Yeruselem - The Sublime (Album Review)

As extensive as metal has become, it can be hard to carve your own niche and make something different. Nonetheless, Yeruselem have succeeded. Yereselem deliver an original blend of industrial electronica and heavy metal in their debut record The Sublime, laying the foundations of their sound but not quite fully fleshing it out.

Electronic music, industrial, and metal have all been combined before, but Yeruselem does it a bit differently. With a metal base, Yeruselem use electronica and industrial synths to add a sense of urgency or evil to their music. Many times, the electronics are secondary to the heavy guitars and drums, but there are times where they pop through: ‘Reverso‘ is a prime example, where the 808 bass packs a punch. It’s not only in their experimentation of electronica and industrial that Yeruselem succeed, though: they manage to put their own spin on even more basically structured metal tracks. Opening song, title track ‘The Sublime,’ kicks things off evilly, but the way the falsetto melodies and guitars interact with each other is pretty fantastic.

While The Sublime certainly deserves recognition for what it attempts to do, it is a bit of a hit-or-miss. One major problem with the record is that it doesn’t really feel like many of the songs have a climax of progression. Yeruselem start off a song and just keep going with the same riff and adding little elements to it, but never in a way that builds into something different. ‘Triiunity‘ is the starkest example of this, the heavy riff sounding awesome at first but ends up just feeling repetitive by the end. That’s not to say, however, that the songs on the record don’t make an impact. It’s tracks like ‘Autoimmunity‘ with its horrifying and massive drive and ‘Joyless‘ with its punchiness and massive end that make this record leave a mark on you. Even calmer tracks, like the atmospheric instrumentals ‘Sound Over Matter‘ and closing track ‘Textures Of Silence‘ add a nice color to the record as well.

It’s hard to create something genre-bending right off the bat. Nonetheless, Yeruselem manage to combine elements of industrial, electronica, and metal into an impressive blend on their debut record The Sublime, even though they haven’t quite fleshed out their sound fully just yet. The foundations have been set and the possibilities are endless with whatever this band tackles next, and we’ll excitedly be waiting.

Favorite Track: Autoimmunity

Least Favorite Track: Triiunity

Rating: 73 / 100

Stream or buy The Sublime on Apple Music, and follow our 2019 Playlist on Spotify: