August 14, 2025 • 10 mins
We highlight progressive metal band Kallias' latest single, "The Final Cleansing," the day their new album, Digital Plague, arrives on all streaming platforms.
Andrew and Dominique dive into the many layers of "The Final Cleansing," how the song ebbs between cinematic intricacy and straightforward slam.
Tell us about your first listen @AtFirstListenPodcast on Instagram.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen.
Andrew and Dominique dive into the many layers of "The Final Cleansing," how the song ebbs between cinematic intricacy and straightforward slam.
Tell us about your first listen @AtFirstListenPodcast on Instagram.
Subscribe so you don't miss an episode of At First Listen.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to at First Listen To Music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And today we're talking about a band whose name I'm
not sure I've ever said out loud Callius Callius.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, I also wasn't sure Callias. Who knows?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And it's a song called the Final Cleansing from their
album Digital Plague, which comes out I think today. Oh
cool as this episode is released. Callius is a progressive
death metal band from the great State of New Jersey.
I've become a pretty big fan of them over the
(00:54):
past year or so. They're singer and guitar player Nicole
has a big social media following. She's a writes a
lot of their music. She's a producer, and she shares
a lot of the like rough raw cuts of her
vocals for this band, which I think is super cool
because it's like a very vulnerable thing to share your
(01:18):
single track vocals, but that is very brave.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
A lot of people will, like, you know, out of tune.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
They're they're like, oh, I just recorded this in my bedroom,
but it's like, couldn't be more on pitch.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So she puts out a lot of stuff that's very
like the process.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So it's it's a lot of it's kind of inside.
She's very helped. She's given me a lot of ideas
for like producing and shared a lot of insight on
like engineering. She has a very long, I think Greek
lass name. Okay, so we got Papastavru. Sure, that's that's
my best guess. I'm I'd have missed an entire syllable now.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
That I'm seeing that the Greeks greekness. Yeah, quite the
name of the song, the Final Cleansing.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Let me play a bit of it right now. This
is the intro, lengthy intro in this and you can
tell that this is this is a band that likes
a little production and this is like science music.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm seeing, I'm seeing, I'm seeing credits.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Go, there's a million billion stars. So into a awesome
just caveman riff. What other way do you describe a
(02:52):
completely like unsophisticated riff like that? But it sounds good
and it's like you know in in this space that
they're in this technical death metal thing or progressive death
metal where it's very focused on doing something that's like impossible,
like people can't even comprehend how complex your riff is.
(03:16):
To just be like just zero to two for this
for a while, Yeah, and we'll just make that groove.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I like because it is it's a bit much. It's
a very huge sound with a lot of complexity, so
sort of like building up to that is nice.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I'm a person who likes hearing complex music. I think
something happened when I began to play guitar where I
was like, oh, I'm never gonna listen to music the
same way again, because I'm always going to be thinking
of like, how is this played? But then music can
get so complicated. It's like I'm not even thinking I
have no desire to learn how to play this. I
(04:02):
can just enjoy it for what it is, and it's
like it smashes through a wall where you can just
be like, yeah, riff go boom.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yes, I imagine I wonder what that looks and feels like
live or like after playing it a whole bunch of times.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
They don't play a lot of shows, but I'm hoping
to get to see them live one of these days.
They're one of those bands that because they make this
kind of music they have jobs, which is a huge bummer.
But let's hear some of the vocals. There's a couple
of a couple of different vocalists on the track, Nicole,
who's the main vocalist, the screams, and then the bass
(04:43):
player Chris Moron or Marony does some clean vocals on
the chorus.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Figure out, I mean, I do. I wish I knew
what she was saying, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
That's interesting. That's the difference between you and me totally.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I care about lyrics, and especially on a song called
The Final Cleansing, and I've never heard this band before.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I'm and you know, obviously I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm assuming they're not you know what supremacists, but there.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Is like a totally a genre of metal that is that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And so this is kind of throwing me off because
I'm like, oh, I'm sure they're talking about some you know,
their their examining, Yes, but I can't tell because I
don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So you're just trying to check for red flat basically,
that would be surprising to me. I think metal lyrics
are very silly and I don't want to know them.
For the most part. The heavier the band, the sillier
the lyrics probably are, but let's get to the chorus
(05:56):
where it's a little more intelligible. I must find there's
song forms to be very interesting because there's like a verse,
(06:17):
then a chorus, and then it's just bridge time, and
then it's there's going to be a bunch of bridges,
and then eventually they'll bring it back to that first riff.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I would love to thrash to this song. There's so
many there's so many different things to listen to and
to notice, like and they're always they're kind of popping
in and pumping out, and it's like very stimulating.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
One of the most stimulating things you can do as
a heavy band is to play the same riff but
a little bit slower. So that was even slower than
(07:08):
you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It was, it was so slow.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
If someone needs a soundtrack for Hell, I think this
is it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
This would definitely fit right in. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I mean they find a good balance of being heavy
and complex and just like a little bit scary, like yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Because there's nothing scary about like a bunch of musicians,
yeah doing their art for really well.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I'm scared of you expressing it, dude, But.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's scary up to that point.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
But if you can create an arrangement and and produce
an array of sounds, that does take someone out of
the I am listening to a band thing that gets
you a little bit in your imagination where you're visual visualizing,
like the cinema of a song, where you can be like, oh,
(08:05):
I could see this being a really creepy visual and
there are I think they've put out music videos for
at least two of the songs, but as you know,
the only thing I hate more than being in a
music video and participating in it is watching one. Yeah,
so I'm sorry, callius. I haven't watched the music videos,
(08:28):
but I'll watch the playthroughs those I like.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's a different, it's a different I feel like some
people myself, I like to be entertained by the visual,
the visual aesthetic. I think that's an important part of
any artist for me, but not everyone cares.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah, and that's you and that's me. So if you
want to check them out, it's spelled k A L
L I as Kallias. The album The Digital Plague arrived
August fourteenth, which might be today and that's our first
listen tell us about yours at First Listen podcast on Instagram,
(09:09):
and Dominique has a show at the end of the
month at UCB.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yes I do.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I also have a show the last Friday of the month.
It's the day before at the pit Wow doing characters. Busy, busy, busy,
booked and busy.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're gonna do characters and then you're gonna star and
UCB okay as yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So many versions of me. Yeah, actually be.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The name of the character character team is Identity Crisis,
so it fits the bib wow.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Thanksol, So thanks for listening to this bonus episode of podcast.
We'll be back next week with another one. He he
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Qu
Welcome to at First Listen To Music podcast for people
who don't always get the hype but want to.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And today we're talking about a band whose name I'm
not sure I've ever said out loud Callius Callius.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, I also wasn't sure Callias. Who knows?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And it's a song called the Final Cleansing from their
album Digital Plague, which comes out I think today. Oh
cool as this episode is released. Callius is a progressive
death metal band from the great State of New Jersey.
I've become a pretty big fan of them over the
(00:54):
past year or so. They're singer and guitar player Nicole
has a big social media following. She's a writes a
lot of their music. She's a producer, and she shares
a lot of the like rough raw cuts of her
vocals for this band, which I think is super cool
because it's like a very vulnerable thing to share your
(01:18):
single track vocals, but that is very brave.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
A lot of people will, like, you know, out of tune.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
They're they're like, oh, I just recorded this in my bedroom,
but it's like, couldn't be more on pitch.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So she puts out a lot of stuff that's very
like the process.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So it's it's a lot of it's kind of inside.
She's very helped. She's given me a lot of ideas
for like producing and shared a lot of insight on
like engineering. She has a very long, I think Greek
lass name. Okay, so we got Papastavru. Sure, that's that's
my best guess. I'm I'd have missed an entire syllable now.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
That I'm seeing that the Greeks greekness. Yeah, quite the
name of the song, the Final Cleansing.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Let me play a bit of it right now. This
is the intro, lengthy intro in this and you can
tell that this is this is a band that likes
a little production and this is like science music.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm seeing, I'm seeing, I'm seeing credits.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Go, there's a million billion stars. So into a awesome
just caveman riff. What other way do you describe a
(02:52):
completely like unsophisticated riff like that? But it sounds good
and it's like you know in in this space that
they're in this technical death metal thing or progressive death
metal where it's very focused on doing something that's like impossible,
like people can't even comprehend how complex your riff is.
(03:16):
To just be like just zero to two for this
for a while, Yeah, and we'll just make that groove.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I like because it is it's a bit much. It's
a very huge sound with a lot of complexity, so
sort of like building up to that is nice.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I'm a person who likes hearing complex music. I think
something happened when I began to play guitar where I
was like, oh, I'm never gonna listen to music the
same way again, because I'm always going to be thinking
of like, how is this played? But then music can
get so complicated. It's like I'm not even thinking I
have no desire to learn how to play this. I
(04:02):
can just enjoy it for what it is, and it's
like it smashes through a wall where you can just
be like, yeah, riff go boom.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yes, I imagine I wonder what that looks and feels like
live or like after playing it a whole bunch of times.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
They don't play a lot of shows, but I'm hoping
to get to see them live one of these days.
They're one of those bands that because they make this
kind of music they have jobs, which is a huge bummer.
But let's hear some of the vocals. There's a couple
of a couple of different vocalists on the track, Nicole,
who's the main vocalist, the screams, and then the bass
(04:43):
player Chris Moron or Marony does some clean vocals on
the chorus.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Figure out, I mean, I do. I wish I knew
what she was saying, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
That's interesting. That's the difference between you and me totally.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I care about lyrics, and especially on a song called
The Final Cleansing, and I've never heard this band before.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I'm and you know, obviously I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I'm assuming they're not you know what supremacists, but there.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Is like a totally a genre of metal that is that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And so this is kind of throwing me off because
I'm like, oh, I'm sure they're talking about some you know,
their their examining, Yes, but I can't tell because I
don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So you're just trying to check for red flat basically,
that would be surprising to me. I think metal lyrics
are very silly and I don't want to know them.
For the most part. The heavier the band, the sillier
the lyrics probably are, but let's get to the chorus
(05:56):
where it's a little more intelligible. I must find there's
song forms to be very interesting because there's like a verse,
(06:17):
then a chorus, and then it's just bridge time, and
then it's there's going to be a bunch of bridges,
and then eventually they'll bring it back to that first riff.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I would love to thrash to this song. There's so
many there's so many different things to listen to and
to notice, like and they're always they're kind of popping
in and pumping out, and it's like very stimulating.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
One of the most stimulating things you can do as
a heavy band is to play the same riff but
a little bit slower. So that was even slower than
(07:08):
you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It was, it was so slow.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
If someone needs a soundtrack for Hell, I think this
is it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
This would definitely fit right in. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I mean they find a good balance of being heavy
and complex and just like a little bit scary, like yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Because there's nothing scary about like a bunch of musicians,
yeah doing their art for really well.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I'm scared of you expressing it, dude, But.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's scary up to that point.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
But if you can create an arrangement and and produce
an array of sounds, that does take someone out of
the I am listening to a band thing that gets
you a little bit in your imagination where you're visual visualizing,
like the cinema of a song, where you can be like, oh,
(08:05):
I could see this being a really creepy visual and
there are I think they've put out music videos for
at least two of the songs, but as you know,
the only thing I hate more than being in a
music video and participating in it is watching one. Yeah,
so I'm sorry, callius. I haven't watched the music videos,
(08:28):
but I'll watch the playthroughs those I like.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's a different, it's a different I feel like some
people myself, I like to be entertained by the visual,
the visual aesthetic. I think that's an important part of
any artist for me, but not everyone cares.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah, and that's you and that's me. So if you
want to check them out, it's spelled k A L
L I as Kallias. The album The Digital Plague arrived
August fourteenth, which might be today and that's our first
listen tell us about yours at First Listen podcast on Instagram,
(09:09):
and Dominique has a show at the end of the
month at UCB.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yes I do.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I also have a show the last Friday of the month.
It's the day before at the pit Wow doing characters. Busy, busy, busy,
booked and busy.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're gonna do characters and then you're gonna star and
UCB okay as yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So many versions of me. Yeah, actually be.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The name of the character character team is Identity Crisis,
so it fits the bib wow.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Thanksol, So thanks for listening to this bonus episode of podcast.
We'll be back next week with another one. He he
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Qu
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