ALBUM REVIEW: The Orb Offers Massive Signals – Tooms
Limerick City, Ireland was founded in 812 AD, and is most well-known for its Medieval-era cathedrals. However, with the release of their album, The Orb Offers Massive Signals, progressive sludge band, TOOMS, could become what Limerick City is known for. The Irish trio have taken inspiration from BONGRIPPER, ISIS, NEUROSIS, and ACID BATH to make their own unique sound. The album is their showcase as the world’s first slippery metal band. Will it kick start their promising career, and make slippery metal a new genre?
The album starts off with Lamentations, a one and a half minute spoken word introduction, with church bells in the background. It is an eerie start to the album, but also does a great job of grabbing the audience’s attention. Mantra At Dawn follows, and it is a long song, clocking in at ten minutes and nine seconds. It is a slow song, with a haunting introduction. The vocals are heavy, and the instruments rule the song because there are several guitar solos, which make up the majority of the song. It’s a good way to show off the talent of the band, but it also means that the vocals do not get a chance to shine as they are often drowned out by the instruments. This therefore affects the pace of the album, as the song feels disjointed and unfocused.
Megalobong feels more focused in tone and direction, due to the fact that it is more vocal heavy. It does have a soft introduction, but then the tone changes. The vocals are rough and hard. But, this change in tone feels natural due to the production. Breakout single Zipperface is an in-your-face song with a thumping bass line, heavy guitars and growling vocals. It captures the audience’s attention, and holds them. On the other hand, despite the name, Stampede is a more mellow number. It is situated halfway through the album, and has soft instrumentation.
Oumuamua is a minute long interlude. With no vocals, the song is made up of gentle instruments. It is a calm song in amongst all the noise of the rest of the album, helping break up the intensity nicely. It also acts as a bridge from the first part of the album to the next part. One Ton Snow and Krokodil Den follow up. One Ton Snow is loud and vocal heavy and boasts has distorted instruments and the outro at the end of the song is calming and relaxing. Krokodil Den is a fast and frantic song with a spoken word monologue in the middle of it.
Retrograde: Ode To An Orb is the last song on the album. Clocking in at eleven minutes and twenty seconds long, it is the longest track on the album. To cover that amount of time, there are a lot moments on the song where there are instrumental sections. Unfortunately, this can get tiresome after a while.
Overall, despite the unfortunate ending to the album, TOOMS offer a exciting new album that introduces the world to their take on sludge metal. Although this album will not be to everyone’s taste, the complex song arrangements and the impressive vocals will give fans of metal’s more extreme sub-genres something to root for, and will give newcomers an experience they’re not likely to forget.
Rating: 7/10
The Orb Offers Massive Signals is out now via Cursed Monk Records.
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