Album Review: Turin – The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing (MNRK Heavy)

UK Heavyweights of misery, the intense & visceral Turin (formerly This Is Turin), return with the brutal & uncompromising ‘The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing’, due 12th July via MNRK Heavy. The album shines a light on the human condition, exploring the curse that is the forced morals and virtues instilled creating a delusion of existence.

One of the most underrated bands in the UK scene for too long, Turin are finally starting to get more attention and deservedly so. Finally, folks are beginning to pay attention to their quality brand of heavy and miserable metal and this album is going to go a long way to helping that.

It’s an album full of heavyweight bangers, and from the start, the savagery is on full display with Envy and Abyssal. Both are incredibly vicious sounding, and both have an anthemic vein running through them that makes the roaring and bludgeoning heaviness so much more enjoyable. This is the kind of heavy despair that everyone can enjoy wallowing in.

I don’t know what’s more intense here. Is it the drumming that seems almost inhuman? The guitars that deliver gargantuan riffs, epic melodies, and fantastical hooks? Or is it the vocals that growl and grimace with excessive levels of ferocity?

Individually, all these elements are spectacular, but put them together, and you get this album. Put them together and you get tracks like I Am the Truth, Apostate (one hell of a cinematic beast), and Reflections. No matter how heavy Turin have already been, they find new tools to smash skulls with. It would almost too much, if they weren’t so adept at layering in addictive rhythms and powerful melodies.

Not that it’s a constant slew of salacious sinfulness though, as in between those tracks, there is the ambient and haunting intermission, Ghosts.

Enjoy the momentary peace that track offers as Turin come back in with all the force of a battering ram on Reflections. The manic pacing of this track is something else, but again, it’s the thick layer of melancholy that sits under the brutality that truly makes it special. No matter how furious things sound, misery is always ever-present, even when they go a bit more epic, as they do with the title track. The vocals are absolutely outstanding here, true guttural horror, but the blend of epic soundscapes when they hit the chorus, alongside blazing drumbeats and brutal riffing, is what stays long afterwards.

Turin’s agony might come with a hell of a lot of heaviness, but it’s always focused and well structured. Which is why the latter part of the album is so compelling, even though the likes of Loss, Hopeless Solutions, and Our Reality in Nothing are such harsh pieces of music. Not just because we get such a cacophony of noise, but because each comes with such gloomy heft, it will knock you on your ass.

The Unforgiving Reality in Nothing is a fantastic album that surely has the power to push Turin to even greater heights. What they have created here certainly deserves attention.

Turin – The Unforgiving Reality in Nothing Track Listing:

1. Envy
2. Abyssal
3. I Am The Truth
4. Apostate
5. Ghosts
6. Reflections
7. The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing
8. Loss
9. Hopeless Solutions
10. Our Reality In Nothing

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