Hi, everyone. Bangthony Clangtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. It's time for a review of this new Matmos album, Metallic Life Review.

Matmos, in my opinion, are one of the most underrated, interesting, and groundbreaking electronic music duos in modern history. They have a massive, massive multi-era discography that just continues to grow. It is just far too big encapsulate into a single review.

I have been covering their material on my channel for a long time now, multiple, multiple reviews. I have a deep appreciation for what these guys do while simultaneously understanding that their albums have a lot of range to them. And as a result of that intentional lack of consistency, not every project is for me, not every album do I enjoy. Sometimes that's based upon the execution. Sometimes Sometimes that is based upon the concept that the duo has in mind when going into the record.

But honestly, for a duo that is so creatively all over the place, I usually come out enjoying a surprising amount of their records, or at the very least, finding them commendable and intriguing. Whether they are pulling a bunch of sounds and samples from the Smithsonian Folkways Archive and then turning that into a record that they then put out on Smithsonian Folkways; or doing an homage to a late classical composer; collaborating with a load of different artists, both old and new, and sampling their collaborations and works into a massive multi-disc album; or doing an entire album where they're sampling just pieces of plastic; or doing an album where they're sampling the wash cycle of a washing machine; or an album where they're not really sampling anything – it's all just straight synthesis; or yet another where they're sampling the sounds of surgery.

This is just the tip of the Matmos iceberg. It's normal for a Matmos album to feel like, when you're going into it, you're being subjected to some science or social experiment. I think that's cool.

Now, I will say on this new LP, though, it is getting to a point where maybe it seems a little bit obvious because, given the cover here and the title of this album, Metallic Life Review, it seemed pretty clear we were going to go into a project here that might be a little bit nostalgic and also just contain nothing but samples and sounds from metal. Again, no, I don't mean the genre. I mean, we're literally going to be listening to sounds that come out of metal source material, really whatever metal thing Matmos can get their hands on.

Which brings us to the opening track, "Norway Doorway", which, again, I would say compositionally and sonically is classic Matmos. You have all of these busy, bustling, metallic sound effects and samples going crazy, and they're being underscored by these booming gong-like tones. And then in the midst of all of that madness, you have these melodies wailing and swimming in this wall of sound that feel like what you would hear if you had a very old, creaky gate or door opening, which I'm sure ties into the title of the song.

I don't know if this is just the nature of the sound of the door or how much manipulation is happening to this sample on the back end, but just the length of the notes and the intensity of it – there's almost like a trumpet-like quality to the sound of this creaking door. It's definitely got a [imitates noise] and there's a harmony to the way these tones, I'll say, melodies, are playing throughout this instrumental.

As far as the vibe of this opening piece overall, it's got a lot of tension to it. I would say a splash of horror as well. A lot of these same qualities continue onto the track "The Rust Belt". I think there's a lot of commonality between these first two songs, but there's a lot more punctuality to the percussive bangs and clangs that make up the rhythmic backbone of this track. I feel like I'm listening to a bunch of pitch-shifted pots and pans being hit. And as a result of the rhythms being just punchier and heavier on this one, I would say this track has a much more dark and industrial quality to it. Definitely more visceral and varied across the length of the track, but I would say the ending here is a lot more inconclusive. It definitely fizzles out of nowhere.

Still, overall, sounds and samples on this thing go crazy. I feel like I'm listening to a bunch of steel kickballs being bounced against sheets of aluminum.

The following "Changing States", texturally and melodically, is really like a gentle, easy-going lullaby type track. All the rhythmic layers throughout much of the song are very polite. You have, also, it sounds like a pretty airy, atmospheric synths. These pretty glockenspiel melodies, too. It all runs like a classic Aphex Twin ambient techno piece. But toward the very end, you have these fiery guitar-esque lead melodies, roaring throughout the song, maybe trying to evoke a sense of metal music, the genre, which I think works really well with all of these samples of what seems to be swords or knives being unsheathed. So you hear that shing! Again, very overwhelming, very textured, very fun. Crazy how many different metallic sounds I'm picking up in this piece every time I listen to it.

The following "Steel Tongues" is also very chill and relaxed and laid back. As far as vibes, it shares a lot in common with the previous song, except with these very prominent bo-wo-wo type tones making their way through much of the song.

The second to last track, "The Chrome Reflects Our Image", is maybe the most conventional sounding cut on the entire record. The chord progressions, and again, what sounds like more plucky, somewhat thin guitar lines, read like the instrumental piece that many of you may know to be the theme to the legendary television show, Twin Peaks. I imagine on some level that Matmos would probably mess with Twin Peaks, or more specifically, David Lynch. So the idea that they may be knowingly giving that a nod on this track doesn't feel outlandish to me because it does sound a lot like it, except for the addition of these very atmospheric glacial synths that I think give Matmos's take on this sound here, this piece, much more eerie and frigid feel, not quite so dreamy and relaxed and romanticized.

But the biggest surprise on this record, and I do mean biggest, comes in the form of the closing track, which is a 20-minute monster. This song takes up about half of the album. While in concept, for a group as experimental as Matmos, I can respect the ambition going into a massive piece like this. I don't know, I just wasn't super enamored with a lot of it, maybe because many of the ideas and samples and tones and textures that the piece begins with, I think, have been staled out due to all of the previous tracks on the album.

Hearing their implementation again on a closing track like this doesn't exactly keep me on the edge of my seat. The way the track progresses, if you couldn't already tell, is obviously unconventional because it does start off very cohesive, very direct, and then progressively gets more and more and more abstract, spaced out, really embracing a musique concrete energy.

So yeah, it does suddenly shift into that avant-garde composition lane. Then I would say it breaks up further into just straight up field recordings of what sounds like church bells and sputtering motors, possibly. And it mostly just becomes this curious exploration piece. And again, while I wasn't necessarily blown away by my initial experience with it, I can see how a track like this could work into the concept and storytelling of this type of record, because in a way, you do have this de-evolution going on of this very clear composition happening at the start of the track with all of these samples and found sounds and so on and so forth. You hear them moving backwards and becoming more primordial and raw and less like a musical in a traditional sense.

Then you're going even further back than that to just straight up just sounds, straight up recordings of source material that the duo is working with, which like a life review, a moment when your life is flashing before your eyes – you're starting at the point where it's maybe the most recent, you're going backwards and you're going to your earliest memories. In a way, you're seeing the reverse process of all of these metal-based sounds being brought to the point where they are being manipulated and sequenced and assembled together to where they're coming together into these musical pieces on this record. Or my read is completely incorrect, and I'm crazy.

Either/or, I enjoyed a great great deal of this album, and I do love hearing Matmos stick very passionately to textural concept. After all, one of my favorite records from them is that Plastic Anniversary album. I think there's a lot of overlap creatively and conceptually between those two records. However, I will say in comparison, I do feel like a lot of the compositions and sounds and ideas throughout that album are a bit bouncer, punchier, more fun, more zany. By comparison, Metallic Life Review, I think, is a bit moodier and more contemplative, as well as sweet and relaxing during some of the more low-key points on the album.

But yeah, while I'm not in love with this one, I wasn't necessarily blown away by it, I did enjoy it quite a bit, and I hope that you guys listen to it and get something out of it as well. Especially, again, [because] I think Matmos is a duo that is sorely undervalued and under listened to. I think for those who are musically curious and have adventurous taste, most likely your first Matmos experience and listen is going to scratch some interesting itches because there's just not a lot out there like them, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 7 on this album.

Anthony Fantano, Matmos, Forever.