Review by JD on October 25, 2008.

This Goth/Metal duo us from the land down under...Melbourne Australia to be exact, and crosses my desk. Don’t know what their name actually means... but it surely gets attention right off the bat.

They seem to be musically very impressive and rather stunning... unfortunately they are a rather good mix of Evanescence with the musical heaviness of someone like Nightwish. Don’t get me wrong here, the lyrics that the lead vocalist, Kelly Lean comes up with are as poetic as any that I have heard, along with some punch... but her vocal style is not quite original.

Kelly Lean sounds almost exactly like how Amy Lee of Evanescence does to the point of being rather a spooky mirroring of her. The tone she holds, the power and even some of the phrasing that has been used musically... makes her sound very close to Miss Lee. I usually don’t like sound-a-likes at the best of times, they usually made me cringe at the best of times... but I found Temujin was able to rise over the comparisons and has started on the road to their own voice. I had always wanted the band Evanescence to have their music go way more heavy direction that what has been put out there, so I was so glad when I found that Temujin shows exactly how it could be.( Hey, Amy... check it out).

The music, although put together with a myriad of MIDI tools, computer enhancements and guest musicians..."1000 Tears" is a pretty solid album. Recording wise it suffers a little bit, but that is only minor. I hope Temujin becomes a full fledged band, with permanent players.... Two members are great... getting the right people and letting it all flow, would just make them better.

This gothic twosome is clearly going places, and the band can’t help but get better and better. I look forward to hearing the next album.... and hope that they have stepped out of the shadows of these other great bands to forge a style all of their own. It they did, I will be listening.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 6
Originality:7
Overall: 8

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by JD on October 25, 2008.

This Goth/Metal duo us from the land down under...Melbourne Australia to be exact, and crosses my desk. Don’t know what their name actually means... but it surely gets attention right off the bat.

They seem to be musically very impressive and rather stunning... unfortunately they are a rather good mix of Evanescence with the musical heaviness of someone like Nightwish. Don’t get me wrong here, the lyrics that the lead vocalist, Kelly Lean comes up with are as poetic as any that I have heard, along with some punch... but her vocal style is not quite original.

Kelly Lean sounds almost exactly like how Amy Lee of Evanescence does to the point of being rather a spooky mirroring of her. The tone she holds, the power and even some of the phrasing that has been used musically... makes her sound very close to Miss Lee. I usually don’t like sound-a-likes at the best of times, they usually made me cringe at the best of times... but I found Temujin was able to rise over the comparisons and has started on the road to their own voice. I had always wanted the band Evanescence to have their music go way more heavy direction that what has been put out there, so I was so glad when I found that Temujin shows exactly how it could be.( Hey, Amy... check it out).

The music, although put together with a myriad of MIDI tools, computer enhancements and guest musicians..."1000 Tears" is a pretty solid album. Recording wise it suffers a little bit, but that is only minor. I hope Temujin becomes a full fledged band, with permanent players.... Two members are great... getting the right people and letting it all flow, would just make them better.

This gothic twosome is clearly going places, and the band can’t help but get better and better. I look forward to hearing the next album.... and hope that they have stepped out of the shadows of these other great bands to forge a style all of their own. It they did, I will be listening.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 6
Originality:7
Overall: 8

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by JD on October 25, 2008.

This Goth/Metal duo us from the land down under...Melbourne Australia to be exact, and crosses my desk. Don’t know what their name actually means... but it surely gets attention right off the bat.

They seem to be musically very impressive and rather stunning... unfortunately they are a rather good mix of Evanescence with the musical heaviness of someone like Nightwish. Don’t get me wrong here, the lyrics that the lead vocalist, Kelly Lean comes up with are as poetic as any that I have heard, along with some punch... but her vocal style is not quite original.

Kelly Lean sounds almost exactly like how Amy Lee of Evanescence does to the point of being rather a spooky mirroring of her. The tone she holds, the power and even some of the phrasing that has been used musically... makes her sound very close to Miss Lee. I usually don’t like sound-a-likes at the best of times, they usually made me cringe at the best of times... but I found Temujin was able to rise over the comparisons and has started on the road to their own voice. I had always wanted the band Evanescence to have their music go way more heavy direction that what has been put out there, so I was so glad when I found that Temujin shows exactly how it could be.( Hey, Amy... check it out).

The music, although put together with a myriad of MIDI tools, computer enhancements and guest musicians..."1000 Tears" is a pretty solid album. Recording wise it suffers a little bit, but that is only minor. I hope Temujin becomes a full fledged band, with permanent players.... Two members are great... getting the right people and letting it all flow, would just make them better.

This gothic twosome is clearly going places, and the band can’t help but get better and better. I look forward to hearing the next album.... and hope that they have stepped out of the shadows of these other great bands to forge a style all of their own. It they did, I will be listening.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 6
Originality:7
Overall: 8

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by George on March 11, 2020.

Pyroclasts is the second of two Sunn O))) albums released in 2019 and it's the one I like less by a pretty significant margin. Musically, it's pretty much exactly what you'd picture when you think of this band. It's primarily made up of thundering basslines which crawl along at a snail's pace, a monotony unbroken by any form of percussion for the entire duration of the album. Sections are nonexistent - as a matter of fact from moment to moment within each song pretty much nothing changes, so one has to take a step back and look at the bigger picture to really see what's going on. It's not uncommon to have a mountainous ten-minute buildup, but in classic Sunn fashion it remains unresolved. Now, all of that isn't exclusive to this band, it could be applied to drone as an entire genre. And therein lies the problem.

My main problem with this release is how - dare I say it - generic it is. I believe pretty much any drone act could have put this together, so far is it removed from the ever-changing, challenging and genre-defying standard of this band. Gone is the Sunn O))) that released the surreal, terrifying Big Church, the hauntingly beautiful Alice and the crushingly claustrophobic Báthory Erzsébet. All of those songs fulfil their purpose to near perfection, gripping and immersing you in their respective worlds and emotions and not letting go until the very end. Pyroclasts falls flat in comparison; sure, it's some pretty good background drone to throw on if you want to read or relax, but the fact that that's it is disappointing. The line between incredibly slow yet impactful music and boring monotony has been crossed.

Sunn O))) make simple music. In fact, they've practically defined minimalism since the beginning of their careers, and Pyroclasts definitely holds a candle to that. If you sit back and let yourself get lost in the music you can easily become immersed, basking in a strange calm amidst the brutal bass-driven loudness. But I've come to expect experimentation from them, some element, somewhere, that challenges you, makes you uncomfortable, scares you, forces you to really think about what you're listening to. That's what this album lacks.

In conclusion, is Pyroclasts a bad release? I wouldn't say so, but within a discography as varied and thought-provoking as Sunn O)))'s, it's definitely a low point. However, I will concede that maybe there's something deeper here, some artistic merit I'm unable to appreciate. I've seen people discussing what images this album evokes in them, everything from towering, monolithic mountains to fathomless voids underneath, so give it a go. Who knows, maybe you'll find some hidden beauty in the soundscapes that I just can't see. For me though, it remains background drone and nothing more.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10