WORMHOLE emerged from the underground this year with Almost Human, their first album for Season of Mist.
“Straight up, ‘Almost Human’ is a contender for Album of the Year for me”, wrote Michael Centrone for New Noise.
The Baltimore space invaders are taking their signature tech-slam combo out on the road next year with Gorod, the French gods of tech-death. They’ll be writhing their way down the East Coast, with an early pit stop in their hometown nesting chamber, before sliming all across the American Southwest. Joining the party are New Jersey’s blackened death metal progressives Hath, as well as the all-seeing Exist, who will be playing their first shows since 2020.
“We are humbled and excited to be joining Gorod on tour this January”, says Wormhole. “Their influence on us and death metal is profound and we cannot wait to play with and watch them every night”.
2024 US Tour Dates January 12 – Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy [TICKETS] January 13 – Baltimore, MD @ The Crown [TICKETS] January 14 – Charlotte, NC @ The Milestone [TICKETS] January 15 – Knoxville, TN @ Brickyard January 16 – Nashville, TN @ The End [TICKETS] January 18 – Dallas, TX @ Haltom Theater [TICKETS] January 20 – Phoenix, AZ @ Pub Rock Live [TICKETS] January 21 – San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick [TICKETS] January 22 – Los Angeles, CA @ 1720 [TICKETS] January 23 – Las Vegas, LV @ The Usual Place [TICKETS] January 25 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad [TICKETS] January 26 – El Paso, TX @ Rockhouse [TICKETS] January 27 – San Antonio, TX @ Vibe’s Underground [TICKETS] January 28 – Houston, TX @ White Oak [TICKETS]
WORMHOLE are rising up from the underground. When they’re not blasting aliens in Metroid, the band have been fine-tuning their signature combo of brutal slam and technical death metal both in and outside of Baltimore. With ‘Almost Human’, they’re proving that there is no ceiling they can’t tech-slam through.
“Straight up, Almost Human is a contender for Album of the Year for me”, says Michael Centrone of New Noise.
“Wormhole delivered a record that holds the power to redefine how brutal tech death and slam-oriented artists write future materials”, writes Angry Metal Guy.
‘Almost Human’ zips the whole tech-slam experience into a tightly clenched polygon fist. The rhythm section of drummer Matt Tillett and bassist Basil Chiasson rip through multiple time shifts, while brothers Sanil and Sanjay Kumar shoot off eerie, pixelated pangs of dissonance. Julian Kersey’s vocals are so rotten that you can practically smell the stench wafting through the speakers.
That’s still a lot to digest. Join Wormhole on Bandcamp tomorrow night and chat with the band about all the glitchy riffs, belching death growls and black hole-sized breakdowns on ‘Almost Human’.
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
Artwork: Adam Burke at Nightjar Illustration
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, Almost Human is the 4K reboot, where you can see every pixel of terror and awe. Wormhole are absolutely ready for their closeup. Prepare your worms and your holes, tech slam is here to stay.
WORMHOLE warp brutal riffs and screeching dissonance into a signature tech-slam combo.
Today, the Baltimore band are premiering a heroic new single with Slam Worldwide. Watch the monstrous visualizer for “Spine Shatter High-Velocity Impact” HERE.
WORMHOLE comments: “This song has our hero struggling as they make their last stand, “They’re desperately trying to rally, but despite their rage, they just keep falling apart. Is the impossible really going to happen? Is our hero, the one we love and cherish so much, really going to lose?”
‘Almost Human’ comes out 22 September. Pre-save the album HERE. Pre-order it HERE.
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
Artwork: Adam Burke at Nightjar Illustration
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, Almost Human is the 4K reboot, where you can see every pixel of terror and awe. Wormhole are absolutely ready for their closeup. Prepare your worms and your holes, tech slam is here to stay.
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 Biography: Nick Senior
WORMHOLE are now releasing the second new single ‘Elysiism’, which is taken from the Tech Slam fanatics’ brand new album “Almost Human”. The new album will be released on September 22, 2023 via Season of Mist and the new offering, which comes in the form of a music video, can now be viewed on Death Metal Supply HERE.
Here’s what WORMHOLE have to say about the single: ““Elysiism” describes existential dread and the human experience. This song is about reflecting on one’s environment through a negative lens, but coming to understand how the hardship has helped mold and build oneself.”
WORMHOLE play by their own rules. When they’re not schooling fools at Nintendo or throwing on the odd Saturday morning cartoon, the band are out scrambling brains with a homemade combo slam of brutal, technical death metal. Or, as they call it, tech slam. For the past eight years, they’ve been fine-tuning their signature moves both in and outside of Baltimore. Now, with ‘Almost Human’, they’re ready to erupt from the underground.
“System Erase” is the first song on ‘Almost Human’ and it zips the whole tech-slam experience into one tightly clenched polygon fist. Brothers Sanil and Sanjay Kumar shoot off lazer beams of glitchy guitar dissonance. Drummer Matt Tillett, along with bassist Basil Chiasson, pilot through two or three different time shifts before the breakdown comes and swallows you up with the slow, crushing force of a black hole. At the center of this vortex are the disgusting, bottomless grunts of Julian Kersey, who joined Wormhole around the same time that the band signed to Season of Mist last year. Every one of Wormhole’s superpowers come together on “System Erase”, surging into one great big ball of pissed-off energy, like Samus charging up her arm cannon. There’s no ceiling they can’t slam through.
Here’s what Wormhole have to say about the single: “”System Erase” explores man’s need for idol worship”, says Wormhole. “In this story, man’s admiration for power and beauty has led him to spend his existence worshiping an entity he saw, only for an instant, eons ago. What of the entity? Did it even notice him? Does it care for man as man cares for it?
‘Almost Human’ will be released on 22 September, 2023 by Season of Mist. Pre-save the album HERE. Pre-order it HERE.
Artwork: Adam Burke at Nightjar Illustration
Tracklist: 1. System Erase (3:31) 2. Elysiism (3:06) 3. Spine Shatter High-Velocity Impact (3:47) 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 run-time: 00:25:57
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
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, Almost Human is the 4K reboot, where you can see every pixel of terror and awe. Wormhole are absolutely ready for their closeup. Prepare your worms and your holes, tech slam is here to stay.
Baltimore tech death outfit WORMHOLE will be embarking on a North American tour as support ANALEPSY along with COGNITIVE and NECROTICGOREBEAST! The tour kicks off on July 7 in Philadelphia, PA and will trek across the continent until the final curtain on August 5 in Brooklyn, NY. The full itinerary can be found below and tickets can be found HERE!
WORMHOLE is completing work on their third full-length, which will be released in 2023 via Season of Mist, making it the band’s debut to the label!
To keep up with the band, check out WORMHOLE‘s Facebook or Instagram! And for a glimpse of what’s to come, check out the band’s catalog on Bandcamp.
WORMHOLE Live U.S. Dates (w/ ANALEPSY, COGNITIVE, NECROTICGOREBEAST): 07/07: Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy 07/08: Baltimore, MD @ Metro 07/09: Charlotte, NC @ Milestone 07/10: Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade (Purgatory) 07/11: Orlando, FL @ Conduit 07/12: Tampa, FL @ Brass Mug 07/13: Fort Walton, FL @ Downtown Music Hall 07/14: Corpus Christi, TX @ Boozer’s 07/15: Austin, TX @ Come and Take It Live 07/17: Tucson, AZ @ Edge Bar 07/18: Los Angeles, CA @ 1720 07/20: San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick 07/21: Cupertino, CA @ X-Bar 07/22: Sacramento, CA @ Old Ironsides 07/23: Reno, NV @ The Cellar 07/24: Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall 07/25: Denver, CO @ Trailside Saloon 07/26: Lincoln, NE @ 1867 07/28: Chicago, IL @ Chicago Domination 07/29: Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary 07/30: Rochester, NY @ Montage Music Hall 07/31: Toronto, ON @ Hard Luck 08/01: Montreal, QC @ Piranha Bar 08/02: Quebec City, QC @ L’anti 08/03: Manchester, NH @ Jewel 08/04: Boston, MA @ Ralph’s Diner 08/05: Brooklyn, NY @ The Meadows
Since its formation in 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland, WORMHOLE has been spearheading the tech slam movement, introducing strong melodies, technical prowess, and virtuosity to hard-hitting brutal death metal. In October 2015, and in 2016 WORMHOLE released their aptly titled debut album “Genesis” on Lacerated Enemy Records.
With influences drawn from Necrophagist, Abominable Putridity, and Beyond Creation, WORMHOLE has been described as “monumental” and “monstrous”, with “ferocious slams” that “bludgeon listeners senseless”.
In December 2017, WORMHOLE made their incendiary live debut. In 2018, they partnered with Vulvodynia on a tour of Europe, and in 2019 joined the infamous yearly Tech Trek tour with death metal giants ARCHSPIRE, INFERI, and VIRVUM.
“The Weakest Among Us”, released in January 2020, WORMHOLE is bridging the gap between brutality and virtuosity and pushing the boundaries of what a death metal band can be.
WORMHOLE will release their third album in 2023 via Season of Mist.
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