more muted than its predecessor, nonetheless strikes a good balance between freeform ambient expanses, mellow dub rhythms, quirkier oddities (such as some more off-kilter sounds in “Tales From The Periphery”), and fun exploration; the Latin guitar parts in “And Then You Disappeared In A Cloud Of Smoke...” are a very fun and enticing example of the latter.
Bandcamp
by musclassia
Femtanyl - Man Bites Dog
[Digital Hardcore | Hardcore Breaks]
Femtanyl is a name I’ve seen mentioned every now and then without really realizing how popular they were. Their take on digital hardcore is catered to a very specific, very zoomer, very terminally online audience which I’m not really a part of, so it took until covering this debut album of theirs to realize just how massive they had become in less than 3 years. Several of their tracks have already garnered millions of views, and this album could make them a mainstay of the digital hardcore scene.
Stylistically, Man Bites Dog is some pretty bog standard digital hardcore, very obviously influenced and derivative of Machine Girl, while missing a lot of the spunk that made Machine Girl actually stand out. Still, it’s far from being a bad album, and I found its first half to actually be pretty solid, with “Sick Of It” being the album’s only true highlight. It’s a very catchy and memorable track, which is not a sentiment I can echo to the rest of the album, as all the songs start blending into each other by track five. Gun to my head, I still couldn’t tell you what “My Head Hurts” or “Shows You The Way To The Hiway” sound like, which is unfortunate for an album that’s barely 30 minutes long. It’s still a fun time overall and it goes by quickly, but I see no reason to ever listen to this over Machine Girl.
Bandcamp
by doez
Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple
[Darksynth]
After initially breaking through with an album called Trilogy, Carpenter Brut is now finishing another trilogy with the third instalment in the Leather saga. Given Franck Huesco’s ties with Deathspell Omega, not to mention his own acknowledged metal influences, it perhaps was not surprising to see Carpenter Brut’s pioneering darksynth take a turn for the metallic over the course of the Leather trilogy, but while some fans were concerned by the sound of Leather Terror and the advance single title track from this newest entry, Leather Temple ultimately reveals itself to be broader in its intentions, incorporating much of the strengths of both older and newer Brut.
The organs of the “Ouverture” lean heavily into the temple theming, but “Major Threat” right after is quintessential dystopian sci-fi hacker darksynth with hooky synth motifs and banging wall-of-sound “choruses”. That last word is in quotes as, in contrast to the previous entries of the trilogy, Leather Temple is almost entirely vocalless, Brut declining to bring in more guests. After the hype energy of “Major Threat” and visceral heaviness of the title track, the album subsequently plays with other tones, such as the lighter, dancier second half of “She Rules The Night”, the disco-beat verve of “Start Your Engines”, and the 80s synthpop charm of “Neon Requiem”. With further metallic malevolence on “The Misfits / The Rebels”, Leather Temple scratches many itches, and rounds out this trilogy on a real high note.
Bandcamp
by musclassia
Puma Blue - Croak Dream
[Trip-Hop | Alternative R&B]
This is a name I hadn't encountered until now, even though they've been prolifically putting out albums since 2017 that garnered some attention, but Croak Dream seems to be the one that gets to be the breakthrough for Puma Blue, project of UK artist Jacob Allen. From what I heard of the others, Croak Dreams does seem like the best entry point into the discography, as the best realized version of this sound and the one where the trip-hop tendencies take center stage.
While this isn't a fundamental change, putting more emphasis on the trip-hop/downtempo side than the alternative R&B side does make things more interesting. The vocals are sometimes reminiscent of Thom Yorke so they naturally work better in a more hypnotic and tense electronic soundscape. There are still bits of Croak Dreams that feel lo-fi, but more in a way that makes it obvious this is a solo work. There's not much in the production, especially in the denser electronica moments that gives that feeling.
Bandcamp
by RaduP
Whitelands - Sunlight Echoes
[Dream Pop | Shoegaze]
Whitelands are forever tied to a favorite memory of mine, less for their own music, but because they were the opening band at one of the best concerts I've ever been to, seeing Slowdive in my first visit to London. And they did a decent enough job to not get completely erased by the rest of the memory that I did also cover the album they released right around that time, and it remained in my memory enough to recognize that band name again when stumbling upon this album two years later. Well, two years is a much shorter time than the six years gap between albums they had before this one.
There's not much in terms of reinventing any wheel, Sunlight Echoes goes for a tried and tested dream pop sound, ethereal and hazy, with just enough playfulness in the production and the effects to keep it from feeling too safe. The vocals don't feel completely tailor made for this kind of genre which does make it feel more genuine, and the vocal front is aided a lot by the guest presence of Emma Anderson of Lush fame. There's enough variety from mellower more ambiental tracks to livelier and janglier tracks to make Sunlight Echoes a pretty neat listen.
Bandcamp
by RaduP
Lueenas - Tender Anger
[Modern Classical | Dark Ambient]
Tender Anger is the kind of record where ‘modern classical’ doesn’t quite convey just how ‘modern’ said classical feels. Yes, it opens with chamber strings in a manner that, while slow and subdued, is not entirely abnormal, but when the core duo of Lueenas are then joined by deeply distorted and distant gutturals from Konvent’s Rikke Emilie List, the void between this album and the legacy of classical music grows wider. “Vølve” is effectively dark ambient music comprised of violin, viola, contrabass and the aforementioned vocals, and it itself does sound rather like the call of the void.
However, Tender Anger is not a one-vibe experience. The album overall can be predominantly categorized as a take on ambient music, but “Beatrice” is more structured, more distorted and more dynamic, ebbing and flowing between said distortion and lulls in a sedate manner reminiscent of post-drone days Earth. The fuzziness is dialled up on “Canis Lupus”, a song that grows and escalates to sinister levels of discordance. The rest of the record after this track does pull things back, opting for quiet and more minimalist soundscapes, which is a shame given how impactful “Canis Lupus” is, but it remains unsettling right through to the end.
Bandcamp
by musclassia
Jill Scott - To Whom This May Concern
[Neo-Soul | Vocal Jazz]
Considering how much I've found out retroactively about her, I am really surprised that this album is my first contact with Jill Scott. Or at least the first one where I'm actively aware of her, since I have heard her features on other artists' albums like Common or Will Smith or Pusha T or Conway The Machine. And aside from sporadic movie roles, none of which I've heard, I'm most surprised I hadn't heard of the pretty renowned World And Sounds trilogy from 2000 to 2007 respectively, a blend of neo-soul with various fusion sounds like funk or hip-hop that I've heard from other artists like Erykah Badu.
To Whom This May Concern is the first Jill Scott album in more than a decade. Jill Scott, now in her 50s, still works with a fusion of sounds, and even if the core of the album is a blend of neo-soul and contemporary R&B, the moments that make this album so fun are the ones where it's very overt about left-field genre detours, with hip-hop features centering entire songs around hip-hop, very vintage sounding vocal jazz / blues, groovy funk, and a dash of the soul that became part of trip-hop. Jill is obviously an incredible vocalist, but I appreciate the production and the ambitious songwriting that makes To Whom This May Concern simultaneously smooth and edgy, and modern and vintage.
by RaduP
And that was it. You've made it through still alive. Congrats. See ya next month. Here's a YouTube playlist we compiled out of stuff featured here:
