Hello Metalheads!  This is John back with another album review for you today.  This one is “The Endless Sky” by Throne of Exile!  It is a very brutal, progressive, experimental and down right wild death metal album.  This is another album I wanted to showcase from this year.  

This monster of an album came out on March 15th, 2024 and I have been listening to it pretty consisntly since then.  This album features virtuosic guitar, bass and drum playing.  But they also are very good at keeps the grooves simple when they have to be. The breakdowns and different genres come in(what seem) at total randomness.  The vocals are very consistent, mainly using low and mid growls with occasional high shrieks.  But they do use singing to keep with the different genres and vibes thrown in.  

The opening track “Atlas Dream” starts off absolutely brutal to give you a taste of what you can expect during this roller coaster ride.  It starts off with some frantic and spastic riffs then out of no where and warps right into a jazzy walking bass groove.  It goes back and forth a few times before finally drastically slowing down for a savage breakdown.  This then morphs out into a jazzy distorted guitar driven line with shrieking vocals over top.  The drumming matches the groove but also has rapid double bass to remind us that it is still death metal at the core.  The spastic intro comes back, before narrowing down with noodling fast guitar leads go over top of that.  The song upruprly with the jazz guitar line sped up even more, after stopping again.  

This is one of those albums that I really need to listen to with dual audio.  A lot of the time when I listen to music, I will just put one of earbuds in if I’m doing something else.  But with this one I think listening with both ears is a must.  The amount of layers at all times is such a joy to process and just very pleasing to myself.  There seems to always be a kind of atmospheric sound even over the top of more technical passages.  

“Reclaimed” is one track that really stands out to me every single time I listen to this album.  It starts off with a simple introduction before going into a jagged chugging riff.  But this slowly changes more and more before tapping guitar and blast beats is played on the drums.  The vocals are singing for emphasis with mid level growls during this.  This then returns to a chugging section that almost feels like a breakdown.  This abruptly changes into a groove with faster guitar and double bass drum dominated sounds.  Out of no where a calm feeling is played with a short, chill guitar solo is played.  The track does keep on meandering through more passages.  This does finally settle in a reggae feeling section with keyboard in the background, a walking baseline and even cowbell.  The end of this song has the bass leading the way while the guitar vamps to the end with the keyboard.  

This whole album was another unexpected find for me this year and I’m so glad.  “The Endless Sky” will definitely be in my top 20 this year and I will keep looking for more from these guys.  My score for this album is a very strong 8/10.  The way they experiment between ultra heavy frantic sections to completely different genres is so cool.  I hope readers of this site will give this a spin too!  

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-endless-sky/1723246617

https://open.spotify.com/album/4fiRxXtQBlEaL14thjkhnz

https://throneofexile.bandcamp.com