Review Summary: Technical and progressive death metal doesn't get any better than this.
The late 80s and early 90s were a glorious time for death metal in general. The genre was being spread to a wider audience and more and more bands were getting attention. You had your gore obsessed bands that wrote chunky ass riffs and growled about raping corpses and stuff of the like. But on the other hand you had bands like Death, Atheist and Cynic exploring the proggier side of death metal. Cosmic riffs and spacey atmospheres had people realizing that it didn’t have to be about said corpse rapers. Toughness is a band from Poland and their new album
Black Respite of Oblivion is a progressive, brutal and mind altering album and my favorite death metal album of 2025 so far.
The riffs on this album are on another level of insanity. They’re a bit noodly but they also provide an atmosphere as if you’re floating on the moon with no oxygen tank. This album’s production is absolutely perfect, giving off that authentic early 90s feeling of extraterrestrial brilliance while also retaining that lofi caveman essence that all death metal should have. Let me assure you also, this isn’t just some progressive wank fest. Toughness go straight up pounding brutal death metal at times with gurgling vocals, ass ramming blast beats and riffage that can be likened to being a victim of a bludgeoning. The bass work is also absolutely incredible with each note hitting you like raindrops that weigh 1000 pounds each.
It’s all of the elements being blended to perfection and not sounding disjointed. I know everyone praises the new Blood Incantation up and down, but to me, it sounds disjointed and messy.
Black Respite of Oblivion takes all of the weird psychedelic hippy sounding prog bits and incorporates them into an already existing brutal/technical death metal sound without sacrificing one for the other. It not only helps the overall sound of the album but it makes for such an intense mind*** that you won’t know what the hell is going to happen next.
Toughness has created what may turn into a timeless classic. The riffage and the amazing production job are 100% the stars of this show. You’ll feel like you’re smack dab in the middle of such classics as Death’s
Leprosy, Demilich’s
Nespithe, Cynic’s
Focus or Atheist’s
Piece of Time.
Black Respite of Oblivion has the technicality, the experimentation and the aggressiveness to go toe-to-toe with any of those classics. Time will tell, but I think Toughness may have created a special one.
