Angry Metal Guy<p><a href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tommy-concrete-unrelapsed-review/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Tommy Concrete – Unrelapsed Review</a></p><p><i>By Ferox</i></p><p><strong>Written By:</strong> <span><strong>Nameless_N00b_87</strong></span></p><p>Scottish solo artist <strong>Tommy Concrete</strong> (aka Tomas Pattison) has a proclivity for creating music that is experimental, rebellious, and seldom boring. Since 2001, the avant-garde musician has self-produced a surplus of releases dipping into punk, progressive metal, doom, black metal, hardcore, industrial, and almost everything in between. 2021’s <a href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tommy-concrete-hexenzirkel-review/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><em>Hexenzirkel</em></a> found the Scot experimenting with epic long-winded prog compositions á la <strong>Devin Townsend</strong>. It was received negatively by AMG’s resident <span><strong>Frog</strong></span>. Fast forward three years and <strong>Tommy</strong> is back to give it another go with his tenth full-length <em>Unrelapsed</em>,<a href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tommy-concrete-unrelapsed-review/#fn-206534-1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">1</a> and this time he’s using blackened hardcore as a therapeutic means to cope with his struggles with addiction. Considering <strong>Tommy</strong>’s affinity for genre-hopping and complicating his music, I approached <em>Unrelapsed </em>with the hope that he had found a more focused sound.</p><p><em>Unrelapsed </em>proves that old habits die hard. In typical <strong>Tommy </strong>fashion, the epic prog of <em>Hexenzirkel</em> has been napalmed by an eclectic mix of blackened hardcore that oscillates between industrial (“Anger”), black metal (“Denial”), thrash (“Ambivalent”), drum and bass (“Depression,” “Unrecognisable”) and even trip-hop (“Debt”).<a href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tommy-concrete-unrelapsed-review/#fn-206534-2" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">2</a> For <em>Unrelapsed’</em>s thirty minutes, <strong>Tommy </strong>blazes through twenty-two songs of short, emotionally violent arrangements that are frenzied and chaotic. <strong>Tommy</strong>’s guttural and dissonant vocals convey hostility (“Psycho”), anguish (“Relapse”), depression (“Blame”), and even desperation (“Lost”) as they drift over technically proficient—yet asymmetric—instrumentation that fuses <strong>Imperial Trimphant</strong>’s experimental chaos with <strong>The Locust</strong>’s breakneck fluctuations. Piercing drums—with enough snare to wake the dead—form the core of Tommy’s madness, sitting center stage in a peaking mix as the interplay of effects, subtle organ passages, and meandering guitars further amplify the intense emotions that beleaguered <strong>Tommy</strong>’s journey to sobriety. Together, these elements forge an intensely personal record rooted in adversity, reflection, and catharsis.</p><p></p><p>Intense and personal may be the point, because <em>Unreleapsed</em> is a whirlwind of chaos and disorder. Tracks like “Paranoia” and “Abandoned” arrive and disappear rapidly without any sense of direction. Many others barely hold any semblance of song structure before buckling under their own weight and crumbling into audible storms of phaser (“Lying”), odd noises (“Blackout”), wandering guitar (“Unrecognisable”) and hectic beats (“Depression”). And in the instances when Tommy manages to settle into a coherent song structure for longer than thirty seconds, he frequently derails everything with nomadic jazz fusion or psychedelic guitar noodling that drains <em>Unrelapsed</em>’s scant reserves of flow and momentum.</p><p></p><p>Accordingly, <em>Unrelapsed </em>is a difficult and toilsome listen that drove me to contemplate my exit within ten minutes of pressing play. Although <strong>Tommy Concrete</strong>’s performances show prowess and the underlying emotion is derived from real-life experience, the frenetic energy of the compositions, coupled with <strong>Tommy</strong>’s deeply personal themes, creates an overwhelming experience. While the potent one-two punch of <em>Unrelapsed</em>’s themes and its avant-garde assembly should be a strength, they become too overpowering too quickly, leaving me feeling frayed and confused instead of appreciating <strong>Tommy</strong>’s authenticity and creativity. <strong>Tommy</strong>’s choice to remain self-produced was also dicey but, ironically, the album’s production may be its saving grace. Yes, the drums are overpowering and everything is way too loud, but the mix is balanced and adds some much-needed depth and complexity to <em>Unrelapsed’s</em> sonic onslaught.</p><p><em>Unrelapsed </em>offers a cathartic exploration of addiction and little else. It’s a chaotic and fragmented frenzy that quickly exhausted me by its lack of cohesion, overwhelming pace, and constant sensory overload. At the same time, however, <em>Unrelapsed</em> mirrors a struggle that many have endured but few can comprehend, and I genuinely hope Tomas found solace in its creation. Perhaps that alone should be deserving of a higher score. But the fact remains that <em>Unrelapsed</em> is plagued by persistent troubles— both old and new— and will only resonate with those who have a high tolerance for disorder and raw emotional expression.</p> <p><strong>Rating:</strong> 1.0/5.0<br><strong>DR:</strong> 6 | <strong>Format Reviewed:</strong> 320 kbps mp3<br><strong>Label:</strong> <a href="https://howlinginvocations.bandcamp.com/artists" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Howling Invocations</a><br><strong>Websites:</strong> <a href="https://tommyconcrete.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">tommyconcrete.bandcamp.com</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fconcretetommy%2F&amp;is_from_rle" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">instagram.com/TommyConcrete</a><br><strong>Releases Worldwide:</strong> November 1, 2024</p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/1-0/" target="_blank">#10</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/2024/" target="_blank">#2024</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/blackened-hardcore/" target="_blank">#BlackenedHardcore</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/devin-townsend/" target="_blank">#DevinTownsend</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/hardcore/" target="_blank">#Hardcore</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/howling-invocations/" target="_blank">#HowlingInvocations</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/imperial-triumphant/" target="_blank">#ImperialTriumphant</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/nov24/" target="_blank">#Nov24</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/review/" target="_blank">#Review</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/reviews/" target="_blank">#Reviews</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/scottish-metal/" target="_blank">#ScottishMetal</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/the-locust/" target="_blank">#TheLocust</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tag/tommy-concrete/" target="_blank">#TommyConcrete</a></p>