Rustorm

"Gravity" (Album, 2025)

Self Release

Featuring Rob Lewis and Jules McBride (both formally of the much missed Pulkas), Rustorm already have an EP and full length album under their belts, and having added a full-time drummer to their ranks are now gigging to support this release.

To be fair, you can still hear faint echoes of Pulkas on this release, but the tempo is slowed, making it sound more like a melding of Enemy of the Sun-era Neurosis (especially on the closer Suspension of Gravity) and Pandemonium-era Killing Joke, but without the pagan/spiritual gubbins - There's also a whiff of early Black Sabbath on some of the tracks.*

It is not a cheery release – dealing as it does, with the darker end of the vagaries of human existence; titles like Collapsing Time ("The human timeline is silent"), Drown It Out ("All our hopes must be so frozen") and Blackening ("Subjection and ridicule are games we play") give you some idea of the general mood; and the almost stately tempo lends it a gravitas and seriousness (Slayer, it is not).

If you like your Metal on the doomy/atmospheric end of the spectrum, this is for you. 7/10

*They describe the sound as 'Ethereal Doom Metal', but if I'm honest, Metal is not a genre I'm particularly familiar with, so there may be more accurate/ contemporary references for their sound, but you gets what you pays for.

https://rustorm.bandcamp.com/music

Nick Hydra (March 2025)