Review: The Subliminal – Relics

In 2016 the Dutch band The Subliminal put their first single, Wake The Malady, online. That year they also did a few shows. In 2017 they released their second single, called Behind Dead Eyes. From that moment on The Subliminal have thought about what musical direction they want to go. They rearranged some old tracks and created some new material. On November 23rd, Thijmen de Langen, Joerie van Sister, Mark Bos and Milan Snel, the foursome of The Subliminal, released their first physical material. This debut is an EP called Relics.

Due to the fact of Relics being an EP it’s not extremely long. Due to the length of Relics‘ five tracks varying between 3:48 and 6:28, the entirety of Relics has a total length of a bit over 25 and a half minutes.

While listening to Relics, it will soon be very clear that The Subliminal really shows its own style. Sometimes there’s a bit of an atmospheric vibe mixed in the music, while the music itself is mostly quite pounding and very grooving. Especially Mark Bos’ nicely pounding drums sound very tight and show a lot of variation in rhythm. Speaking of variation, this is definitely very present on Relics, without turning into chaos. It surely helps that The Subliminal shows a lot of variation on Relics without deviating too much from their musically chosen path, which itself is worth a compliment.

There are a lot of nice surprises on Relics. This is an EP that is far from boring and it is surely possible that you’ll discover new elements of Relics during another listening session of it. Of course I won’t give away all surprises, but a few examples of very nice elements are the battering start and finish of Defiance and the chugging bass followed by a very intense, maniacal scream in Relics‘ opening track, Lowlife. Lowlife also was Relics‘ first single that was released online on October the 19th.

Vocally The Subliminal also shows different types on Relics. All vocals are for sure brought with 100% power, however this can be heard the most intensely in the raw, aggressive growls. Besides his growls, vocalist Milan Snel also shows clean vocals, which mostly sound more melodic and atmospheric. The only track in which this is a bit different at some moments is Sleepwalkers, however it also fits perfectly.

The Subliminal shows an enormous dose of power on Relics and I can only give one advice on this EP: Don’t miss this! These guys are definitely interesting to keep track of. Relics is a very strong debut EP that sounds very promising for the future of The Subliminal. 

Here you can also read our 14th part of Promoting Bands in which we mentioned The Subliminal.

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