After a solid career that saw TLTSOL emerge as a solid upper-tier US deathcore act with 6 albums, guitarist Wyatt McLaughlin saw his band gutted back in 2022. He rebuilt TLTSOL and delivered a solid EP, The Disquisition of an Execution in 2023 to get the new lineup greased up and ready for what was to come. The EP hinted at a darker and more experimental sound for TLTSOL, while still delivering murderous breakd0wns.

Well, with No Name Graves, McLaughlin and co, particularly vocalist Tyler Beam have gotten even darker and are leaning even further into the downtempo. With a biblical Caelan Stokkermans cover (Lorna Shore, The Acacia Strain, A Wake in Eternity, The Voynich Code,  Crown Magnetar) and song titles like “Doomsday Death Machine, “Thirst for Extinction” and “Broken Glass Incantation”, it’s clear the band is getting away from some of their nu-metal tropes in favor of a much darker, heavier visage. In fact, I’m pretty comfortable putting these guys comfortably in the same ballpark as Black Tongue, Bound In Fear, and definitely The Acacia Strain, even the doomier stuff like It Comes In Waves, and Failure Will Follow.

Just listen to the opener  “All of Humanity, The Sum”, “Letania Infernalis” (with Suffocation’s Ricky Myers), the title track (with Sanguisugabogg’s Devin Swank), “Doomsday Death Trap” or “Saint No More” (with Ben Mason of Bound in Fear) where those slower moody, lumbering down-tempo riffs just beat you into submission with downtempo grooves from the bowels of hell. Vocalist Tyler Beam in particular seems to have settled into a very commanding bellow and growl, not unlike earlier Alex the Terrible (Slaughter to Prevail).

Every song on No Name Graves is a complete fucking bruiser, even if the band does still have the occasional blast beat and deathcore-styled breakdown and trope (“Body of a Bastard”, “Broken Glass Incantation”, “Thirst for Extinction”). But certainly, this is a much, much more menacing and dread-inducing version of TLTSOF. This is exemplified in the last two tracks; “Debt to the Dark” with a foreboding stomp and more sinister spoken word vocals and the closer “Thirst for Extinction” where after some early blasting and squealing from their past, the track’s final throes are absolutely devastating.

I love this style shift for these guys. I saw them right live right before Covid and nothing really stood out from any other band on the bill or in deathcore at the time, but with this far more foreboding sound, they appear to be back in the saddle as a player in the US deathcore/downtempo scene.

[Visit the band's website]

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