Labor of the Negative is an anonymous group of international musicians who bond over a love of German philosophers and the use of American English (see the band name). They pitch their musical tastes around the spiritual strength of misanthropic black metal. Signed to I, Voidhanger Records, they have a penchant for experimental music, yet The Triumph of Time and the Disillusioned will perplex the most ardent of avant-garde fans, and that’s not a bad thing.
Opener, ‘Epoché I’, is the musical expression of extreme distress. Think of it as the incongruous nightmares of the brain during sleep. Unmelodious guitars receive a murderous strum of the hand in tremolo formation as the drums do their best to be unheard in the mix. Slowing down the tempo to put an eerie saxophone centre stage is a risk worth taking at the two-minute mark. It gives the song a vertiginous feel, almost enough to put you in a hallucinogenic daze.
The listener should abandon any idea of finding comfort in repetitive structures. ‘Epoché II’ is a mix of dissonant arpeggios and shrieking animal noises disguised as words. You might imagine yourself in a Dario Argento film from the 1970s for most of this metal noir paranoia. The sound engineer mixed the bass far louder than drums, which means you can seldom hear the drum fills among the mess of distortion. It’s a relief to cling on to a doom metal reprise at 04:15 despite the animated vocal outbursts trying their best to replicate the best clichés of a lunatic asylum from the 1930s.
Clearly, this band know how to create an atmosphere of psychosis. Observe how ‘Epoché III’ operates like a schizophrenic mind denied its daily medication. You can detect some tasty mid-range thrash guitar among this cabin fever because the drums are so weak in the mix. Handing the spoons to a six-year-old kid for an improvised play on the pots and pans would produce heavier sonics than the atrocious audio engineering here. Fortunately, this isn’t a problem when the four musicians descend into Pink Floyd’s The Wall era for the second half of the song. Now you can hear everything with perfect clarity and imperfect balance. Even the double-timing beats are audible in ‘Epoché V’ where this was impossible earlier in the record. Likewise, for ‘The Eternal Present and the Endless Dream’, which is a disorienting piece of music that aims to be the opposite of dream pop. Watch how the drummer takes control here as if teaching a lesson for avant-garde jazz musicians.
Like all good avant-garde records, you never know what’ll happen next on this LP. See past the deliberate lack of structure and surrender to the chaos, and you can find some comfort in this existential unease. Vocalist M. is closer to the pitch of a hyena rather than a human. Few animals would make these noises if entangled in barbed wire, but don’t let this distract you from the remarkable improvisation of bass and drums in the quieter sections of ‘Epoché V’. Let’s be clear: this is black metal anchored in the works of Ved Buens Ende and Arcturus, but it sounds like neither.
The reed of the saxophone is just as important as the ominous threat of the guitar in many of these tracks, yet the album ends with the most paranoid composition on the record, ‘Epoché VI’. Here, the diverging bass scales and extreme shrieking at the microphone are as unpleasant as a sudden disruption to a comforting routine. Labor of the Negative are willing to go into the darkest recesses of the human mind, but are you ready to join them?
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 07/08/2026
Record Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Standout tracks: Epoché II; The Eternal Present and the Endless Dream; Epoché V
Suggested Further Listening: Dødheimsgard – A Umbra Omega (2015), Grey Aura – Zwart Vierkant (2021), Sly & The Family Drone – Moon is Doom Backwards (2024)