Well, here we are. It’s 2025 already, and 2024 left us in the wake of some staggeringly good material that, for me personally, will take at least another month or two to fully process before I’m ready to share my favorites list with you guys. But time waits for no puppy, as can be evidenced by the fact that only just two weeks into the new year, I have already been put onto on album that will definitely be remembered as an early favorite as the year progresses on, and we will definitely see it again when it’s this time next year and I’m recounting my 2025 favorites accordingly. But we’re nowhere near that yet. But what we are near is a steaming hot release from January 14, 2025 via WV Sorcerer Productions –

“Toru – Velours D​é​vorant”

So like any great recommendation for all the weirdos in the audience, I’m gonna open this discussion up by telling you I don’t actually really know how to even describe this record. Ahah! I know a bunch of you already just went and checked it out solely based on that statement alone, and honestly, that’s based of you. That’s how it should be. Your homie is like “Dude what the fuck did I just listen to?” and you’re like “Hell yeah lemme hear that shit” and that’s kinda where we’re at right now with this. This is some experimental cosmotic psychedelic noise metal, rich in deep drones, ritual soundscapes, tribal drumming, free jazz freakout, brutal prog ignorance, and an overall darkly magical yet playful quality that sounds very different from any other band I know. The closest sonic neighbor miiiiiight be something like Neptunian Maximalism, but both bands are unique and distinct from each other indeed.

Toru for me succeeds where other bands like Black Midi fail for me. I certainly don’t mean to compare either of these projects as the goals and styles are entirely different, but listen to that first track and tell me you’re not reminded at least a lit bit of that absolute totalism, almost kitchen sink-esque approach. Black Midi keeps it up at almost all times, which, while impressive, wears on me quickly. Toru does not do this. Toru gives you a serious workout for the first 10 minutes, then slips into something more comfortable and starts to show you its dynamics. And more than just time signature and drum dynamics and guitar freakouts, but actually slowing it down, and letting long groaning sounds fill a now massive sonic void that has become rich in texture. These sounds are simultaneously big, dirty, laden with feedback and overdrive, yet often delicate, esoteric, ghostly, and otherworldly. You never know what’s gonna come next, but yet it feels so cohesive.

One of the few other reviews out there written about this album (via Aurual Aggravation) mentions how much skill and chops it takes for a band to sound like this, like they’re constantly on the verge of all falling apart and blowing up, like the music is riding the knife’s edge of chaos and disaster, life and death (which is where gods operate); when in all actuality, this has been carefully considered and they know exactly what they’re doing, and are perfectly locked in – in order to even make that sound in the first place! And I find that to be a very apt way to look at what this band subjects you to. The trio takes you on an absolute facefucker sonic rollercoaster that is as beautifully trippy as it is scary and noisy, so if you like your trips dark and strange, laden with noise and cosmic drones and freakouts, then this is one you’ll definitely keep coming back to! (Also, big fan that among the instruments/sound making devices used for this album, there is a credit for something just called “objects” and anything that just involves “objects” in the unknown unexplained abstract is honestly just stellar behavior – you just know you’re gonna be in for a good time)

First death psych of 2025 let’s go baybeeee!