DOUBLE MUTE – Corporate Culture_FINAL_v2

RELEASE YEAR: 2025
BAND URL: https://doublemute.bandcamp.com/album/corporate-culture-final-v2

One of the most unique entities out there today is undoubtedly the deeply intriguing Double Mute and their highly eclectic and delightfully twisted on all things progressive. Also, for the sake of clarity, let there be no doubt that main man Jake Rosenberg is a musical genius whose ideas and visions transcend and defy all that is conventional. Consider yourself warned then.

If I said that Corporate Culture_FINAL_v2 is progressive alt. metal, then that would be akin to cheating in the sense that it is much larger and more varied in scope than that. Blending various genres and adding their own touch of cleverness (or is that madness?) to the maniacal affair, the album and its ten compositions fuse many different components and influences together to stunning effect, which means that you will find traits from electronica, black metal, ambient music, alt. rock, soundscapes, spoken word, and art rock . . . and everything is turned upside down, if you can imagine that. Unfathomably atmospheric but also a challenging listen and quite the task to digest properly, the record feels like a multi-sensory journey that does not lack the dynamism to stay engaging from beginning to end; the textures are simply too magnificent for that.

Upon closer study and after many revealing listens, it just so happens that Corporate Culture_FINAL_v2 proves to be so impassioned and expressive in tone, style, and emotion that it is in actual fact profoundly (and arguably even deceptively) moving somehow. When embarking on this labyrinthine journey, you must accept the fact that contradictions are in constant play throughout and that the restless nature of the song material ensures that it never stays in one place for long. If you want surreal quirkiness, brilliant lyrics, creative song titles, and strangely compelling tracks that will fry your brain, look no further than this confident-sounding opus in which beauty, ugliness, harsh truth, wonderful lies, semantically empty slogans, and disenchanted minds merge and shake uncontrollably.

What exactly is this stuff? Psychedelic music that mirrors the spiritually bankrupt aspects and avenues of a disconnected world anno 2025 perhaps? Yeah, maybe that is what this is, but really, you should investigate Corporate Culture_FINAL_v2 for yourself and make up your mind about it. Some will take refuge; others will embrace it. What could be better?