Nuclear Tomb Epoch Inhumane Review
Nuclear Tomb
Epoch Inhumane
Rotted Life Records
2026
Thrash has a long tradition of flirting with progressive and left-of-center elements. Christ, Voivod and Coroner have made formidable careers out of it. Alongside lesser-known entities like Forced Entry, Algebra, and Canada's Sacrifice, it's always been a thing, just a bit more under the radar. In that same adventurous and wacky spirit, we have Baltimore natives Nuclear Tomb and their newest full-length, Epoch Inhumane.
For some background, Nuclear Tomb has always blended noisy punk aggression with progressive thrash and the grandeur of classic heavy/speed metal. These hallmarks have all returned with these 10 songs, but the ante seems to have been upped. The rules of today include “faster speeds, deeper hooks, and even more dynamic twists.” The six-string tandem of vocalist/guitarist Michael Brown and guitarist Matt Ibach seem content to confuse, yet bang our heads furiously with jazzy, off-kilter harmonized sections, completely shreddy leads, dissonant riffing, droning chordal sections, and thrash/death metal hybrid song structures. Check out “Falling Out the World of Lies” with its tempo shifts, relentless pace, and groove-forward, proficient drumming of JD Lookabill. “Unbowed_Averse” (even the song titles are head-scratchers) marches and plods with more odd chord voicings and then leads us into a bass-featured double-time stomp and start-stop verses. The highlight here is definitely the double-bass/chugging and fast lead work in the outro. “Faithless Continuum” is dizzying with its early Possessed-like lead runs, trills, and strangely placed dissonance. The band as a whole sound extremely tight, well-rehearsed, and out to prove a point here. Brown’s vocals aren't the typical shouts or screams we are used to hearing in thrash. He has a heavily reverbed, near death/blackened midrange growl/scream. Yet another element that continues to set them apart.
“Broken Promise, Barren Essence” is perhaps one of the heaviest cuts here, replete with their standard weirdness but furthered by d-beat and blast-beat sections. “Lifeless Transformation” is an all-out rager that speeds along with busy riffing, a crushing 4/4 verse, and back to the fast stuff again for the chorus. A nice mid-tempo break follows, and then they seamlessly shift back to the d-beat with some fiery lead work. Seriously, Nuclear Tomb hasn’t met a few hundred tempo changes per song they don't like, and it's awesome. If Rush were an angry thrash band, that's how I’d describe the YYZ-on-hallucinogens bend of “Butcher’s Lament,” which itself is also an instrumental. “Terminally Emboldened” brings back the death metal-adjacent speed fest, and “The Coward's Curse” fakes us out with a melodic, acoustic guitar-led intro before doing the same with the now-prerequisite leads, tempo changes, and dissonance. The last track (and also the album title track) focuses on an eerie clean guitar passage, then belts it with a pounding, chunky intro melding a slithering riff amongst the anguished growls. It's the longest track here at 5:02, but once again they keep things moving with more riffs and changes, so it honestly flies by. I find this to be the case for the album's entirety, with most of the tunes falling in the 3-to-4-and-a-half-minute range. They're so inherently interesting and varied, you never notice the song lengths.
Epoch Inhumane is an album that fuses punk urgency with prog-thrash and death metal meanness effortlessly. Nuclear Tomb sounds dangerously intentional and at the top of their game. Get these guys on a national tour with Cryptic Shift as soon as possible. And the weird travel on, indeed…
RIYL- Coroner, Voivod, Atheist, Pestilence
~TB