The mutant sounds stirring louder and louder within the mausoleum confirm what the AI-generated articles in your social-engineered feed already suspected, that the mind-scouring nightmare of humanity’s murderous collapse will inevitably be interrupted by radioactive waste seeping upward and outward as the greed of the bunker-set class manifests irredeemable, incurable reality. The dead do not walk but instead hiss from within the melting seal as Baltimore, Maryland-based progressive death/thrash metal quartet NUCLEAR TOMB emerge with a sophomore full-length album built from road-tested wares in extension of thier maniac signature. Tightened to a point of bizarre tension but given its own ‘old school’ death metal attuned edge ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ fleshes out and contracts at once, sprawling within myriad possibilities before cutting all down to most essential statement. Though it may not follow the exacting strictures of the late 80’s as a point of purpose the continued evolution of these folks work is notable for taking it to a point of surrealistic confrontation, a personalized gig gaining potency within each new action.

Nuclear Tomb might’ve formed around 2011 by way of vocalist/guitarist Mike Brown (Total Maniac) but his still-evolving crew hadn’t found their wheels ’til about 2019, honing in on an obsession with ‘old school’ death/thrash metal and specifically the maniac oddities of the late 80’s/early 90’s. I’d written extensively about the band’s discography in review of their brazen, noisome debut LP (‘Terror Labyrinthian‘, 2024) to the point that that review should catch you up well enough. They were carrying an all but snuffed-out torch for the niche, keeping it “weird” enough to conjure challenging death, thrash and punk inflected riffcraft (re: Sadus, Obliveon, Coroner) with the restless reactivity of a dead age fully grasped. Consider that record their first true mutant act and now this follow-up a mounding of fleshy derangement upon that core idea.

Calling well-traditioned underground metal “weird” is almost always spin, that, or a reaction from the under-educated ear to describe their own uncanny induction. What Nuclear Tomb bring on each of their records is less a “weird for the sake of it” super-goofin’ contribution to death/thrash metal but rather a personality, an admirably driven outlier perspective, to a sub-genre sector which has been infamously jaded and lacking juice beyond recycled scrounging and tribute since the turn of the millennium. Over the course of ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ these folks show the fruits of experience and labor, not so much spectacular lolsorandom oddity but rather merits achieved through touring and showing up with over the top energetic command. They’re a bit heavier via different production values, certainly pushing faster and slower extremes into their pacing, and the machinery of their work continues to reach for complexly woven stir beyond the usual template-matched retro death/thrash deal… this is all very well in line with the bigger-and-better reality of any decent band’s second album.

The first half of ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ runs the gamut from scrambling Ripping Corpse-esque bullet-time thrashing death on opener “Watch the Skies” to ‘Nemesis‘-era Obliveon stamped machinery (“Faithless Continuum”) as each piece offers its own singular vision rather than variations on a sole theme or mode. Per the aforementioned opener they’ve struck out the gates with a proper gear-turner and a simple enough main progression dogging throughout as they dispel any assumptions this’ll be an all out tech-thrasher so much as a snarling gesture delivered with finesse. Key single “Falling Out of the World of Lies” pushes much harder into Nuclear Tomb‘s signature intensity, finding a novel step through the song while packing post-‘Altars of Madness‘ and even crossover stoked movement into every crevice. It bodes well for the lasting impact of the full listen that those first several pieces cannot be reasonably squared up outright.

In keeping their song lengths tightened to a ~3-4 minute limit most of Nuclear Tomb‘s compositions center around tightly knotted together movement which only just has enough time for one or two moments of reveal or revelry before moving on. For my own taste the ‘Rust in Peace‘-kissed “Unbowed & Averse” should obviously stand out for its circa ’87 thrash coded intro and the ominous march beyond though it almost doesn’t have enough time to really lean into the texture of the song before things wind down in spectacular fashion. The first couple of times I’d spun through ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ I’d not made any distinction between the end of that piece and the intro to “Faithless Continuum”, as it’d taken a few wheels through to get my bearings. All of this is to say that the labyrinthine aspect of their craft is yet alight here on album number two and the rhythmic play, in this case pause-and-pivot pacing, helps to reinforce it. Four songs in and these folks are still compelling beyond the vast majority of the global prog death/thrash adjacency today.

The second half of ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ generally recreates the effect of the first by way of a more thrash oriented roll through “Lifeless Transformation”, the staccato riffed/harmonic ticked instrumental “Butcher’s Lament”, and the speedier metalpunk rush through “Terminally Emboldened” though I’m not sure these stick as readily as anything on Side A. “The Coward’s Curse” is potentially one of the more Voivodian adventures on offer here and a major highlight for my taste, bringing heavy metal gallop and tech-thrash needling flourish into their slurry to great effect… a thought which translates, or relates, directly to some of the techniques pushed into the grand finale/title track “Epoch Inhumane”. Those last two songs kind save the album from any front-loading accusations, expand Nuclear Tomb‘s ouevre deeper into slugged-up pacing (“Broken Promise, Barren Existence” does this too) and showcase some of their knack for pecked-out technical thrash edged feature.

There are countless smaller details I could pick at here (bass MOOG? at least one unintentional Excel riff, etc.) which do well to enrich the listening experience of ‘Epoch Inhumane‘ when left on repeat, lending additional interest to Nuclear Tomb‘s capture of the freakout death/thrash and prog-death niche far beyond even the eclectic shock-therapy that was ‘Terror Labyrinthian‘. The gist of it is that these folks’ve managed a fine medium between the short attention spanning vignettes of today and the repetition-muscled dedication of the past, loading the brain with spastic intensity which reflects authentic and eclectic fandom beyond the usual death/thrash references. As a returning fan of the band’s work this second album is an entirely ideal result, an extension and mutation of what’d come before lacking none of the energetic freakery and confrontational wrath they’re known for. A very high recommendation.

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