Terminal – Blacken The Skies (Album – Metropolis Records)
Genre/Influences: Industrial-Pop.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Thomas Mark Anthony is a South-African artist who last year self-released a few singles. This debut album released by Metropolis Records looks like a consecration for his efforts. Terminal is meant as ‘the soundtrack to a world unbalanced, reeling and spinning out of control, running out of time’.
Content: I honestly never heard of Terminal before and discovered a heavy, overwhelming instrumental debut track featuring Industrial sound treatments. This influence runs through the entire work, but has been joined by a kind of Electro-Pop approach. Bombastic parts and crushing passages are emerging at the surface while other cuts have been achieved with guitar sounds.
+ + + : What I respect in the approach of Terminal is the will to create a very own sound identity. It’s not a band you can compare with any other, but an album resulting from a mix of influences that have been mixed in a personal way. I like the bombast running through “Fault Line” and the overwhelming production emerging at “Needle Park (Time To Die)”, “Riot Shields” and “TRMNL”. I also like the colder approach feature at “TRMNL”.
– – – : Terminal is hard to label, which is not always easy to reach a specific audience. There are several cool and noticeable songs featured, but no absolute hits. I’m also convinced the vocals’ production can be improved.
Conclusion: “Blacken The Skies” is an honest debut album; nothing less nothing more!
Best songs: “Needle Park (Time To Die)”, “TRMNL”, “Fault Line”, “Riot Shields”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.terminalnoise.com / www.facebook.com/terminal.industrial
Label: www.metropolis-records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords
About Terminal
Terminal is the industrial project of singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Mark Anthony from Pretoria, South Africa, a long-time resident of Canada. The Bandcamp biography describes the music as a mix of industrial and glam rock with dark techno, synthpop and raw machine recordings, and Anthony as a lifelong anti-apartheid and civil rights activist. Discogs lists David Ross Phillips (keyboards) and Jess Choi (drums) in the US-based live unit. The project self-released the download singles “Terror Ride”, “Fault Line” and “Godfire” in 2020.
“Blacken The Skies” was released by Metropolis Records on 5 February 2021 as a download and on CD. The twelve tracks are “The Course Of Empire”, “Terror Ride”, “Deadline”, “Fault Line”, “Crackdown”, “Extrajudicial”, “Dance Fall Pray”, “Needle Park (Time To Die)”, “Riot Shields”, “Godfire”, “TRMNL” and “Collateral Damage”. No production credits are listed on the Bandcamp or Discogs pages.
The second album The New Republic followed on Metropolis Records on 25 August 2023, dedicated to the late label owner Dave Heckman, and was reviewed on Side-Line in December 2023 as Terminal – The New Republic. The eight-track collection The Hush Of Cannons Cold appeared in 2024. “Blacken The Skies” is the project’s debut album and its first Side-Line review.
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