“The whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by some reflection on its cause, or its consequences,” wrote British naval officer Francis Beaufort, recollecting his near-death by drowning in 1791. This is an early account of what psychologists now call a “life review,” the moment before death during which your life flashes before your eyes. Drew Daniel recently realized that if Matmos could experience a life review, it would likely be pretty metal: He and his partner M.C. Schmidt have been gathering metallic sounds over the whole course of the band’s existence, sampling everything from squeaky hinges to cannons on their travels around the world.
This archive forms the basis of Metallic Life Review, an album built around metal objects that have crossed Matmos’ path over the course of their career. What would be a heady concept for most bands is tame for Matmos, who have made a name for themselves by mining the sounds of surgeries, telepathy, and doing the laundry. The record is a sequel of sorts to 2019’s Plastic Anniversary, which drew from a wave of plastic detritus including riot shields, vinyl LPs, and breast implants, in a seriocomic demonstration of the way that deathless substance infiltrates our lives (and our bodies). But this album is less obvious in its social critique and more traditional in its instrumentation—for every nitrous oxide canister or cheese grater, there are several more gongs, steel tongue drums, cymbals, glockenspiels, and tubular bells. The more relevant precursor is Matmos’ 2010 collaboration with Sō Percussion, Treasure State, a suite of songs inspired by the acoustic properties of things like water, cactus needles, and yes, aluminum. Metallic Life Review shares the same fascination with materiality, reveling in metal’s musical attributes.
Daniel points to industrial stalwarts Einstürzende Neubauten as an influence on Metallic Life Review; that group’s bang and clang are clearly evident in the clattering rhythms of tracks like “The Rust Belt.” But metal can also be mellow, melodic, even sensuous. “Norway Doorway” begins with a door, recorded in Oslo, whose hinges are hysterically creaky, screaming out like Foley work in a bad horror film. As the song folds in propulsive percussion by Thor Harris, the creak begins to sound more like a soulful saxophone—the hinge hasn’t changed, but a new context reveals its musicality. “Steel Tongues” plays a similar trick by burying a cemetery gate in an innocuous setting: Its rattling and groaning lose their morbid effect against a lullaby melody courtesy of Horse Lords’ Owen Gardner on glockenspiel. These touches owe less to ’80s industrial than to Harry Partch, who invented instruments made from artillery shell casings and aircraft bomber nose cones for surprisingly delicate, complex pieces.
The biggest leap the duo takes is not conceptual but compositional. The 20-minute, multi-part title track had its genesis in the usual Matmos way, with individually recorded sections that they mixed and matched to their liking on tour. Instead of stitching the final product together on a laptop, though, they followed the lead of Throbbing Gristle’s Heathen Earth, a gnarly live-in-studio first take. Daniel and Schmidt shake themselves loose of the DAW’s fixed grid for an organic groove that builds percussive momentum, subsides into a meditative sample of church bells, and then rallies for a second, noisier crescendo.
The animating idea of the life review, that autobiographical flash at the moment of death, sometimes gets buried under the weight of all this metal, its achingly personal connotation clashing with cold iron and steel. But at the end of the recording process, the phrase abruptly took on a tragic new resonance. Susan Alcorn, the legendary pedal steel guitarist who supplies the haunting twang on “Changing States,” passed away in January 2025. David Lynch, to whom “The Chrome Reflects Our Image” is dedicated, died the same month. A secondary meaning of the life review is perhaps more suitable: that of a therapeutic process of telling stories about ourselves, of remembering where we’ve been and who we are. Though Matmos are not about to end, Daniel and Schmidt use Metallic Life Review as an opportunity to reflect on their career, their friends, and their influences, crafting a makeshift memorial with a brilliant, mirror-like sheen.
