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With two EPs under their belt the new mini-album from this Oxfordshire quintet showcases a band with a maturity that belies their years. This is punishing, stinging death metal that swings like The Black Dahlia Murder and has a low end that Thy Art Is Murder would be chuffed with. That’s impressive enough for your first go, but where A Trust Unclean really excel is when they add in the weird jingling synths that make a song like Aeon such a disorientating aural headfuck. There’s enough craft in amongst the punishment to make you think that they could make a decent fist at outliving a genre that is rapidly stagnating. To Encompass And Eclipse could be accused of leaning solely on beatdown tropes if it weren’t for the wild Strapping Young Ladstyle guitar histrionics to keep it interesting. ATUare by no means perfect, with a bit more experimentation with pacing needed if they truly want to stand out, but it’s another name to add to the ever growing list of bands leading British metal’s ongoing renaissance.

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.