Every week there are a few new bands releasing their first offerings it seems. And it’s quite interesting that a lot of them are worth your attention. Or probably worth the attention of the next one reading these lines. The Italian TULPA (a term which describes a phenomenon in Buddhist theosophy) is definitely one of them, even though their album “Temple Of Wounds” is already their second full length. Formed in 2016, the four piece from Parma recorded an EP a year later, that was released independently, and the album “Unhealed” for Austrian Talheim Records in 2019. Now the renowned German Black Metal label Folter Records took care of TULPA, “Temple Of Wounds” being the first result of this collaboration. And it’s definitely not your typical Black Metal album, as it is not really pure or trve Black metal. The sound of TULPA can be located at the borders between Black Metal and Neo-Crust. You can find defining influences of bands like TRAGEDY, FALL OF EFRAFA or FROM ASHES RISE all over the album. And it is exactly these influences that make the variable songs from TULPA, like ‘Healing’, the title track or the great ‘No One Wins’, some of the most outstanding songs of the year yet, especially as I always loved those guitars tones that are quite typical (and also genre defining) for Neo-Crust. But that’s not all TULPA has to offer, as they condense the intensity towards the end of the album. After the thrilling ‘Syskäath’, they slow down with the dark and gripping ‘Zerotonin’. With the fantastic ‘Buried In A Hourglass’, we have blackened Crust in perfection that leads to the long, yet enthralling outro ‘…In The Ahr’. Thus endeth an album that surely is one of the first real highlights in 2024 and a great surprise as well. In case you dig dark and intense sounds that are often outside the box, you can’t leave out TULPA for sure. Give them a chance at: www.facebook.com/tulpaofficial, www.facebook.com/folterrecordsgermany