Press

"I could probably go on all day about these impressive performances: the expansive, ever-changing guitars, the sporadic bursts of piano, the explosions of reverb-drowned screaming...but if I were to pinpoint the instrument that gripped me the most, it would have to be the drums. Larry Kwartowitz is clearly violently unhinged. He's a f#$king madman. Take a track like "Soroboruo," which is largely instrumental and filled with droning, ambient guitars. Larry's work on the kit turn what could be an aimlessly drfting interlude into a technical bit of rhythmicall-controlled chaos. Honestly, pick any song out of a hat and you can expect some of the best jazz-infused metal drumming you've ever heard"  FlightOfIcarus

https://metaltrenches.com/reviews/retrocausal-1191



“It’s rare that I’m ever thrown for a loop or that I have a hard time finding words when it comes to reviews, but Philadelphia’s Cleric appears to have done just that... The ten-minute “A Rush of Blood” is virtually impossible to describe as it twists and turns from jazzy prog tangents to skronking, dissonant expulsions, huge lurching doomage, delicate ambience and dreamy electronica... But beneath this vitriol and dissonance is a tangible talented and experimental, boundary-pushing act... ” -Erik Thomas, MetalReview.com

“The best way I can think to describe [Regressions] is as the soundtrack playing within an insane man’s head. It has a huge amount of twists and turns, with fits of incredible rage followed by such an intense serenity you can almost forget that seconds ago you felt like you were losing your mind...It truly is a musical journey...” -E. Gray, shortandsweetnyc.com


“The music this Philadelphia four-piece plays is a kind of metal the way Lost Highway is a kind of movie. It's an elastic tissue of creepy electronic noise and barely human screaming, impregnated with patches of riff-salad grind and hypercube mathcore. Imagine a billboard-size smear of Silly Putty pressed onto the incomprehensible infinite grid of a sinister Sunday crossword, then stretched, folded, and twisted till there isn't a single straight line left.” -Phillip Montoro, Chicago Reader

“Ultimate annihilation, the end times, post-apocalyptic Earth — these are worn-out visual clichés, but ones that apply to the devastating music of Cleric. For its full-length debut, this Philadelphia quartet specializes in demolishing tech-metal eruptions, savage math breakdowns, and grindcore blasts that give way to doom dirges, sinister atmospherics, nightmarish vocal distortions, and even the stray melody and piano line.” -ALARM Press, This Week's Best Album