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After establishing themselves as the final boss of Baltimore’s underground metal scene, Wormhole reached a new level with their gravity-defying debut for Season of Mist. Almost Human was named one of the best albums of 2023 by New Noise, Angry Metal Guy and Technical Music Review.  Now, as they plan their next brutal finishing move, the band are hitting the road with two legendary players of death metal.

This summer, Wormhole are touring North America with Six Feet Under and Kataklysm. During this 33 date run across Canada and the U.S., the band will debut slamming new merch and headbanging new tunes.

Wormhole 2026 North American Tour

with Six Feet Under + Kataklysm

July 8 Sanctuary – Detroit, MI [TICKETS]
July 9 Lee’s Palace – Toronto, ON ^ [TICKETS]
July 10 Fairmount – Montreal, QC ^ [TICKETS]
July 11 Overflow – Ottawa, ON ^ [TICKETS]
July 12 Palladium Upstairs – Worcester, MA [TICKETS]
July 13 Space Ballroom – Hamden, CT [TICKETS]
July 14 Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY [TICKETS]
July 15 Broken Goblet – Bensalem, PA [TICKETS]
July 16 Chapel of Bones – Raleigh, NC [TICKETS]
July 17 Albatross – Jacksonville, FL [TICKETS]
July 18 Culture Room – Fort Lauderdale, FL [TICKETS]
July 19 Conduit – Orlando, FL [TICKETS]
July 21 Scout Bar – Houston, TX [TICKETS]
July 22 Come and Take It Live – Austin, TX [TICKETS]
July 23 Jake’s – Lubbock, TX [TICKETS]
July 24 Lauter Haus – Farmington, NM [TICKETS]
July 25 Nile – Phoenix, AZ [TICKETS]
July 26 1720 – Los Angeles, CA [TICKETS]
July 27 Strummer’s – Fresno, CA [TICKETS]
July 28 Cornerstone – Berkeley, CA [TICKETS]
July 29 Goldfield – Roseville, CA [TICKETS]
July 30 Shredder – Boise, ID * [TICKETS]
July 31 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR [TICKETS]
August 1 El Corazon – Seattle, WA [TICKETS]
August 2 Rickshaw – Vancouver, BC ^ [TICKETS]
August 3 Arrowhead – Calgary, AB ^ [TICKETS]
August 5 Starlite Room – Edmonton, AB ^ [TICKETS]
August 6 Black Cat – Saskatoon, SK ^ [TICKETS]
August 7 Park Theatre – Winnipeg, MB ^ [TICKETS]
August 8 Skyway Theatre – Minneapolis, MN [TICKETS]
August 9 The Annex – Madison, WI [TICKETS]
August 10 Madison Theater – Covington, KY [TICKETS]
August 11 Reggies – Chicago, IL [TICKETS]
* No Kataklysm
^ Kataklysm headlines

Almost Human is available on Season of Mist. Order & Stream: https://orcd.co/almosthuman

Track list:
1. System Erase (3:31) [WATCH]
2. Elysiism (3:06) [WATCH]
3. Spine Shatter High-Velocity Impact (3:47) [WATCH]
4. Data Fortress Orbital Stationary (3:08)
5. Delta Labs (3:12)
6. Almost Human (3:15)
7. Bleeding Teeth Fungus (2:44)
8. The Grand Oscillation (3:14)
Total: 25:57

When you invent your own genre, you can make the rules, and in space, no one can correct your math. If Wormhole’s excellent The Weakest Among Us was 50% tech death and 50% slamming brutal death metal, their Season of Mist debut is a veritable leveling up of the Baltimore-based act’s trademark “tech slam.” It’s the kind of record that can scramble your brain and give your neck a nice chiropractic workout; Almost Human feels like the future of extreme metal, dropped down from either outer space or delivered by Nintendo cartridge (more on that later).

So, what the hell exactly is “tech slam?” Well, the gleefully amorphous and unholy term comes from an ethos that guitarists Sanil “Noni” Kumar and Sanjay Kumar discovered and perfected over (probably) thousands of hours of Metroid and Doom games, as well as, you know, actual musical mastery. Almost Human, out September 22, 2023, is more powerful, more agile, and more confounding for pie-chart-enthusiasts than anything else that came before it. The sequel is always bigger, darker, and in this case, covered in much more pixelated space horror viscera. My Wormholio calculator puts their sound at 91% tech and 89% slam, with an increase in awesome stats somewhere in the 420% range. There’s also a clear emphasis on amplifying their dissonant death influence, the kind of eerie melodies that feel like being stomped on by Samus.

There’s a clear balance to everything on Almost Human: the songs are more adventurous while also being instantly memorable. No two songs sound alike, and that diversity in songcraft (level design?) sees Wormhole pushing and pulling along their tech and slam dials to figure out what’s best for the song; spoiler, it’s always riffs. What also becomes evident after repeated listens is how carefully the Kumar brothers understand a sense of place, humor, and a consistent vibe. This is still the same band that’s known for throwing on Saturday morning cartoons, and Almost Human continues to hammer home that Wormhole the musical entity is deadly serious, but the guys that make tech slam are not stoic creatures. There’s a warmth and sense of joy when chatting with them that only gets brighter when you ask their favorite Metroid game (that’s a question for a live show). So, what is this vibe they are chasing? Sanjay shares:

“The tech slam imagery is based on Metroid lore, Doom lore, and we haven’t written a song about it yet, but Alien as well. Those three things are brutal sci-fi universes, so we’re trying to embody that sound. The slam riffs, you can connect the brutal killing of stuff with the brutal chunky riffs; that’s been a match that’s existed since the nineties. So that’s the slam part, and then the tech part was harder to fit that vibe, so we kind of do it differently. I lean into very dissonance-vibe stuff, like Artificial Brain and Dysrhythmia. I think disso-death and heavy, they aren’t usually paired together, even though they should be.”

“And then as far as chasing the vibe,” Noni adds, “I kind of go about it two ways. With the Metroid soundtrack or universe, that vibe, there’s some dark and gloomy atmosphere, but there’s a lot of pretty imagery as well. We wanted to find a way to match that very pretty, kind of out-there sound cohesively in songs with a very aggressive and guttural approach.”

Like another famous sci-fi horror masterpiece of a different media, Wormhole’s shifting, amorphous style is perfectly suited to blend in and amaze just about any fan of heavy music. That’s The Thing: they can pull off whatever they want, but it’s always boiled down to that tech slam vibe. Do you like tech, melody, breakdowns, atmosphere, or dissonance? Tech slam can fill whatever void you seek.

If previous albums were early generation, lower-resolution visions of tech slam,

• Recording studio: Guitars and vocals were recorded at Wormhole HQ. Drums were recorded at AJ Viana Productions.
• Producer & engineering: ‘Almost Human’ was produced and engineered by Wormhole and AJ Viana. Bass parts were produced and engineered by Alex Weber.
• Mixing: AJ Viana at AJ Viana Productions
• Mastering: Alan Douches
• Artwork: Adam Burke at Nightjar Illustration
• Photos: Eric DeCarlo

Biography: Nick Senior

More info:
Bandcamp: https://wormholemetal.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wormholemetal/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wormholetechslam/?hl=en
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2foAanYCza7knczRDB8DFt
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/wormhole/49361741