Uncanny – Shroomsday
Release Date: 19th April 2024
Label: Overhead Productions (Nordic Mission)
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Genre: Prog-Metal, Post-Metal, Progressive, Psychedelic, Instrumental (mostly), Sludge, Art-Rock.
FFO: Dvne, Avkrvst, WuW, Astrosaur, Kannan, Battles.
Review By: John Newlands
Shoomsday is the debut release for Uncanny, a 3-piece band from Oslo, Norway who offer their own mash-up of progressive, sludgy, dynamic, jazz infused metal. To try and categorise them like this is a bit of a disservice are they are really quite individual sounding, but it puts you in the right ballpark. The band supported Dillinger Escape Plan of their farewell concert in the bands native Oslo, and they have also recently supported fellow Norwegians, Astrosaur amongst may others in the local scene.
The album opens with Uncut, an up-tempo opener that has a progressive feel and element of glitchy chaos, which at points it reminds me of something from Battles 2007 album Mirrored. The back end of the track unexpectedly moves into a jazz-fusion section before returning to the main riff. An impressive opener.
Next we move onto Noobjax, which is a bit more math-metal and further explores the progressive elements as explored in Uncut, but again with a very solid hard hitting riff at its core.
Circadian Rhythm begins with plucked acoustic guitar and some synth / guitar wizardry (pedal manipulation perhaps) until around the 2-min mark where the full band kicks in with a great mid paced riff that gets your head bobbing. Music For The Faint Heart has a real ominous and oppressive feel with some really great dirty grinding riffs on the guitars that make the “stank face” come out on display and the track features cowbell, so it’s a winner for me. The band isn’t afraid to play with dynamics here, with the song moving seamlessly moving through lighter and darker passages, which ultimately makes the heavy sections seem even heavier than they are.
Track 5, Shroomsday, opens up quite serene and beautiful before again taking in the remainder of that band and getting heavier. The track builds upon itself in intricate layers and introduces the use of some brass instrumentation before expanding into what sounds like a full brass section. This takes this number to whole new areas not yet experienced on the album and is a really enjoyable listen.
Pseudade, is one of the shorter cuts on the album coming in at 2:25 and is basically a chord progression with some spacey reverb (maybe a touch of whammy) and some vocal samples, but of course, it had to end with the full power of the band behind it. Why not finish on a bang, right?!?
5 mile, is the first track on the album to kick in with full screamed vocal, and it’s good. It was clever of the band to drop this in later in the album to keep the interest of the listener, and perhaps this provides a glimpse of what is to come from the band? I, for one, think that both tracks on the album featuring vocal are done very well. As Oliver Twist said, “please sir, may I have some more?”.
Album closer, At Least We Didn’t Try, is a solitary piano tune, which is a beautiful and competitive ending to what is quite a chaotic and challenging album that is both familiar yet unknown.
Uncanny keep us on our toes, and it’s never quite certain where they are going to go next, but they never stray too far into the weeds. Where most prog-leaning albums tend to get more progressive as the album moves on, I feel the opposite is the case here. The front of the album (especially the first two tracks) is loaded with more wacky and avant-garde nuances, jazz breakdowns, glitching effects etc, where the back half of the album shifts more towards traditional post-metal and post-rock-sensibilities, which prevents the progressive elements become tiresome to the listener.
The production standard (self produced by the band) here is very impressive, and the band clearly had defined goals for how they wanted to and should sound. I’m curious to see how the band come across live, and would be impressed to see if they can pull off what they have committed to wax in a live setting. From seeing some pictures of pedalboards on social media, I think the guitarists will be doing quite an interesting tap-dance with their large pedalboards!
Stand out tracks for me were Circadian Rhythm, Music For The Faint Hearted and 5 Mile. I really liked the addition of the brass sounds on Shroomsday and the clean vocal on Cercadian Rhythm and screamed vocal on 5 Mile.
To close, I must admit, I’m not a huge fan of the album art or the album title. Is this reference to the band members love of magic mushrooms, or a slight nod to the more psychedelic aspects of the music? Perhaps both, or neither. At the end of the day, I’m here for the music, and Uncanny have, for this listener, produced a very enjoyable album. I’m very impressed at the quality of a self produced debut LP and furthermore, how they have clearly begun to carve out their own identifiable groove in a crowded space of similar artists. I’m really looking forward to seeing where these guys will go next and hope to catch them if and when they come to play in Bergen.
(4 / 5)
