Tangled Thoughts of Leaving - No Tether (2018)

Following their staggeringly epic 2015 effort Yield To Despair, Perth, Australia’s Tangled Thoughts of Leaving found themselves facing a question that will ultimately leap upon anyone who strives to be a serious artist (or professional, regardless of field). Rather than being content with material which had already proven to be both dense and rewarding, how could they continue to challenge themselves, to challenge the very idea of what it is they had set forth to accomplish as a collective? The ultimate answer became to cut through the bramble of their own compositions in search of individual ideas, and to dive deeper into the concept of a single riff or even a drone, to fully explore it, de-construct, rebuild, and go places they never would have expected. These sessions ultimately came together to form No Tether, an album whose title truly represents the material within. What listeners will hear on this record is what happens when artists eliminate their boundaries in the pursuit of discovery; this is the soundtrack to cutting the cord of expectation. The result is a bold work of art that acts both as an experiment and a statement.

On No Tether listeners will bear witness to barely-restrained prog uproar (“The Alarmist”), dense, oppressive doom droning (the aptly-titled “Cavern Ritual”), ultra-atmospheric, jazz-tinged space metal (“Signal Erosion”), piano and percussion-led experimentalism (“Inner Dissonance”), mind-altering post-metal cacophony (“Binary Collapse”) and slow-burning noise rock (“No Tether”).

While it all seems to be a chameleonic, far-flung assortment of stylistic directions, it all ties back into what Tangled Thoughts of Leaving is all about at its core – uncompromising sonic experimentation. Rather than weaving all their many facets together from track to track they instead isolate each concept and flesh it out in its own space, giving them the ample room necessary to breath in as much life as possible. In doing so, the songs on No Tether represent the fullest crystallization of the band’s varying aesthetics. It is an album that is meant to stand alone, and one that strives for exploration and understanding while itself demanding to be studied closely.