Style: Progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Fates Warning, Symphony X, Opeth
Country: Israel
Release date: 25 July 2025

One of my favorite obscure albums to recommend to people is Orpheus Blade’s debut Wolf’s Cry. Its cinematic songwriting, dark atmosphere, grandiose production values, excellent guitarwork, and a charismatic female/male vocal duet from Adi Bitran and guest singer Henning Basse (Metalium, Legions of the Night) made for a uniquely compelling experience. Ever since I discovered the album, I’ve been eagerly waiting for a follow-up and have regularly harassed a friend of mine who knows the band personally about album no. 2’s status. For years, all he relayed to me was that “IT’S COMING, I SWEAR!”¹ despite absolute radio silence from their social media accounts. This continued until one day Christopher thoughtlessly said on my lunch break “oh btw Sam there’s a new Orpheus Blade out—you should probably review that.” DAMMIT SHACHAR WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING?! THEY ANNOUNCED THIS WEEKS AGO!

Orpheus Blade has undergone quite a transformation since Wolf’s Cry. The only original remaining member is Adi Bitran, who took up about half the vocal duties before. It’s especially a shame to have lost Henning Basse as the dude/dudette vocal duet was one of Wolf’s Cry’s main selling points—I didn’t even realize he was only a guest singer until researching for Obsessed in Red. Gal Ben Haim’s phenomenal guitarwork is also no more; he has been replaced by Yaron Gilad (ex-Tillian) and Danny Aram. Safe to say, the new cast has some very big shoes to fill. 

…they do not. As much as I hate to say it, Obsessed in Red is a step down in nearly every single facet from Wolf’s Cry. Let’s start with the production. Simply put, Obsessed in Red sounds like a demo: weak guitar tones, muffled drums, vocals being unnaturally forward, poor mastering, and just a general lack of any modern polish or sheen make the record sound unpleasantly amateurish and a slog to listen to before any thought is given to the music itself. If you told me that Obsessed in Red came out in 2010, I would have believed you, and even then I still would have called the production mediocre at best. Jacob Hansen, who mixed and mastered Wolf’s Cry, is nowhere to be seen, but it’s clear that he wasn’t adequately replaced and the result is unacceptable for this day and age. 

Still, as a reviewer I cannot let myself be shackled to a bad first impression based on production difficulties. Unfortunately, the songwriting doesn’t rescue Obsessed in Red. The dark cinematic style that made Wolf’s Cry so compelling has been replaced by a much more standard prog/power-ish metal base with some death metal and gothic elements sprinkled on top for garnish. What spark the record has generally comes from these darker components—gnarly tremolo picked riffs (“Unattained”), polyrhythmic double kick drum beats (“Anywhere But Here”, “Unattained”), melancholic guitar leads (“Those Who Cannot Speak”), and impressively monstrous harsh vocals throughout—but they are consistently undermined by the atrocious production and otherwise middling songwriting. The big issue is that the band’s foundational prog/power sound barely inspires. Whether it’s the bland heavy metal main riff from “Of Tales and Terrors”, the middling harmonies in “Anywhere but Here”, or the well-performed but structurally entirely predictable shredding of “My Red Obsessions”, when central components fail, the entire structure crumbles. 

Another central songwriting component that’s lacking is Bitran’s clean vocals, which seem to have deteriorated from Wolf’s Cry. Part of this might be due to the mix, which often makes her sound thin, but on a deeper level her delivery is just a bit meek. The vocal lines themselves are mostly fine and she hits every note cleanly, but she struggles to project her voice with the force and add the necessary grit for a metal band, leading to some particularly bad moments like the chorus of opener “My Arms for Those Wings” (speaking of bad first impressions), or the verses in “Of Tales and Terror”; Henning Basse’s contribution is sorely missed here. She’s much better when she’s not required to project as much, allowing her to showcase a breathy crooning style which works especially well in the softer sections (e.g. the opening of “Nicanor”). Still, her crooning over the band’s relatively straightforward style is a Wolf’s far cry from the debut, where the dark cinematic atmosphere gave her an ideal backdrop to shine. The one unambiguously positive development for the vocals, however, is with the harshes, which have improved in both presence and ferocity. Overall, it makes for a performance that’s competent but rarely commanding—serviceable in the softer or harsher extremes, but disappointingly middling everywhere in between.

If anything, Obsessed in Red feels phoned in, like the band had enough of sitting on this material for so long and said “fuck it, let’s just release the thing.” The uninspired way the album closes out feels emblematic of that—after “Nicanor” culminates in an underwhelming finale, “At Her Feet” concludes the record with nothing but Bitran crooning over a synth backdrop that receives little to no development. The production is equally careless, and technical skill and a few moments of inspiration cannot save the largely lifeless songwriting. It pains me to say, but next to nothing of the vigor and creativity that made Wolf’s Cry so compelling has survived this past decade. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Recommended tracks: Unattained, Those Who Cannot Speak
You may also like: The Anchoret, Hunted, Terra Odium, Novembre
Final verdict: 4/10

1. Our WhatsApp communication is in all caps—don’t ask me why. ︎

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Independent

Orpheus Blade is:
– Adi Bitran (vocals)
– Yaron Gilad (guitars)
– Danny Aram (guitars)
– Ido Gal (bass)
– Stivie Salman (bass)
– Nitzan Ravhon (drums)
With guests:
– Davidavi Dolev (backig vocals)

The post Review: Orpheus Blade – Obsessed in Red appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Meshuggah, Rivers of Nihil, Entheos, Tesseract
Country: United States
Release date: 14 August 2025

“We all rip off Meshuggah!” Or so Devin Townsend famously said in his 2014 track, “Planet of the Apes.” Comedic exaggeration? Slightly. But Meshuggah’s influence and the proliferation of djent have defined a solid chunk of the metal released after the mid-aughts. Our boy Justin dove deeper into the style’s evolution in his review of Atlan Blue by Antediluvian Projekt—a middling djent album released earlier this year—but suffice it to say that numerous artists have added a couple of strings to their guitars and embraced those chunky, polyrhythmic grooves. And though in recent times many bands have adopted djent and its features as a weapon in their sonic arsenals rather than as a core part of their identity, the style remains prominent. Hell, even the latest Muse single, “Unraveling,” includes a gratuitous djent passage.

This brings us to progressive death metallers Kallias and their latest release, Digital Plague. The album’s story—one of humanity’s unhealthy digital obsession, technological overreach, and the ongoing pattern of creation and destruction—is given life by, you guessed it: big, heavy, djent riffs. As the band put it, “Think if Meshuggah scored Blade Runner.” Eight-string guitars in hand, Kallias ravage their way through the tracks with the intensity of a helicopter blade. But, while Meshuggah might be their most apparent influence, the band wield djent as one tool in their prog-death toolkit—technical chops, cinematic orchestrations and synths, odd time signatures, and diverse vocals all coalesce in a fresh and shockingly accessible release.

Kallias’s strength lies in the balance they strike between heavy chugs, progressive flair, and hooky passages, and nowhere is this more apparent than in standout track “Null Space.” Within the first two minutes, we’re treated to a massive, choppy verse, textural synths, proggy riffing, and an earworm of a chorus that reminds, frankly, of a ballsier TesseracT. Still, the track sounds cogent and compelling. Similar can be said about the infectious opening cut “Destructive Apathy.” Frontwoman and guitarist Nicole Papastavrou backs up her fiery playing with ferocious growls—across all Digital Plague, she’s a force. Meanwhile, in addition to his consistently outstanding instrumental performance, bassist Chris Marrone delivers a diverse array of clean vocals that provide something to grab onto amidst the mayhem. 

Digital Plague’s tracks don’t stray far from one another, each offering some combination of dramatic intensity and complementary melodicism. But to help keep the album from turning stale, Kallias introduce new elements throughout. The title track, for instance, builds tension with staccato, bowed strings, and later features a soft, almost Opethian bridge. “Pyrrhic Victory” distinguishes itself with chant-like clean vocals that further Digital Plague’s narrative, eventually giving way to a big, rolling outro accompanied by cinematic synths. “Exogíini Kyriarchía” leans most heavily into djent, and “Shadow Entity” is more brooding and ends with a guitar solo that stands as an album highlight. Each track provides something engaging to catch the ear, while tight and often technical musicianship is consistent across the release. The rhythm section, in particular, is ridiculously active, forming a solid backbone while still delivering blazing flourishes throughout. 

Yet, despite the band’s instrumental prowess and constant sprinkling of new ideas, Digital Plague feels a tad formulaic. Each song runs about four and a half to six minutes and has a similar atmosphere and feel. The compositions are dynamic within individual songs, but show less variety across the tracklist—they all hit the same spot, even if striking from slightly different angles. Fortunately, the formula works, and Digital Plague is a blast. But because of this, the album has a high floor and a relatively low ceiling. Venturing into a few new sonic territories and taking some bigger compositional risks could have elevated the release that extra bit.

All in all, Digital Plague nods at Kallias’s influences while holding its own identity. Plenty of riffs will make your face wrinkle and your head jolt, but you’ll also find about a half dozen infectious choruses to sing along to. And although the album could contain more diversity from song to song, its cinematic nature keeps it engaging, the tracks stand strongly on their own, and the performances are ferocious. Basic Meshuggah worship this is not. We’ve sure come a long way since HevyDevy’s proclamation.

Recommended tracks: Destructive Apathy, Null Space, Shadow Entity
You may also like: Soreption, Aversed, Subterranean Lava Dragon, Daedric
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Independent

Kallias is:
– Nicole Papastavrou (guitars, vocals)
– Chris Marrone (bass, vocals)
– Justin Gogan (drums)
– Erik Ryde (guitars)
With guests:
– Chaney Crabb of Entheos (vocals, “Destructive Apathy”)
– Ian Waye of Soreption (guitars)

The post Review: Kallias – Digital Plague appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Doom metal, post-metal, drone, neofolk (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Conan, The Ocean, Neurosis, Om, Bell Witch, Lingua Ignota
Country: Canada
Release date: 8 August 2025

From a natural history perspective, the Earth has a remarkably tumultuous past. Starting its life in a barrage of cataclysmic impacts in the early solar system, the relative calm we experience today is uncharacteristic for our mercurial blue marble. Even going back just a few million years, the natural world was brutal, predatory, and unforgiving, a perfect landscape for metal’s monstrous riffs and dire atmospheres. Born from the primordial soup of Canadian doom metallers Völur and experimental electronic artist Cares, collaboration Breathless Spirit exhumes grayed fossils of old, uncovering dismal and violent pasts through experimental metal and folk music. The record is the latest in a series of collaborations from Völur known as “die Sprachen der Vögel”, or “The Language of Birds”; do Völur and Cares take off in glorious flight or does the language of Breathless Spirit fall on deaf ears?

Instrumental “Hearth” opens Breathless Spirit with the sound of flowing water, violins dirgefully rowing atop its currents as they repeat a thrumming motif. Völur and Cares take a loose approach to album flow, meandering along sinuous streams that traverse through lands of neofolk, drone, doom metal, and post-metal. This is not to say that they are lackadaisical or unfocused in their songwriting—each piece exudes an intentionality and plays a greater role in the record’s compositional narrative. Dynamics play a central role in song progression, as pieces are wont to begin slowly and subtly in the name of a monstrous climax (“Hearth”, “Windborne Sorcery II”, “On Drangey”) or begin raucously before petering out gently (“Breathless Spirit”).

Breathless Spirit embodies a certain nocturnal quality: the journey is one of de-emphasized riffs and subdued melodies in favor of hazy atmospherics, where silhouettes of the timberline stand out against a twilight sky but the details beneath are scant. Folkier sections invoke Impressionistic strings whose forms are gently tugged through gradual and minimal evolutions. Pieces like “Windborne Sorcery I”, “Hearth”, and “On Draney” are particularly delicate and intimate, tapping into a despondent sorrow that searches in vain for the words to articulate its internal world. The most stunning of these passages is the calmer second half of “Breathless Spirit”, where the harmonious vocals of Laura C. Bates and Lucas Gadke engage in plaintive dialogue with Bates’ expressive violin work; underneath, Cares’ keyboards add texture and color through subtle staccato jazz chords. Swirling winds then portend a powerful climax at the hands of Justin Ruppel’s kinetic drumming and Gadke’s psychedelic bass work in one of Breathless Spirit’s more ascendant moments.

The heavier tracks take a more chaotic and abrasive approach to Impressionism. A repetitive and chromatic riff etches out a jagged bed for Bates’ untethered banshee wails in the closing moments of “Windborne Sorcery II”, and watery tremolos reach a terrifying crest atop crushingly heavy drumwork in the first part of “Breathless Spirit”. The deluge of sludgy riffs reaches a head around the two-minute mark, where they pull back for a muted drum solo that builds into an eldritch vortex of intensity before the dam bursts and the track breaks down into placid folk instrumentals. Though these heavier moments engender an intense atmosphere, they are relatively impersonal compared to the calmer tracks, carrying an emotional detachment that makes them challenging to engage with fully. Try as I may, I can’t see the shrieking climax of “Windborne Sorcery II” as anything but well-done if unmoving, and the most compelling segment of closer “Death in Solitude” is when its stark tension finally begins to break thanks to subdued drum work and ominous clean vocals. A touch of melody in these sections would go a long way: “Breathless Spirit” is the most engaging of these heavier tracks as its riffage forsakes chromatic meandering for a more well-defined melodic identity. Additionally, the track doesn’t stay in its more intense form for too long, transitioning at just the right time into softer ideas.

Gripes with individual sections aside, Breathless Spirit is untouchable from an album flow perspective. There is a magic in the way that Völur and Cares effortlessly evoke compositional narrative as if Breathless Spirit’s disparate pieces were meant to be together. The earthen melodies of “Windborne Sorcery I” act as a perfect springboard into the apocalyptic doom of “Windborne Sorcery II”, whose chaos moves effortlessly into the oceanic heaviness of “Breathless Spirit”, ending on an appropriately calm note for “On Draney” to gently morph around droning violins. By hinting at future sections through subtle style shifts that retain the identity of their respective tracks, Breathless Spirit forges an inexorable bond between ideas that oscillate in intensity, style, and atmosphere.

Breathless Spirit coalesces a unique artistic vision through its experimental approach to metal. The nocturnal, primordial nature of its compositions lends the record to plaintive contemplation in its quieter moments and uproarious chaos in its heavier sections, even if these heavier sections often miss a bit of expressiveness. Still, the overall package is impossible to deny thanks to an alchemic magnetism between the band members and among Breathless Spirit’s disparate genres.

Recommended tracks: Breathless Spirit, Windborne Sorcery I, Hearth
You may also like: Wyatt E., Alora Crucible, The Ruins of Beverast, Sumac, Aerial Ruin
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links (Völur): Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives
Related links (Cares): Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Batke Records

Völur is:
– Laura C. Bates (strings, vocals, percussion)
– Lucas Gadke (bass, keyboards, woodwinds, vocals)
– Justin Ruppel (drums, percussion)
Cares is:
– James Beardmore (keyboards)

The post Review: Völur, Cares – Breathless Spirit appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Jess Allanic

Style: Metalcore, Alternative Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Poppy, Rolo Tomassi, Lake Malice, Wargasm, Holy Wars, As Everything Unfolds
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 11 July 2025

Back in 2012, the Marvel Cinematic Universe changed the game and shook the industry with the release of The Avengers, a years-in-the-making blockbuster that brought all their disparate heroes together on the silver screen in a historic first. An approximate $1.5 billion later, and suddenly everyone else wanted a money-making universe of their own. DC Studios fast-tracked an Extended Universe; Fox brought back Bryan Singer for 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, which saw OG trilogy stars reprise their roles alongside the new blood. Universal, the original maestros of the crossover universe, jumped back into the game with the Dark Universe, an especially ill-fated attempt that perfectly illustrated the folly of such heedless trend chasing. Hell, even Daniel Craig’s Bond tried with a series of interconnected films. Nowadays, the very mention of a connected universe is enough to elicit a solid groan from people who enjoy actual films over slop. This shit is exhausting. I have a job; I shouldn’t have to do more work to watch a movie. So, when I read the words “Welcome to the Calva Louise Universe” on UK metallers Calva Louise’s Bandcamp, you best believe my groan was mighty.

A three-piece with their own Avengers-esque story—that of unlikely compatriots drawn from disparate corners of the world for an ultimate purpose—Calva Louise is the collaborative brainchild of Venezuelan Jessica Allanic (vocals, guitars), Frenchman Alizo Taho (bass), and New Zealander Ben Parker (drums). Their albums tell a sci-fi story conceived by Allanic when she was younger, following a woman named Louise who discovers a mirror world beyond our own, populated by “Doubles.” Edge of the Abyss is their fourth LP, and my first experience with the band. With a sonic cuisine bringing together razor-edged metalcore, sci-fi electronica, art rock, and a charismatic frontwoman in Allanic, Calva Louise has the sort of core ingredients known to hook my tastes. But, can a first-timer like me survive such a plunge into the cinematic abyss, sans homework? Or do I need to spool up a subscription to Calva Louise+ for further education?

Put down the credit card and unroll those eyes: Edge of the Abyss is not only a stand-alone experience, but an exceptional one at that. While I’m certain there’s connective threads to prior albums linking all of this grand dimension-traversing narrative together, one may safely leave that at the feet of the Calva Louise lorekeepers. Packaged here are eleven tracks and forty minutes of absolutely gonzo, balls-to-the-wall progressive metalcore shot through a multiversal portal of Latin American rhythms, dance-hall-club thumpers, and an uncorked vocal performance to rival Poppy’s most schismatic aural shenanigans. Allanic goes full Bruce Banner / Hulk, delivering saccharine-inflected, almost playfully psychotic cleans reminiscent of bubblegoth-era Kerli before jumping into the purple pants to unleash an arsenal of razored screeches and some surprisingly thunderous lows. Like Poppy, Allanic changes styles at the drop of a dime, made all the more impressive when she switches fluidly from English to Spanish across the majority of Edge of the Abyss. There’s some real psycho-mania energy on display, as if Allanic’s performance comes from a mind ruptured by secrets not meant for mortals. Whether swaying into a sing-along verse (“Barely a Response”) or spitting out vocals like broken teeth (“WTF”), Allanic lands every stroke of her deranged performance with serious aplomb. Her guitar work impressively matches the lunacy via a skronky mathcore-esque freneticism.

If Allanic is the Tony Stark of this outfit, Parker and Taho are Captain America and Thor. Parker provides an especially fluid performance on drums, conducting the album’s rhythmic aims like a meth-addicted octopus as he rolls, blasts, and rides across the kit. He’s thick and punchy in the mix, standing toe-to-toe with Allanic’s churning guitar, knowing when to let a simple beat ride and when to start rolling bones under his double-bass. Taho’s bass playing gets lost in the shuffle on the album’s louder moments (one of the only metal sins Edge of the Abyss commits), but his tones are warm and resonant when audible, thrumming like a steady current to power the madness. Meanwhile, guest contributor Mazare steps in with Hawkeye-level assists, backboning and accenting the record with a slew of dancey beats and skittering keys that add to Edge of the Abyss’s eclectic—and unfettered—fun. The Latin American flavors are integrated well into this glitchy, chaotic stew, feeling authentic and purposeful rather than tacked on for “prog points.”

Metalcore has a tendency to get staid and repetitive, following a very tight structure emphasizing (if not entirely built around) breakdowns and uplifting, cleanly-delivered choruses. A good time, but whole albums can be hard sells for those not entirely beholden to the genre’s whims. On the opposite side, bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan or the aforementioned Poppy can be difficult commitments for me due to the mania that drives their sounds. I can get down with unhinged vocals and whiplash time signatures, but an entire album’s worth runs the risk of grating on my nerves. There’s a novelty factor at play, too, the threat of a “gimmick” overriding the listening experience. A band has to have something more guiding them; strong songwriting, variety, solid pacing… any and all of these go miles towards taking the parlor trick of “we can play 350 bpm” and transmogrifying it into an album you actually want to sit with.

Calva Louise might have easily fallen into this pit of wacky novelty, and I fully expected them to, on first listen. Yet they defied my odds with Edge of the Abyss. Every song has a life all its own, refusing to repeat ideas or fall into genre tropes (no wasteful intro tracks here!). Perhaps this sounds silly, but there’s a scrappiness that translates through the music, a DIY ethos which, despite the modern production, empowers the band’s efforts. Calva Louise sound hungry on Edge of the Abyss, like a tenacious creature throwing everything it has at survival. I’m reminded of early efforts by acts like Slipknot and Mudvayne—not sonically, but spiritually. A vitriolic commitment to artistic vision, in defiance of outcome, is something I’ve long admired. That Calva Louise is four albums deep and able to conjure this kind of energy is delightful.

Like when I sat down recently to watch Marvel’s Thunderbolts*,¹ I stepped into Edge of the Abyss stuck somewhere between frayed hope and pre-loaded disappointment. So far, 2025 hasn’t been the best year for new metal releases; barring a handful of standouts, most of what I’ve heard has sat well within the “okay” to “decent” territory—and much like Marvel’s output of the last decade, I was starting to get a little numb to it all. Luckily for me, hope won the day on both accounts.² Calva Louise was far more than I expected, an energetic, multicultural detonation of influences with an origin story befitting a Stan Lee “Excelsior!” Full of twisting genre shifts, infectious melodies, and one of my favorite vocal performances of the year, Edge of the Abyss is a precipice I wholly recommend pitching oneself into.

Recommended tracks: Tunnel Vision, WTF, Aimless, Lo Que Vale, El Umbral, Hate In Me
You may also like: Knife Bride, The Defect, Reliqa, Bex
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic

Label: Mascot Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Calva Louise is:
– Jess Allanic (guitars, vocals)
– Ben Parker (drums)
– Alizon Taho (bass)
With guests:
– Mazare (electronics)

1. Yes, the asterisk is part of the title. If you know, you know. ︎
2.  Thunderbolts* was refreshingly good. ︎

The post Review: Calva Louise – Edge of the Abyss appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Drone, ambient, post-rock (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sumac, Sunn O))), Swans
Country: Connecticut, United States
Release date: 1 August 2025

A ghost yearns for escape from the house in which they died, contemplating the weeds that grow over their grave; a man sees the reflection of a familiar yet contorted face in place of his own in a bathroom mirror, slowly eroding his sanity; at the end of a hopelessly long corridor, blasphemous rituals force prophecy out of the mouth of a severed head. Stories of haunting tie a past that cannot be ignored to the present, occupying spaces both physical and mental. Kayo Dot‘s latest record, Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason, lives wholly in this haunted world, casting incorporeal shadows on doorways through amorphous, experimental post-rock and shrill, brittle drone. Can Kayo Dot exorcise the ghosts of their past, or will the specter of half-truths loom forever?

Reuniting the lineup from Kayo Dot‘s 2003 debut Choirs of the Eye, flashes of the group’s past manifest in elements of Every Rock. The spoken word passages that adorn “Oracle by Severed Head” and lengthy ambient piece “Automatic Writing” recall the poetry present in many of Choirs‘ pieces. The freeform post-rock from the debut is let even further off the reins as “Oracle by Severed Head” and “Blind Creature of Slime” contort notions of song structure and rhythm into something even more obscure and unrecognizable. What is noticeably new, though, is the presence of sonoristic drone pieces, sitting in high-pitched and microtonal chords for lengthy periods accompanied by hoarse harsh vocals. Lyrically, Every Rock is teeming with the paranormal, crafting imagery around desecrated bodies (“Oracle by Severed Head”), a paranoid decay of wellbeing (“Closet Door in the Room Where She Died”), and entities bubbling with indiscriminate hatred (“Blind Creature of Slime”).

The signature compositional style of Every Rock is one of sheer intractability: well-defined beginnings and endings seldom appear across its extended pieces, and tracks are labyrinthine in structure. Opener “Mental Shed” immediately introduces harsh vocals and gleaming organs with no fanfare, suddenly transporting the listener into a painfully bright liminal space that stretches endlessly in all directions. The only musical footholds are clambering percussion and faint, ephemeral woodwinds. “Closet Door in the Room Where She Died” embodies a similar form, being led along by shrill keyboards, menacing strings and woodwinds, and wailing shrieks from Jason Byron; occasionally, a ghastly choir vocalizes in response to the maniacal ramblings of the narrator. From this Lynchian compositional approach arises an ineffable discomfort and occasional terror as the scant elements that engender a sense of familiarity either quickly fade away in wisps of smoke or melt into something unrecognizable.

Every Rock‘s post-rock tracks are similarly esoteric, albeit with an execution based on heavy use of free-time rhythms and asynchronous accents. “Oracle By Severed Head” gently introduces jangly guitars, splashing drums, and placid woodwinds which ebb and flow around Toby Driver’s diaphanous vocals. Everything plays in the same oscillating rubato but on wildly different accents, as if the constituent parts are a stewing suspension where each component is magnetically repelled from the other. Near its end, strings congeal each element into a towering behemoth as the track builds into a massive climax. “Blind Creature of Slime”, on the other hand, is compositionally stubborn, sporadically iterating on a single guitar phrase underneath a forceful and powerful vocal performance. The track begins on its highest note, wrapping its tendrils around the listener’s consciousness and forcing them to face the narrator’s blinding hatred, but spins its wheels for a touch too long. There is an intentionality in its repetitious unease, but by the end, I’m broken out of the suspension of disbelief needed to buy in to “Blind Creature” fully.

Working in tandem with the subtle evolution in Every Rock‘s tracks is the overall album pacing. Many of the record’s most stunning moments are born from the contrast and transition between drone and post-rock. The transition from “Mental Shed” to “Oracle by Severed Head” feels all the more cathartic and dreamy due to the intense release from the former’s shrill synthesizers into the latter’s hazy and relaxed instrumentation. The petering out of “Automatic Writing” makes the explosive introduction of “Blind Creature of Slime” even more intense. Additionally, the break in the piercing organs in the final third of “Closet Door in the Room Where She Died” creates a stark and powerful silence after they etch into the listener’s consciousness for ten-plus minutes. The longest track, “Automatic Writing”, is comparatively weaker when looking at the other drone tracks. In concept, the piece is compositionally brilliant, slowly coalescing its constituent parts from a blurry fuzz into wistful ambient passages with longing poetry, delicate soundscaping, and ascendant group vocals; I just wish it reached homeostasis more quickly. Its mammoth introductory segment evolves at a glacial pace—even Driver’s vocals are rendered textural as notes are held out for remarkably long intervals. Were “Automatic Writing” edited down, it would likely have the same emotional impact as the aforementioned tracks, but stands as a bit too meandering to fully earn its runtime as-is.

Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason is a brilliant, though occasionally flawed, marriage of the relatable and the surreal. Ultimately, the record chooses not to exorcise its ghosts, but instead invokes them, asking the listener to share the space and embrace the discomfort of that which is unknowable and irresolute. By cleverly subverting ideals of song structure, rhythm, and tonality, Every Rock fully embodies the liminal spaces inhabited by that which haunts us.

Recommended tracks: Oracle by Severed Head, Closet Door in the Room Where She Died
You may also like: Khanate, Alora Crucible, The Overmold, Natural Snow Buildings
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Kayo Dot is:
– Toby Driver (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, organs, clarinet, flute, drums)
– Greg Massi (guitars)
– Matthew Serra (guitars)
– Sam Gutterman (drums, vibraphone, percussion)
– Terran Olson (clarinet, saxophone, flute)
– David Bodie (percussion)
With guests:
– Jason Byron (vocals, track 3)

The post Review: Kayo Dot – Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Septicflesh, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Strapping Young Lad, Children of Bodom
Country: United States (NY)
Release date: 4 July 2025

What’s in a name? The walls of my music library are lined with bands whose creative output I passed over for years due to their terrible branding. Septicflesh, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Bedsore… the list goes on. I’ll never understand why so many good artists choose to debase their projects by naming themselves after bodily functions or necrotic diseases. While I may be more prudish than many in the metal scene (I judiciously save up swear words for special occasions and avoid them in everyday use), I’ve nonetheless learned that sometimes, you have to set aside preconceptions based on a band’s name, and let the music speak for itself. And who better to come gushing forth from the underground metal scene to help me enact this principle than the campily-named Pissectomy?

Setting aside for a moment the troubling medical implication of a pissectomy (where is the piss going? Does the procedure make you unable to piss, or does it cause a constant stream to be siphoned from your body?), Pissectomy’s name was clearly chosen for shock value. The band’s early output leaned into this, with deliberately subversive and urine-based lyrical themes and a sample-heavy, drugged-out noisegrind style. However, the adage of “let it mellow if it’s yellow” seems to have shaped Pissectomy’s style and restraint over time, as the latest record holds a surprising amount of refinement under the toilet-seat humour.

Pissectomy is nominally a one-man project helmed by Jason Steffen of New York and South Korea¹, but much of new release Electric Elephant Graveyard is brought to life by a cast of hired guns from Fiverr (an online marketplace for freelance service providers) and similar platforms, and the result is intriguingly genre-fluid. The first two tracks on the album are lavishly outfitted in sympho-death grandeur—think of the aforementioned Septicflesh or Fleshgod Apocalypse—but then the orchestra quietly slips out the back before the third track, “Sharkstar”, without so much as a tuba case banging against the doorframe on the way out. Save for a subtle reprise of some strings in album closer “Singularity”, the rest of the album relieves itself of symphonic elements, offering up riffs and licks galore with predominant influences from death metal titans like Cannibal Corpse and Children of Bodom, plus dashes of power, thrash, and prog.

For all of Pissectomy’s crude branding, Electric Elephant Graveyard is surprisingly restrained in its use of urinary humor, and it’s certainly not evident in the music itself. The tracks are layered, and even in a single offering like the seven-minute “Starstorm Omega”, multiple stylistic themes from fantastical power metal pomp to rhythmically itch-scratching, proggy helter-skelter are deployed thoughtfully. If you were not privy to Pissectomy’s subject matter, you could listen to almost the entire album without noticing any overt nephritics. Occasional lyrical groaners like “rest in piss” or “war and piss” are easy enough to miss. The jig is up, however, on the rather overtly-named “Pissrealm Antichrist”, where a layered vocal chorus repeatedly chants “all hail piss and shit”.

With Pissectomy’s freelanced cast of contributors, who exactly deserves credit for the various elements of Electric Elephant Graveyard is cloudy². The vocal duties, for instance, are shared between Steffen himself and at least one guest contributor, Topias Jokipii. Whatever the division of labour, the results are dynamic and versatile. There’s a simperingly evil D&D-grade sorcerer flavour to the spoken word on “Pissrealm Antichrist”, Cannibal Corpse-esque torridly deep pigsqueals on “Sharkstar”, and a gritty clean vocal refrain on “Sharkstar” that sounds like King Diamond pitched down an octave or so out of the screeching falsetto stratosphere. The guitar work, though, might just be number one. Steffen is clearly having a blast, and moments like the indulgently sprawling solo in “Welcome to Dead End” or the tightly coiled, chugging bursts on “Starstorm Omega” demonstrate equal parts laudable musicianship and clever composition.

While there is some level of tonal coherence across Electric Elephant Graveyard, as Pissectomy keeps up a steady flow of momentum, a clearer sense of identity would help the record to better coalesce. Pissectomy is a former noisegrind band blending elements of symphonic, power, death, thrash, and progressive metal into their sound. And while Steffen clearly has reverence for all of these genres, the crossing of the streams can be a bit much. There’s even an acoustic guitar interlude, “Astronomy”, which is lovely but lands rather disjointedly in the album’s entirety. Perhaps some of the vignette-based songwriting from Steffen’s noisegrind roots is hampering the development of a cohesive whole. The individual elements succeed, but a step back to take in the big picture across the album’s forty minutes could help everything stick together.

 If given ten guesses as to what a band named Pissectomy would sound like, I wouldn’t have come close. While I still wouldn’t rush to pop this album on the aux, Electric Elephant Graveyard’s balls-to-the-wall energy, as well as veneration for the various genres influencing Pissectomy’s sound, makes for a surprisingly charming listen. Sometimes, you have to be prepared to flush your assumptions down the drain.

Recommended tracks: Welcome to Dead End, Sharkstar, Singularity
You may also like: Shadecrown, Sigh
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Independent

Pissectomy is:
– Jason Steffen (guitar, vocals)
– Topias Jokipii (vocals)
– People from Fiverr (other assorted instruments)

1. Steffen is currently stationed with the US military in South Korea as a fighter pilot. ︎
2. Like your pee might be if you’re dehydrated. ︎

The post Review: Pissectomy – Electric Elephant Graveyard appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: raw black metal, post-black metal, Son Cubano (mixed vocals, mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sadness, Buena Vista Social Club, Willie Colón, Violet Cold
Country: Chile
Release date: 11 July 2025

One of my favorite aspects of metal is how well it can syncretize with any other genre¹. In my last couple reviews, I’ve done a bit of stylistic globetrotting for the blog, covering death metal mixed with Andalusian flamenco and heavy metal centered around traditional Byzantine chant. Today’s record of focus, To Escape’s debut I Wish to Escape, presents a new fusion: black metal and Son Cubano (Cuban sound). Interestingly, many Cubans no longer see the traditional form of Son Cubano (a blend of African and Spanish styles) as particularly relevant², as the genre has now assimilated into a broader range of Latin styles—mambo, bolero, salsa, timba, etc—to form the real “Cuban sound” of today. But both traditional Son and its modern derivatives utilize guitar, trumpet, and various forms of African and Latin percussion to form the instrumental basis for the style, and so the conversion to metal isn’t as far fetched as it may seem on the surface; however, converting raw post-black metal into Son is still no small task. Is one man band To Escape able to do that and become the next outstanding and innovative fusion act?

Well, no, and I think I Wish to Escape is entirely a false promise. Beyond too-quiet implementations of Latin percussion—snaps, bells, maracas, shakers, and güiro—mixed into the blast beats, as well as lovely acoustic Spanish guitar intro and outro tracks, nothing feels particularly Cuban about the sounds of the record. In the folk’s stead, we have a melodically focused raw black metal album with an upbeat twist. Relatively happy and nostalgic melodies are what David Sepulveda excels at, and unlike 99.9% of his contemporaries, the bass shares the leads equally with the guitars, the former featuring a shockingly round and full tone against the rawness of the rest of the record. From the outset of “Art of Their Misery,” addictively saccharine melodies with guitar and bass harmonies bleed through the speakers, and you’ll have riffs like the main ones in “Art of Their Misery” and “Desert in My Eyes, in Your Eyes I See” in your head for days…

… because of how repetitive they are. Sure, Sepulveda comes up with addictive leads and genuinely catchy melodies—despite some really unpleasant guitar tones (e.g. at the start of “Those Who Don’t Know”)—but he has a tendency to ride a single riff for ages. You’d expect a self-proclaimed post-black metal band to work with buildups more. I do appreciate when he throws more aggressive trem-picking into the writing to up the ante, as on “Desert in My Eyes, in Your Eyes I See,” but he plays around with slower tempos more often much to my chagrin. How To Escape plays around with form and structure more is in the percussion, where Sepulveda runs through blast beats and Latin dance rhythms with equal ease like a less-refined Caio Lemos of Kaatayra. Unfortunately, this is raw black metal, and the more interesting percussion gets lost in the characteristically fuzzy mix of the style. For example, you can pick out the bells underpinning the latter half of “Art of Their Misery” or the maracas near the start of “Path of Your Destiny.” I Wish to Escape is frustratingly unsuccessful at implementing its own gimmick.

Whether intentional or not, the record can also be a painful listen apart from the brighter leads and bass. Despite all the engaging and challenging drumming, many moments sound like Lars Ulrich on a black metal record (“Desert in My Eyes, in Your Eyes I See,” “Path of Your Destiny”). The guitars can seem drunkenly out of tune during solos (“There Is No End,” “The Infinite Chain.” The latter also has painfully amateur, emo clean vocals). Finally, Sepulveda’s harsh vocals. They’re a love em or hate em deal, on the visceral end of the black metal spectrum with a bit of a screamo quality. They’re certainly emotive—and he gets some entertainingly inhuman frog sounds out in “The Infinite Chain” and “That Unbreakable Chain”—but they don’t work well with the melodic quality of the music. 

I was extremely excited to hear Son Cubano in a black metal record, and now I feel like an unwary fish lured by an angler. My streak of compelling genre mixtures has come to a close. If you’re a huge fan of old Sadness, Trhä, and other rawer post-black bands, To Escape will prove a worthwhile listen with strong hooks and mostly creative drumming, but don’t go into it expecting anything unique.

Recommended tracks: The Beginning of the End, Art of Their Misery, There Is No End
You may also like: Trhä, Life, Kaatayra, Cicada the Burrower, Old Nick
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: independent

To Escape is:
– All instrumentation, vocals, and lyrics by David Sepulveda
With guests:
– Additional percussion arrangement and production by Garry Brents

1. I’m still waiting for a tango nuevo + prog metal fusion, but at least we have Rodolfo Mederos’ lovely De Todas Maneras mixing prog rock and tango nuevo in the meantime. But I dare a prog metal fan to listen to Astor Piazzola’s masterpiece Tango: Zero Hour and tell me that mixing it with metal wouldn’t work amazingly. ︎
2. For a legendary piece of a modern take on the traditional sound, Buena Vista Social Club’s 1997 album is essential listening. ︎

The post Review: To Escape – I Wish to Escape appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Albert Bierstadt (1868); Layout by: Annick Giroux

Style: Epic Doom Metal, Folk Metal, Heavy Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Unleash the Archers, Cirith Ungol, Visigoth
Country: Illinois, United States
Release date: 27 June 2025

Growing up, I was all about fantasy, especially in my metal. Themes of wonder and romance, mythical beasts and steadfast warriors filled my imagination. Yet these days, I’ve found it harder and harder to connect with this formerly potent musical leyline. Call it a reflection of the times. I still love the bands I grew up with—the Kamelots, Symphony Xs, and Dios—and I’ve flirted with some newer makes and models (Unleash the Archers has done some fantastic work in the space). But, as we’ve marched closer towards dystopia, tales of adventure seem perhaps churlish compared to the angst and uncertainty permeating our modern world. Sauron is winning, and the Fellowship is splintered over a culture war.

Yet there’s a part of me that yearns to believe in heroes of might and magic once more. Which brings us to Chicagoan heavy metal warband, Fer de Lance (not to be confused with the Peruvian thrashers of the same name). Coming onto the scene only five years ago with their Colossus EP, and debut full-length The Hyperborean in 2022, the band have flown completely under my radar until now. They peddle in “epic doom”—basically, fantasy-fuelled, mid-paced heavy metal full of lurching, heroic riffs and deliberate kitwork, like a steadfast march towards glory and gold. Taken in by the gorgeous cover art of latest album, Fires on the Mountainside, and intrigued by the promise of the epic doom metal by which Fer de Lance mark their trade, I was eager to see if these mighty men of metal have what it takes to break the curse and return the fire to my fantasy-loving heart.

If ever there was a soundtrack to evoke the sword-and-sorcery, devil-may-care adventuring of Robert E. Howard’s brooding Cimmerian, Conan, and kindred ilk, Fires on the Mountainside makes a strong case for consideration. From minute one, opener (and title track) “Fires on the Mountainside” saunters forth with jaunty guitar and a bard-worthy chorus as frontman MP bellows “I seeee… fires on the mountainside,” tossing in some Woah-ohs for good measure. Flickers of black metal emerge in the bridge as trem-picking and rasped vocals create a sense of descent into danger, showcasing Fer de Lance’s ability to steer the material wherever the greatest adventure lies. At nearly thirteen minutes, “Fires on the Mountainside” is one hell of a way to kick off a record, as it twists and turns and climbs across subgenres, from rousing epic doom, black metal, and glints of folk in the acoustic-strummed guitars that underpin much of the proceedings. MP’s range is impressive as he plumbs the depths of rattling growls, tough-guy gravel, all the way to the high-fantasy heights of falsetto wails.

What follows across the album’s forty-nine minutes sees the band pull from much of the same arsenal—though like the aforementioned Conan, they’ve descended from their wind-swept kingdom well-versed in their chosen arts, as no two songs sound the same. Take “Fire & Gold” with its Western-infused musical gallop, hand tambourines and stomping drums heralding a lone stranger’s ride into the kind of town where violence and virtue may yet clash, the dusty road stained black with an enemy’s blood under the white-hot bake of high noon. The chorus of “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” sees MP’s harshes hit a vicious cadence akin to Legion of the Damned frontman Maurice Swinkels, giving the song an extra dose of theatrical menace before shifting into Eastern-influenced guitar wizardry of a most fine kind. MP finds some Ronnie James Dio-adjacent power in the vocals on “The Feast of Echoes,” leaning into some fun “mhmmmhmms” that make me think of a testosterone-fueled version of Rainbow.¹

Elsewhere and everywhere, I’m reminded in small ways of Eternal Champion, mostly in the band’s full-fledged commitment to the material. Fires on the Mountainside is refreshing: Unlike some fantasy-themed bands who write with their tongues planted firmly through cheek (and thus dabbling in irony-poisoned cringe), Fer de Lance write and perform their music with an unabashed, shameless love for the fantasy genre—theatrical, yes, but taken seriously. The songs are rousing, with full-chested deliveries and a palpable energy, despite the more moderate pacing. My only real complaint about the album is that some of the songs drag on a tad too long, and after a while I tend to forget where I am on the record. This is the kind of album that would absolutely thrive on a playlist. The songs are replete with fun transitions showcasing the music’s textures, which provide each track with individual merit. Yet together, Fires on the Mountainside loses some of its energy, the blazing bonfire giving ground to the encroaching shadows of distraction. By the time we reach “Tempest Stele,” the storm has turned into more of a gust and my legs ache for want of resting.

All said, Fer de Lance have come out of (subjectively) nowhere to impart upon mine ears a winsome collection of epic tales. In a day and age where fantasy-themed metal has largely been relegated to my rearview, Fires on the Mountainside stands as a perfect reminder that there are still bands out there writing the kind of stuff I crave—and new ones, at that! Like my current reading experience with Robert E. Howard’s The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Fires on the Mountainside offers a collection of well-crafted gems worthy of uncovering—perhaps best individually, rather than in one fell swoop. If you’ve been starved for metal of a steelier order, or just on the lookout for something new, then heed that yonder firelight in the distance, and let Fer de Lance take you on a glorious adventure.

Recommended tracks: Fires on the Mountainside, Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide), The Feast of Echoes
You may also like: Eternal Champion, Sumerlands, Conan
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Cruz de Sur Music Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Fer de Lance is:
– Rüst (bass, acoustic guitars, vocals, percussion)
– MP (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
– Scud (drums, vocals)
– J. Geist (guitars)

1.  I would love to hear Fer de Lance cover “Gates of Babylon.” ︎

The post Review: Fer de Lance – Fires on the Mountainside appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-garde, experimental, progressive metal, world music (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Igorrr, Wardruna, Eolya, Forndom
Country: Iceland
Release date: 14 July 2025

When you’re in the reviewing game long enough, it feels like you’ve seen it all. We’re within days of my third anniversary writing for The Progressive Subway, and 2025 feels like a wasteland. The blog is depressed by the lack of good new releases, the usual summer lull is hitting harder than ever, and I’m sifting through everything that’s available to review without enthusiasm. Insipid trad prog? No thanks. Uninspired prog rock? Not on your life. Middling djent debut? God, please smite me down. Sometimes you just feel that new releases no longer inspire you the way they did when you were a wide-eyed young reviewer with enthusiasm and hopes and dreams. If I employed a compass to point me to the interesting new releases, where would it take me?

Perhaps to Spaniard at large in the land of the ice and snow, Mario Infantes, formerly of baroque metal group Cult of Lilith, who has returned with a second solo effort, Bitácora (from the Spanish for binnacle: the casing for a ship’s compass). Exploring a range of moods and genres, Infantes melds a wealth of folk traditions with metal and symphonic influences, exploiting an ensemble of instruments from various countries in the process. The resulting concoction bears resemblances to his alma mater group, as well as the work of Igorrr, but utilises a rather different sonic palette. Singing in both Spanish and English (and quite possibly in other languages), Infantes leads the project as a multi-voiced, multilingual, multi-instrumentalist. He has a natural, operatic tendency, from Einar Solbergian high falsetto to resounding tenor, utilising Igorrr-esque harshes, layered choral harmonies, throat-singing (or close to it), and some more performative voice acting—moments of laughing, spoken word, even something akin to rap.

The instrumental bed, meanwhile, is a deft blend of metal instrumentation and folk instruments from around the world. Handpan features heavily, forming a raindrop dressing for the contemplation of ballad “Streams” and the Balkan lament “Notre Prison”, while a dissonant chiming gamelan underpins “Xhadhamtje”. At various other junctures, we hear from duduk (an Armenian double-reeded woodwind), bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), oud (Middle Eastern lute), zurna (double-reeded woodwind)¹, and doubtless more that my untrained ear failed to pick out. When the riffs come, they often have a rather loose structure, allowing Infantes to use them as an emphatic texture rather than as a restrictive rhythm that hampers the madness of his sonic science, perhaps best heard on “Cianuro”, where the riffs constantly morph, rarely repeating a measure. The resulting concoction is international yet seamless; while a particular section might sound Indonesian or Spanish or Eastern European, the totality seems borderless, the creation of a citizen of nothing smaller than the world itself. 

“Xhadhamtje” is probably the most avant-garde swing on the album with Infantes’ throaty keening and a palimpsest of sinister whispers and nightmare sounds ala Ecophony Rinne, giving way to an enormous operatic crescendo with help from shrieking guest vocalist, Stirga, and an eruption into metal riffs, all underpinned by a nightmarish windchime motif. “Muharib Alqifaar” opens with zurna, Phrygian wails and mysterious oud picking, before exploding into heavier and heavier riffs, and while the coda of Spanish rap feels tacked on, it’s mostly a very successful journey through Bitácora’s various modes. Closing epic, “Cianuro”, operates similarly: a nine-minute distillation of Infantes’ various idiosyncrasies, from balladic crooning sections to upsurges of manic metal. In these heavier moments, the guitar tone and prominence of the bass in the mix, as well as some of the operatic tendencies and manic harshes, have more than a whiff of Igorrr about them, but Infantes owns his sound for himself.

Indeed, it’s in his restraint that this is most apparent: “Sírenu” largely consists of Infantes and an oud with strings before its orchestral crescendo and a gorgeous guest performance from Sunna Friðjónsdóttir. “Away” relies heavily on handpan, much like “Streams” before it, growing inexorably toward a cathartically rhythmic, ritualistic chant. “Streams” is probably the most accessible track on the album, the swelling strings in its chorus proving genuinely stirring. Infantes excels at giving each track a distinct personality of its own, and intersperses the more experimental and heavy sojourns with calming palate cleansers; the softer moments are, perhaps, the album highlight, their meditativeness and sublimity proving a soothing palliative. 

As Bitácora closes with its conclusive coda of lo-fi flamenco and scatting, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve just returned from some astrally projected existential journey and come to at the corner table of a Spanish bar; after such a unique sonic adventure, it feels necessary to sit contemplatively for a minute or two. Certainly, Infantes is a remarkable musician and composer. And while the avant-garde scene can be demanding, and not every swing here lands, far more hit the mark than in the average work of this genre. Far too often, experimental composers throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, leaving listeners with an all too disjointed affair. But Bitácora manages that rare thing: an evocative, flowing listen with peaks and valleys, genuine emotion, and moments like a sonic punch in the face. A much-needed reminder that there are always innovative artists plugging away at their craft, and it’s nice when the compass leads you straight to them. 

Recommended tracks: Streams, Sírenu, Cianuro
You may also like: Maud the Moth, Evan Carson, Elend, Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: Lost Future Records – Bandcamp | Official Website

Mario Infantes is:
– Mario Infantes (vocals)

With guests:
– Hrafnkell Örn Guðjónsson (Drums)
– Yara Polana (acoustic guitar)
– Gísli Gunnarsson (additional orchestration)
– Ásgeir Ásgeirsson (Oud)
– Sunna Friðjónsdóttir (additional vocals)
– Živa Ivadóttir (additional vocals)
– Simon Thorolfsson, (guitar on Obsidian I)
– Samúel Örn Böðvarsson (Bass)
– Daniel Þór Hannesson (guitars)
– Sebas Bautista (additional guitars)
– Tayebeh jourbonyan (additional vocals)
– Erik Qvick (additional percussion)

1. Infantes’ Instagram page has lots of great little videos where he demonstrates these instruments and talks a bit about them. ︎

The post Review: Mario Infantes – Bitácora appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: technical death metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Soreption, Gorod, Rivers of Nihil
Country: Russia
Release date: 18 July 2025

Every band name ever is stupid, so as long as you aren’t a common noun/verb/adjective (Need, Oak, X) or utter nonsense that’s hard to look up or type (OU, Lyxætherivminthraxas, Xavlegbmaofff…X), you’re doing ok for yourself. And I’ll add an honorable mention for the category of band names “___ and the ____s,” my personal least favorite. Even the most legendary of bands have stupid names: Megadeth sounds like a dyslexic fifth grader named a band, and The Beatles is a cheesy pun. Every year, I find more bands to add to the “terrible band names” pile. Only halfway through this year, and I’ve already stumbled across acts like Professor Emeritus, Wyatt E., Frogg, Pissectomy, and Toughness for the first time. Next on the endless list of hilariously terrible Noun band names is Anthill. Surely they make up for the terrible title with a decent working album title, right? …Right?

Well, Russian tech death outfit Anthill have shafted themselves a little by calling their second LP Volume III (Climbing the Bone Mountain), adorned with (I believe) unintentionally phallic cover art. No matter how serious the music is—and the record has a fully fleshed out story in the lyrics telling a fantasy tale full of blood, bones, war, self-actualization, and pus—I will giggle like a seventh grader every time I think about Anthill clambering up boner mountain. But alas, this is supposed to be a music review and not an album title one, so I’m happy to report Anthill‘s music is miles better than their christening abilities.

Anthilov’s guitar playing is incredibly intricate in contorted patterns and odd rhythms, with full-bodied basslines weaving their way into the heart of the riffs and dynamic drumming underneath it all. All in all, Volume III (Climbing the Bone Mountain) is everything you can ask for as far as working man’s tech death goes. He shows off elite skill with his fretboard, the riffs hammering away with little disregard for anything but virile technicality with Soreption-esque groove. He incorporates many techniques like the sleek trem-picking at the end of “At the Foothill” to fast alternate picking at 3:40 in “III Trail (Withered Trees),” one of the strongest riffs on the album. The real star of Anthilov’s riff-writing capabilities is the manner in which the guitar and bass interact, switching between who carries the melody and who the harmony repeatedly, the interplay consistently reminding me of “Lay Your Ghosts to Rest” by Between the Buried and Me throughout the album.

As a tech death album, I’d hope the performances are killer, though, so how are the other aspects of the music? Riding… er, Climbing the Bone Mountain is produced with a DIY charm, and Anthill avoids pretty much all tech death production pitfalls; Anthilov’s tones are dirty enough to not be sterile yet they remain also crisp, and the bass fills out the bottom of the mix without being lost. Unfortunately, Anthill run into several problems with songwriting—namely, they cannot naturally transition between riffs or ideas, often due to awkward time signature changes. The songs therefore quickly devolve into an endless string of spaffed out notes at rapid speed, and after a couple dozen riffs without creating any sort of theme, the guitar parts completely lose me in their knottiness, compounded by a lack of any cohesion in the songwriting. Everything blurs together. The brief moments that change up the speedy, tech death pace are the record’s most mediocre parts, too, including inoffensive but bland spoken word (“I Trail (Smoldering Torches),” unrefined clean vocals (“II Trail (Magic Mirrors)”), and a wholly disappointing cello solo from Orgone’s cellist that just doesn’t fit the vibe of the track (“III Trail (Withered Trees)”), seeming supplanted on top of the riff rather than being actually integrated into the meat of the song. The only change in pace that really works is the brief interlude/intro track “Crossroads. Intro,” a lovely solo piano piece setting the stage for the second half of the album. 

Despite demonstrating promising talent with their fingers, I don’t think Anthill will be the cause for many bone mountains yet. Thankfully, headbanging is more of a guarantee, and digging into the more intricate riffs has proved enjoyable even if forty-four minutes of them straight has my eyes glazing over, metaphorically. In a scene with competition as stiff as tech death, Anthill needs to keep at it if he wants any chance of mounting the tip, the zenith of the genre. And remember, kids: don’t use an Anthill as a fleshlight, even if you can’t get someone to summit your bone mountain.

Recommended tracks: At the Foothill, Crossroads, V Trail (Apogee of Enmity)
You may also like: Sentiment Dissolve, Carnosus, Inanimate Existence, Coexistence
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: independent

Anthill is:
– Artem Anthilov (guitars, vocals, bass)
– Evgeny Nesterov (bass)
– Andrey Litvinenko, Alexander Kasiarum, Ivan Korniienko (bass)
With guests:
Stephen Jarrett (Orgone) – backing vocals in I, II and V Trail, Intro to Crossroads.
Chris Bradley (Beneath the massacre) – guest guitar solo in Crossroads.
Denis Shvarts (Dark Matter Secret) – guest guitar solo in IV Trail.
Andrey Matchtevelov – guest cello solo in III Trail.

The post Review: Anthill – Volume III (Climbing the Bone Mountain) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.