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Car Bomb’s music lives in a pretty unique corner of the heavy metal universe. Sure, words like crushing and bludgeoning technically apply to their music, but they don’t really do justice to what Car Bomb is all about. This isn’t just music that pummels you into a bloody pulp—it’s more like your entire being is atomized and scattered into the cold, indifferent void.

Now, six years after their 2019 full-length Mordial, Car Bomb is back with a new EP called Tiles Whisper Dreams. It’s more of a stripped-down take on their sound—well, as stripped-down as Car Bomb can possibly get. They’ve cut back on some of the extra bells and whistles from Mordial, so there’s less atmospheric clutter from left field, and instead they’ve leaned way harder into the raw core of what makes Car Bomb, Car Bomb.

That being said, Tiles Whisper Dreams isn’t exactly an easy entry point for new listeners either, despite being an EP. The band is still every bit as technical, dense, and relentless as they’ve ever been—just in a more focused dose. Which, again, if you’re a new listener, that might be kinda crazy to you.

Though personally, I find it pretty admirable. Car Bomb isn’t trying to soften the edges or chase trends here, like their peers in bands like Meshuggah, CB Murdoch, and Gojira. Car Bomb is carving their own path, and they are fully committed to their vision without any compromise whatsoever.

Tiles Whisper Dreams kicks off with Blindsides, a track built around this really compelling sense of upward momentum, both harmonically and rhythmically. It feels like you’re listening to a machine that’s constantly sputtering to life, overheating, breaking down, and then firing back up again.

That start-stop tension becomes a recurring motif Car Bomb plays with in a really clever way throughout this entire song. Right from the start, you get a rising sequence of notes grouped into shifting rhythms, alternating between straight subdivisions and tuplet groupings that create this almost breathless, unstable energy.

Then later on, Car Bomb flips that idea on its head. The pitches start descending, but they’re twisted upward again using pitch shifters or a whammy bar. Once you catch on to that push-pull concept of what Car Bomb is trying to do within this song, the whole personality of the track clicks into place and it makes total sense.

Even the cleaner sections of Blindsides around the midpoint carry that same unstable, shifting quality—just in a much more subtle way. If you listen closely beneath Michael Daffner’s vocals, you’ll hear guitars that sound like they’re being run through a slightly broken tape machine.

Meanwhile, the bass and drums are doing their best to lock in, but there’s this constant sense that everything’s slipping just out of sync. It’s a great example of how Car Bomb can mess with your head without going full-on insane.

Paroxysm is the shortest track on the EP, but don’t let that fool you. It’s a sneaky one. Car Bomb opens up with a rhythm that sounds like someone tumbling down a jagged, uneven staircase, only to land hard at the bottom in a mess of blast beats and sheer fury. For a moment, Car Bomb goes pretty much full-on death metal—and it totally rips.

But the real magic happens after that initial explosion. Car Bomb slows down that chaotic rhythm and reframes it in a way that feels like an entirely new idea. Familiar enough to hang onto, but warped just enough to keep your attention and keep you guessing as to where the song might be going.

Then, true to form and in total Car Bomb fashion, they start subtly tweaking the groove—adding small variations that gradually morph the riff and the rhythm and just kind of the overall feel of the song into something completely new—and you probably didn’t notice until you’re already there.

By the time the full cycle of Paroxysm plays out, you’ve ended up somewhere completely different. Right up until that breakdown hits like a total wrecking ball, and then there’s this Holdsworth-ish solo that breaks all your fingers. And once you’re completely disoriented and left in a daze by all the chaos that came before, that tumbling rhythm from the beginning returns to light your speakers on fire and just blow your mind to bits.

And then there’s the title track, Tiles Whisper Dreams, which—the best way I could describe this song—is like Meshuggah’s Bleed being played on a scratched CD.

It’s relentless, it’s jagged, it’s borderline malfunctioning, and it is just so heavy. There’s also a moment of unintentional levity in the song about 15 seconds in. It’s just the guitar hammering out this broken, off-kilter groove that goes way over the bar lines while the hi-hat is calmly clicking in place along in a straight 4/4 groove like it’s trying to keep the peace.

And in my head, it plays out like the band’s gearing up to cue this massive mosh pit, but the guitar part is so rhythmically twisted that nobody really knows how to move to it. Tiles Whisper Dreams swings hard between groove-heavy, headbang-worthy riffs and mind-bending technicality—and it all comes together beautifully.

About halfway through, they drop what might be the most Meshuggah breakdown moment on the whole EP—and it is really, truly bone-crushing.

Seriously, if anyone’s trying to write this type of music and they’re wondering how to wedge a breakdown into a hyper-technical song without it feeling forced, and with it feeling completely natural and totally devastating—this track right here is a masterclass on how to do that.

After that breakdown, as your brain kinda starts to catch up on what just happened, there’s a guitar solo, there’s a final nod to the main rhythmic feel of the song, and the whole track closes out on the rising motifs presented in the first song. It’s a brilliant way to end the EP and make it feel like it all comes full circle at the end.

Tiles Whisper Dreams is downright impressive—and not just because the songwriting is sharp and engaging. For starters, the mix is incredibly clean, which is no small feat considering how much is going on in any given moment on this EP.

The guitar alone covers a staggering amount of sonic ground and veers into all kinds of experimental textures, yet you can always still pick out each element of what’s going on with surprising clarity. Well, most of the time, anyway. There are certainly moments where Car Bomb seems to intentionally blend guitars and synthesizers into this one single warped monolithic instrument, which is also a cool choice.

It definitely serves the song, but it feels very intentional. It feels like Car Bomb has chosen the moments where they want to have these bigger spaces, and they’ve also chosen the moments where it just needs to be this overwhelming pandemonium.

The other thing that really stands out to me about this EP is how much it sounds like a real band playing in the studio. That might sound like an obvious thing to expect from any record, but given the sheer level of technicality here, it’s pretty wild.

Nothing feels overly programmed or mechanical. There’s a real sense of human energy driving every single turn on this EP, no matter how complex or chaotic. I guess it helps that I’ve seen Car Bomb live as well—and they were spot on the entire show. And if you don’t believe me, their 2023 live album Live in Santa Cruz can prove that to you very easily.

Tiles Whisper Dreams is a solid 9 out of 10 for me. It’s tightly written, it strikes a great balance between technicality and memorability, and makes all the right moves at exactly the right moments. Every shift, every turn feels earned and very intentional and purposefully written.

And maybe most impressively, the songs don’t just work individually—they flow together as a cohesive, dynamic whole. Car Bomb totally nailed it on this EP, and I’m definitely excited to see how they take this sound into their future full-length album.