04 May 2023 // A review by Liam Davis
Every so often, a musical effort comes along that reinvents the wheel- Magnalith, I believe - has done that. Oblivion is a beautiful cacophony of aggression and melancholy. With sounds and similarities to the likes of other wheel reinventors System of a Down and Deftones; as well as influences in Groove and Doom Metal.

Any Metal fan would find something to love with this EP. The three tracks offered may be short, but make up for it in the layers and powerful performances on display here. Each track builds off the former without feeling repetitive or drawn out, with each listening providing more details and nuances to love. Musically, it is a masterpiece.

Instrumentally- there is so much to unpack. It's obvious that songwriter Matthew Bosher has put his heart and soul into this. The ethereal and beautiful cleans and shrill screams weave perfectly into the muddy and wall-shaking Guitar riffs that vibrate my desk as I write this. Matthew is a clear and concise master of his craft.

And I think Oblivion, as a whole, is the perfect display of this. However, I believe new listeners, especially to the genre, would be turned off by the amount of Aggression and Sonic power that comes in early on.
In conclusion, this is a musical slow burn; but a well-worthwhile one. I cannot wait for May 5th when this beast is unleashed into the wild.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ ( 5 / 5 )

Magnalith is dense but concise, expressionistic but corporeal music. Tangentially metal, curiously harmonic. Unbridled structural deviations see handbrake slides into weird, cinematic passages that lurch back into leviathan riffs.

The second EP, Oblivion (out 5 May) builds out the fantastical but humanistic atmosphere of the debut, Instrumentality. The hallmarks of experimental vignettes, conceptual lyricism, pathos and sagacious mixing remain. The new release accelerates the heavy, harmonic and cerebral qualities that capture the imagination of post-metal, prog and hard rock fans.

For songwriter Mathew Bosher, the first single, Sympathy, represents a return to music. Production of the EP was interrupted by the premature birth of his son; a welcome but harrowing arrival. Bosher spent a day in the recording studio, then a hundred in the neonatal intensive care unit with his family. He stopped listening to music for the first few weeks of his son’s care, recognising that any songs would be imbued with his family's trauma. Now the little one is thriving. Completing the recordings was a kind of celebration of the urgent and irrepressible creative force.

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