Band:	Nug
Album:	Alter Ego
Style:	Post-metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	August 14, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. The Birth / Народження
02. Beast / Звір
03. Psyche / Душа
04. Shores / Береги
05. Eleven / Одинадцять
06. Dorian / Доріан
07. Radiance / Сяйво
08. Night Shine / Блиск Ночі

Look how fast my Clandestine Cuts babies are growing!

You may know our Clandestine Cuts feature, in which we regularly go over some new EPs and demos from up and coming bands. Some of them never make it to the full album phase. Some of them do. About two years ago, I participated in my first edition, with three write-ups. Two of the bands I did write-ups for have already released albums, I already reviewed Toadeater's, and now it is time for Nug. I am still waiting for Potion and Meridian Sun to step it up. From the same edition, we also finally got a Gaupa album, which I staff picked. Anyway, back to Nug.

The Ukrainian post/progressive metal quintet's EP that was featured in the article, as I said, felt "like the work of a band with a few more years down the line". I also mentioned their songwriting and performance skills being quite good, but you get the gist of it. They've clearly grown here in those aspects, and the two things I criticized them for (the short runtimes of the songs and the production) have been fixed over here, so much so that most of the songs sit in the 7-9 minutes range, with the exception of two 2-3 minutes ones, and the production is about as satisfactory as you could ask for in regards to an album that mush wash over you with colossal guitars and synths. And wash you over it does.

Though the influence from bands like The Ocean, Intronaut and Isis is quite obvious, especially the former one, Nug do just enough not to be a carbon copy of any of those. Though not necessarily for the better, there are no clean vocals (except for a few in "Beast"), or pretty much any vocals that deviate too much from the one in the post-metal canon that Nug learned, but that one they do it well. What they really do well is the interplay between the guitars and the synths, with the guitars usually in the foreground and the synths in the background, but Alter Ego also has just enough moments when the synths get their time to shine in the more mellow ambient moments. And the one instrument I'm most impressed in hearing is the bass, which does get pretty flashy sometimes, and the drummer does have plenty of moments where his ability is on full display. But obviously the guitars that are either chuggy or soothingly are the most instantly striking.

Even though I did say that Nug feel older than they actually are, that's not completely the case. Sure they clearly have both the talent and the ability already, but there's still room for growth, and moreover they do feel younger in the energy they give off. You can tell that they're more excited about releasing their debut full length than I am, and I am pretty excited as well.