Album Review: Terms – All Becomes Indistinct (SKiN GRAFT Records)

Carl Fisher 3 min read

‘All Becomes Indistinct’ is the second full-length album from Terms. Arriving by way of Tampa Bay, Florida and St. Louis, Missouri surfaced during the pandemic as a socially distanced band – dealing in dissonance, atonality and the unknown. It will be released on April 21st, 2023, via SKiN GRAFT Records.

I sat staring at an empty document for ages trying to come up with the words that could best convey what Terms have given us here. I review a lot of releases. So much so, that coming up with descriptive ways to tell you, the reader, about the release can be challenging. Yet, I always manage to say something, and I will here, but for now, I feel it speaks volumes about this album that I have struggled so much to express how it sounds and how it makes me feel.

This ‘first-world’ problem isn’t a complaint though. In fact, it’s bloody fascinating. Terms are one of the most eccentric and challenging listens I have ever heard. Which feels like one hell of a surprise when I consider how much noise rock I hear. In a world of ‘same olds’, Terms aren’t just different, they’re standing on a plinth alone. All Becomes Indistinct will either be the best thing you’ve ever heard, or the worst. There is no ‘in between’ because Terms don’t do anything that isn’t baffling.

 

 

All Becomes Indistinct features 14 tracks of discordant and discombobulating music that can be uncompromisingly chaotic and maddening. Yet, Terms deliver their instrumental disorder in such a clever way that sense begins to appear. It’s like looking at one of those trick pictures, stare at it long enough, eventually it does start to look like a dog. With All Becomes Indistinct, listen long enough and you’ll start to hear the sound of virtuosos. Although not everyone will see the dog.

Am I rambling? It seems like I’m rambling, but that’s the effect this album, and Terms as the entity behind it, has on you. You’ll search for as many distinct ways as possible to describe the music here and come up short. It seems as though Terms put no limits at all on themselves and decided that everything worked, and it bloody does. It’s impossible to imagine this being any other way, especially on multiple listens. Which it will get because the first handful of times, you’ll be frozen in place with your mouth agape.

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No, you’re not having a stroke. It’s Terms and this is All Becomes Indistinct and I think it’s utterly brilliant. A ‘WTF’ out of 10.

Just go listen to it yourself. Make up your own mind on this one. It’s worth every second of your time. Even if you come away hating it, you gave it a chance and it deserves that.

Terms – All Becomes Indistinct Track Listing:

1. Still Sour / Makin’ Ennui
2.Teetering Scree
3. Soup Of The Day
4. Blusterguts!
5. Keep My Urn
6. The Plummet Section
7. How To Talk To Your Kids About Poetry
8. First Existential
9. Blurred Photo Of A Fragment Of A Drawing
10. Points For Composure
11. Injurer
12. Lack Of All Trades
13. Tambourine Drop
14. Sleep Until It’s Colder




Links

Bandcamp | SKiN GRAFT Records

Author

  • Owner/Administrator/Editor/Writer/Interviewer/YouTuber - you name it, I do it. I love gaming, horror movies, and all forms of heavy metal and rock. I'm also a Discworld super-fan and love talking all things Terry Pratchett. Do you wanna party? It's party time!

Terms - All Becomes Indistinct (SKiN GRAFT Records)
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