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.

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: Free folk, drone (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Natural Snow Buildings, Anna Von Hausswolff, Wardruna (Skald)
Country: Ukraine
Release date: 30 May 2025

One of the most lamentably forgotten arts is giving attention to ‘boring’ things. A certain magic can emerge from focusing on an otherwise unremarkable space that gently invites instead of demands your attention. I recently glimpsed this magic while sitting by a pond with a friend—at first glance, it was a fairly still swath of lily pads accented by longleaf pines in the background. However, after staring into the mud for long enough, the mind becomes acclimated to the space and the pond suddenly bursts with life unseen. Damselflies skitter from pad to pad and myriad groups of frogs croak a call-and-response while the water ripples with activity below, tiny specks of detail that are missed by a cursory glance at the vista. Often, the depths of minimal music are reflected similarly, as the subtle changes in quiet and still pieces suddenly feel intense and stark once one is accustomed to their space. Such is the experience with Гільдеґарда (Hildegard), a collaboration between Ukrainian artists Heinali and Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko which extends the emotions from a split-second reaction to traumatic wartime events into lengthy compositions. What sort of life emerges in their subtle, buzzing mix of drone and free folk?

Comprised of two twenty-minute pieces¹, Гільдеґарда is strikingly skeletal in design: the only instruments used are Heinali’s synthesizers and the vocal work of Saienko. Heinali’s previous work is dedicated to modern recontextualizations of Medieval musical tradition, and Гільдеґарда is no exception. The synthesizers at times possess a flute-like timbre, and intrigue is added to each track through Saienko’s performance of pieces by Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval polymath and composer. Saienko polymerizes the modern-ancient performance through Gregorian chants and Ukrainian musical tradition, often slipping into open voice and adorning the slowly-performed pieces with plentiful ornamentation.

The spartan instrumentals immediately draw attention to Saienko’s performance. Hildegard’s compositions are known for challenging performers through huge interval jumps, but Saienko makes the performance seem effortless as she glides from note to note. She particularly shines when utilizing open voice, adding a stunningly rich and contemplative color to the Gregorian chants through ornamentation. Heinali’s synthesizers lay the groundwork for a meditative state; Saienko’s vocals lift the music to ascension. The core of each piece is the droning keyboards that begin imperceptibly and are rendered inescapable by the end. On “O Ignis Spiritus”, gentle and quiet synthesizers replicate a subdued flute, pulsing in tandem with the rapturous vocal performance. Across the track’s runtime, the synths lose their woodwind sensibility and take on a crunchier feel. By the halfway mark, Saienko’s performance reaches a head with the intensifying thrumming; her sudden howling fades away to an extensive keyboard solo that itself gets swallowed in the inevitable wall of sound. Гільдеґарда’s pieces are monolithic glaciers, growing and evolving at an imperceptible clip, with enough force to scar the surface of the Earth as they move steadfast across the horizon.

“O Tu Suavissima Virga” utilizes a similar structure to “Spiritus” but with an even more understated and subdued approach. The electronics are almost inaudible whirring pulses that stubbornly maintain their stead while approaching an impending crescendo. Saienko’s performance is hushed and diaphanous, taking on a delicate affect for an overwhelming majority of the track. The impact when she finally pushes her voice is powerful, but the journey requires considerable patience as most of the track’s twenty minutes sit in a singular compositional space. Additional stillness is invoked by the piece’s monochromatic nature: the electronics maintain an unwavering hum and the vocals use little to no ornamentation until a full twelve minutes in, and even then, Saienko’s projecting melodicism is ephemeral at best. Her voice, like everything else, is swallowed whole by the synthesizers shortly after. “Virga” pushes the limits of Гільдеґарда’s subtlety, coming together as a powerful whole but spinning its wheels a bit too long in places. The comparatively short collaboration between Heinali and Saienko, “Zelenaia Dubrovonka”, exemplifies that a similarly powerful effect can be incited in a more concise runtime.

Song duration aside, there is a sobering stillness that is engendered by Гільдеґарда. The two pieces were inspired by the split-second reaction to a missile striking nearby Heinali’s studio in Kyiv. In contrast to cacophonous and maximalist music, which has potential to fill the gaps in our minds and bludgeon any sense of inner exploration, the stripped-down and minimal approach of Гільдеґарда is a mirror held up to the listener. Through its ample room for contemplation, “Spiritus” and “Virga” conspire to necessitate a summoning of one’s inner turmoil. Despite my desire for a more compact runtime, extending these pieces is a necessity to give room for safe exploration of the emotional space the record embodies.

Гільдеґарда is a record of few movements and incremental development, all done with great purpose—its minimalism exists for the listener to fill in the negative space themselves and open up their mind for emotional exploration and healing. The record exists not to coddle but to give a gentle-yet-assertive courage to confront stresses head-on through its patient evolution and rich, ascendant vocal performance. Gaze into the mud of Гільдеґарда—you may be surprised what life you’ll find.

Recommended tracks: O Ignis Spiritus
You may also like: CHVE, Pelt, De Mannen Broeders, 58918012, Širom
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Unsound – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Heinali is:
– Oleh Shpudeiko (keyboards, electronics)
In collaboration with:
– Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko (vocals)

1. Heinali and Saienko penned a third (and considerably shorter) track as part of their collaboration, “Zelenaia Dubrovonka”, but this isn’t considered part of Гільдеґарда. ︎

The post Review: Heinali, Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko – Гільдеґарда (Hildegard) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by Derek Setzer

Style: doom metal, drone, experimental (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Krallice, Sunn O))), Earth
Country: United States
Release date: 28 March 2025

Hey, are you a big fuckin’ weirdo? Yeah, me too.

Did you enjoy Krallice‘s 2017 release Go Be Forgotten? Me too.

Because you’re a big fuckin’ weirdo, did you get stuck on “Outro” and wish that there was an entire album that sounded like it? Well first of all, if you answered yes to this question please reach out to me because boy that is an extremely niche group we both belong to. Second of all, I have some great news for you!

The Overmold is an experimental doom/drone duo featuring Mick Barr (Krallice) and Tim Wyskida (Khanate), who have come together under the I, Voidhanger banner to present their collaborative efforts to big fuckin’ weirdos like you and me. Barr’s unique, ambiguous harmonic guitar stylings are at the forefront of the sound on The Overmold, and are perfectly complemented by Wyskinda’s freeform drum performance, which propels the compositions forward and breathes life into them. The compositions themselves range from sprawling labyrinthian soundscapes to more structured evocative vignettes, but the interplay between Barr and Wyskinda is always the focal point from which these structures take shape. While the compositional prowess on display is nothing to sneer at, The Overmold is distinctive in its reliance on performance and technique to effectively extract every last drop of meaning from its songs. 

The bulk of The Overmold is comprised of “The Overmold” (written by The Overmold, in case you forgot), a semi-improvisational, thirty-five-minute foray into sinister, tension-building atmosphere. Barr’s guitar playing is akin to a lighthouse lamp cutting through thick fog, utilizing repeated motifs around which bass and vocal harmonies dance in and out. Wyskinda’s drumming is strikingly delicate; even his kick drum is barely audible at times. Freeform fills and agile cymbal work builds and releases tension, adding motion to an otherwise glacial pace. Monotone choral/whispered vocals subtly weave in and out of the background, adding emotional depth without distracting from the main performances, equally pacifying and paralyzing. All of these performance techniques on their own already build a compelling, uneasy ambience, but there is an acute attention to the small details that pushes “The Overmold” from good to great. 

Barr and Wyskida are frighteningly in sync and are able to pull off a massive range of dynamics that are not often heard in metal or metal-adjacent music, at least to the extent explored on The Overmold. Deeply intimate moments build into explosive crescendos and die back down again like an undulating vista of rolling hills. Even more rare is the gratuitous use of rubato; phrases swell in and out, trailing off in ritardandos that catch back up at the start of the next phrase. During more structured moments the dynamics or tempo remain constantly in flux, as if we were not listening to a piece of music but to a massive living, breathing organism. Even the song structure adheres to this conceit, with the most brazen moments of movement and overwhelming climaxes appearing in the middle of the track. Equal attention is given to both the music and the empty space that surrounds it, resulting in an extremely intimate experience. 

The production from Colin Marston perfectly captures all of the intricacies held within “The Overmold”. Every tiny detail of the performances are given space to breathe, and it is a joy to be able to hear the reverberations of a kick drum or the overtones of a held note so regularly. There is even a subtle use of panning that only revealed itself to me around my third listen. Marston’s attention to detail rivals that of the compositions themselves, and both in conjunction result in a truly special listening experience. 

The remaining three tracks are shorter, more structured explorations of The Overmold’s sound. “Songs of the Beyonder” starts with a sixteenth note hi-hat against a triplet eighth note strumming riff that is instantly engaging. The main motif is astoundingly pretty and very reminiscent of Krallice, and I love how it comes back at the end with added harmonies and a more bravado performance. “Buildings of Skin” starts out continuing the prettiness, but becomes much more harmonically antagonistic as the song goes on, ending in a jarringly dissonant sung interval. “Withering Other” acts as a sort of palate cleanser and is the most harmonically vague of the three shorter tracks, a “dark unfocused fog of clarity”, and the perfect way to ruminate on the sheer weight of The Overmold’s experience.

Over the course of the past week or two, The Overmold has turned into an experience that I look forward to engaging with every night. I am constantly finding small details that I had missed in previous listening sessions, and the atmosphere is an addictive ambrosia that is a perfect way to wind down at the end of a long day. A good pair of headphones and an hour or so of time to spend really focusing is practically demanded of the listener, but quickly becomes completely justified. The result is that The Overmold has become my favorite listening experience of the year so far, and is a record that I will be habitually returning to for a long while.

Recommended tracks: The Overmold
You may also like: Khanate, Ocrilim, Blind Idiot God
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: I, Voidhanger Records – Bandcamp | Facebook

The Overmold is:
– Mick Barr (guitars, bass, vocals)
– Tim Wyskida (drumset, percussion)

The post Review: The Overmold – The Overmold appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Doom metal, drone, post-metal, sean-nós (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sumac, Myrkur, Agalloch, Unreqvited
Country: Ireland
Release date: 3 February 2025

With a recent series of reviews under my belt featuring analyses on traditional folk styles and music hearkening back to ancient times, I find myself becoming enamored with ethnomusicology: not only am I now tasked with understanding and analyzing artists’ points of view, but when reviewing music that uses traditional ideas, writeups end up involving a ton of up-front research about the styles and their context in both the ancient and modern musical zeitgeist. There is a wealth of fascinating history in music and its evolution across time and cultures, and now that I am drunk with the power of knowledge, there is nothing you can do to stop me from telling you about it. To further instill my position, we will discuss the recent Fós release, Níl mo chroí in aon rud (Irish for ‘My Heart Isn’t in Anything’), their use of sean-nós vocal style, and how they integrate this centuries-old approach into a decidedly modern metal context. Even if composer Fionn Murray’s heart isn’t in anything, is there heart to be found in Níl mo chroí in aon rud?

Níl’s style is a bit difficult to pin down, sitting somewhere between ethereal post-metal that builds on a central vocal idea (“Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”¹), grungy doom metal with scratchy guitar textures (“Bádai na Scadán”²), and the more experimental end of Sumac’s droning and improvised sludge metal (“Táim i mo shu픳). Hazy and occasionally surreal passages are punctuated by ethereal singing that uses the aforementioned sean-nós technique. With a presence in Ireland stretching back hundreds if not thousands of years, sean-nós (Irish for ‘old style’) vocals are centered on free-time melodic ideas and a healthy dose of ornamentation, indulging in flourishes as long as needed; the lyrics utilized in these songs can be seen as a reflection of a community’s ideals and stories,⁴ while the emotions imparted into these lyrics show the individual’s relationship to these stories. While typically performed unaccompanied, the principles of sean-nós are utilized wherever possible on Níl, whether the vocals are calling from between free-time dissonant guitar stabs on “Táim i mo shuí” or ringing out proudly over the sounds of a fire on “Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”.

The central focus of sean-nós is its dialogical nature, placing a strong emphasis on an individual conveying the feelings of a story to a community as opposed to adhering to strict technique and form.⁵ On Níl, vocalist Susan ní Cholmáin explores a wide range of emotions to great success, turning the conventional sentiments of Irish folk songs on their heads with the help of Murray’s instrumentation. “Táim i mo shuí” is likely the most subversive and the most stunning, repurposing a tale about lovesickness into a churning, ominous, and surreal nightmare; the end result is an anxiety-provoking testament to unrequited love. The use of free-time is particularly clever on “Táim”, allowing gorgeous and ethereal vocal lines to breathe organically while crunching and droning guitars betray the continual decay of the narrator’s wellbeing. At one point, the guitars drop out completely and ní Cholmáin’s voice is accompanied by little other than manic percussion and creaking soundscapes, bringing the unease to a powerful climax. Even though “Táim” breaks from the traditional mold with a prominent musical accompaniment, it’s a consummate example of sean-nós’ effectiveness in a more contemporary musical context.

On the flip side, “An Mhaighdean Mhara”⁶ explores more majestic and wondrous sentiments, telling the story of a selkie who must return to the sea after a life on land. In the original telling, this is a bittersweet lament for a woman who has to give up life as she knows it; “Mhaighdean”, however, betrays optimism and wonder at a new-yet-familiar chapter in life, like returning to a beloved hometown after a decade away. While its opening and closing moments almost reach the transcendent heights of “Táim i mo shuí”, its middle section stumbles through extended awkward rhythmics. The synthesizers augment the track’s feelings of optimism, but they are timed in a way that wholly clashes with the magnificent vocal performance, diminishing its mythical atmosphere. The unaccompanied vocals beforehand set a fantastic precedent for “Mhaighdean” and the fuller instrumentals later in the track gel much nicer with the vocals for a satisfying conclusion, but this center section is a difficult-to-ignore blemish.

Where Níl suffers the most is in its myriad interludes and its one weaker track, “Slán le Maigh”.⁷ The album’s three small interludes add little to the already potent atmosphere and lead to a sense of incompleteness in an already short album—their absence would would do wonders for the flow if trimmed down and incorporated more holistically into the present songs. Additionally, short albums suffer harder at the hands of weaker tracks, and “Slán le Maigh” is, ironically, the runt of Níl despite being its longest piece. The vocal melodies are undoubtedly lovely, but its rhythms don’t play nice with ní Cholmáin’s voice and its central ideas never really take off in a satisfying way. And it’s not because Fós struggle with this style of songwriting either, as “Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin” follows a similar structure to great success. One of Níl’s most triumphant moments, “Molly” intermixes free-metered ideas with gorgeous ear-catching melodies augmented by an explosive second half, showing an acumen for post-metal songwriting that is woefully missing from “Slán le Maigh”.

Fós carve out a compelling niche for themselves on Níl mo chroí in aon rud, smartly utilizing experimental metal in conjunction with an ancient vocal technique. While Níl’s title tries to suggest otherwise, Murray wears a profound love for Ireland’s cultural history on his sleeve through his thoughtful incorporation of sean-nós. At the same time, Murray displays a willingness to push the envelope by subverting the traditional sentiments found in many of the island’s renowned folk pieces. Despite the presence of a few momentum-breaking interludes and weaker passages across its runtime, I have my ear close to the ground in anticipation of Fós’ next exploration into Irish musical history.⁸

Recommended tracks: Táim i mo shuí, Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin, Bádaí na Scadán
You may also like: SubRosa, Thragedium, The Angelic Process, Nadja
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Fiadh Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Fós is:
– Susan ní Cholmáin (vocals)
– Fionn Murray (everything else)

1. ‘Curly-haired Molly Nee Chullinan’ ︎
2. ‘The Herring Boats’ ︎
3. ‘I Am Awake’ ︎
4. A particularly notable example of sean-nós is “An Chéad Mháirt de Fhómhair” (The First Tuesday in Autumn). Originating in Ranafast, “An Chéad” was spontaneously composed by a man after learning of his son’s death by drowning. While mourning and lamenting his son on the beach, others heard his song and it resonated so deeply with the community that it became an emotional outlet for those affected by the tragedy and lives on today as a Ranafast musical tradition. ︎
5. Sean-nós is clustered to three different regions of western Ireland, all coming in different flavors depending on local tastes and traditions. Facets like amount of ornamentation and nasality show general patterns across regions but can all be different between individuals, depending on how they wish to express themselves. Additionally, because sean-nós is so deeply personal to the individual and their respective community, songs are typically associated with their place of origin; Níl features songs from County Donegal (“Badaí na Scadán”¸ “An Mhaighdean Mhara”, “Táim i mo shuí”), County Limerick (“Slán le Máigh”), and County Ulster (“Molly na gChuach ní Chuilleanáin”). ︎
6. ‘The Sea Maiden’ ︎
7. ‘Farewell to the Maigue’ ︎
8. If you’re interested in learning more about sean-nós, I strongly recommend this article by Julie Henigan in Ulster Folklife. It takes a deep dive into the style’s history and its cultural importance across Ireland. ︎

The post Review: Fós – Níl mo chroí in aon rud appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Dark folk, Drone, Choral (Clean vocals, spoken word)
Recommended for fans of: Les Mystères des Voix Bulgares, Nytt Land
Country: The Netherlands, Belgium
Release date: 11 October 2024

Though religion has always been a guiding force in music, many artists in the modern day use ecclesiastical themes as a means to transcend religion, whether it be exploring sentiments unrelated to the church or as an act of religious subversion. Lingua Ignota’s Sinner Get Ready, for example, soaks itself in bloodstained religious fervor with the goal of processing a bevy of painful and complicated emotions both related and unrelated to Kristin Hayter’s relationship to Catholicism. While not nearly as extreme and macabre as Sinner Get Ready, De Mannen Broeders’ Sober Maal approaches music from a similar perspective—Amenra frontman Colin van Eeckhout and Flemish folk musician Tonnie Dieleman use religious themes as a framework for coming to terms with death and grief. ‘Sober maal’ is a Dutch phrase that in a Christian context describes a small meal one has in the name of practicing gratitude; let’s count our blessings and fully digest the contents of this sober maal.

Recorded in a church in Zeeland, Sober Maal favors simplicity in its folk compositions: opener “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” (All Fame Is Out of the Question) utilizes very little outside of a droning hurdy gurdy and sparse piano to build to its choral conclusion. The rest of Sober Maal follows suit, as tracks begin with a simple idea that is surreptitiously expanded upon, like the slowly accelerating percussion of “Verteere Heel” (Digest Whole) or the teetering motif that conjures funereal reflection on the title track. Sober Maal also features several spoken word segments that act as palate cleansers between some of the more monolithic hymns.

While simplicity often betrays a dearth of compositional ideas, for De Mannen Broeders, it is a vessel for accessibility and deep meditative atmospheres. Everything from the production to the songwriting feels salt-of-the-earth, even down to the poetry: despite my limited experience studying Dutch, I was able to follow along with several pieces without needing to translate due to its relative simplicity. “Verteere Heel” begins with just a simple one-two percussive pattern, but the weight of each hit is felt deep as its sonic footprint is carved into the church’s negative space; moreso as both the percussion and the accompanying vocals increase in intensity and speed near the song’s conclusion. Similarly, “Sober Maal” utilizes a repeating melody that is accentuated by piano stabs, imposing a weighty heartbreak through its mournful rumination on a single idea.

With a keen sense of space, De Mannen Broeders take full advantage of the ecclesiastical setting: buzzing folk instruments and somber musings reverberate endlessly along the walls of the church, creating an all-encompassing sound that flirts with mysticism all within a minimal palette. “Grafschrift” (Epitaph) is mostly comprised of mandolin and vocals, but the power and fullness in their delivery is augmented by a persistent reverb, vocal lines punctuated by the relative silence in their separation. “Alle Roem is Uitgesloten” most directly utilizes drone ideas, guiding the listener into a trance before concluding with a moving choral passage. “Onze Lieve Vrouwe” (Our Dear Lady) takes the opposite approach to “Alle Roem”: a hurdy gurdy briefly establishes the mood as the space is filled with transcendent choral passages, only being brought back to the forefront as a complement to the choir in its closing moments. “Omer III”¹ opts for a more subdued approach, as its central focus is a spoken word passage over contemplative droning.

Sober Maal’s poetry sits in stark opposition to its musical pieces, putting into perspective the fullness evoked by the instrumentation and choir. De Mannen Broeders’ ability to create such powerful tension and release through simplistic compositions and clever use of negative space by juxtaposing full reverberating soundscapes with sparse silence is laudable. “Ons Nu Voorbij” (Past Us Now) does the best job at organically incorporating these poems through a seamless transition from former track “Onze Lieve Vrouwe,” evoking the feeling of a speaker closing a funeral service after a hymn. Additionally, “Omer III” does well with its spoken word, though it is accompanied by musical backdrop, distinguishing it from other poetic passages. 

The spoken word approach does not pay off entirely, however: “Asemruumte” (Breathing Space) is a bit too repetitive and is clunky in execution, setting a negative precedent for the otherwise decent spoken sections later on Sober Maal. Moreover, the transition from “Alle Roem” to “Asemruumte” is relatively sudden, the lack of an audio cue making the poetry feel unprecedented and jarring. “Van Licht Ontdaan” (Bereft of Light) sits somewhere in the middle, posturing as a decent if somewhat forgettable palate cleanser. Moreover, while the choir performance forms one of Sober Maal’s central points of interest, some of the lines are rhythmically awkward: “Alle Roem Is Uitgesloten” and “Grafschrift” are particularly guilty of shoving too many syllables into lines, though “Grafschrift” handles this better as it only features two singers as opposed to an entire chorus, which stops the track from becoming too muddied with voices.

In its last moments, De Mannen Broeders encourage us to move forward even while holding on to grief: closing poem “Ons Nu Voorbij” asserts that bringing together people who care has real meaning, and that it’s important to look after ourselves in the name of those who have left us. There is space inside us for the people we have lost, but still space to continue growing and experience life in full, as our deceased loved ones surely would have wanted. Sober Maal is a beautiful and cathartic folk release, effectively using a religious context and a simple songwriting approach to articulate the complications of loss and grief, and ultimately serving as a reminder to give space for the things we are grateful for.

Recommended tracks: Onze Lieve Vrouwe, Grafschrift, Omer III, Verteere Heel
You may also like: Natural Snow Buildings, Hellvete, The Visit, Sangre de Muérdago + Judasz & Nahimana
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify

Label: Relapse Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

De Mannen Broeders is:
– Tonnie Dieleman (banjo, mandolin, vocals)
– Colin van Eeckhout (hurdy gurdy, percussion, vocals)
– Pim van de Werken (piano, organ)

1. I’m being told by my official Dutch fact-checker (aka co-writer Tim) that this text is from Omer Gielliet (1925-2017), a catholic priest and artist from Breskens, The Netherlands. ︎

The post Missed Album Review: De Mannen Broeders – Sober Maal appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Galician Folk, Dark Folk, Drone (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Trobar de Morte, The Moon and the Nightspirit, Current 93, dark folk Agalloch
Review by: Dave
Country: Spain, Luxembourg
Release date: 9 August 2024

The last few decades have shown a resurgence and celebration of folk music traditions across the world, so much so that it even made its way into the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021 with “Shum,” Go_A‘s psytrance-meets-folk rendition of a Ukrainian ritual rain dance. The modern folk scene is so rich and abundant that it effectively falls into your hands with the most cursory of searches: case in point, one quick look at the most recent dark folk releases on RateYourMusic pointed me to Sangre de Muérdago and Judasz & Nahimana‘s latest collaboration, A Ilus​ã​o da Quietude (The Illusion of Stillness). Does Ilus​ã​o awe the listener into stillness as indicated, or is the stillness simply an illusion?

Formed out of a series of collaborations between Sangre de Muérdago and Judasz & Nahimana starting in 2021, Ilus​ã​o is at its core a Galician folk release comprised of manifold string instruments such as hurdy gurdy, viola, and nyckelharpa sitting alongside electronic and industrial sounds crafted by music boxes, waterphones, and synthesizers. Ilus​ã​o is imposing in its song structures and daring in its implementation of electronic elements as it flows from extended piece to palate cleanser, with tracks “Lars Persson” and “Murmurios a Correr” offering a chance to meditate and recuperate after the extended cuts “Cantiga da Rainha das Aguas” and “Cantiga de Folhas e Agulhas,” respectively. Neofolk and dark folk are no stranger to electronic and industrial elements, as can be seen in the ethereal soundscape “Hollow Stone” from Agalloch’s The White, but whereas the intense synthetic passages of “Hollow Stone” sit in stark opposition to The White’s calmer folk moments, Ilus​ã​o shows a fierce integration of the mossy and the mechanical, melting from section to section and coalescing in grand climaxes, never losing its primal edge in the process.

Ilus​ã​o lends itself well to its earthen soundscapes thanks to its inextricable connection to folktales and mythology. Opener “Cantiga da Rainha das Aguas” (Song of the Queen of Waters) depicts an entity borne of the clouds as it journeys through the water cycle, the music flowing in tandem: the track begins with a hushed and plaintive guitar tone accompanied by soulful vocal work, gradually building in dynamics and intensity, introducing more string instrumentation as the entity falls to earth. Through the exploration of springs, streams, and rivers, the music implodes into electronic ambience, a clanking music box, and hushed whispers, finally mustering the strength to rebuild its former form as the entity is taken by the sun back to its home in the clouds. “Cantiga de Folhas e Agulhas” (Song of Leaves and Needles) follows a similar structure, though the storytelling is more impressionist and depicts the cycle of life from birth to death using vivid forest imagery, aching and glacial as mournful group vocals slowly conjure momentum before falling into an electronic abyss that resolves with a somber group vocal dirge. Closer “Murmurios a Correr” is a powerful union of organic and metallic instrumentation, interweaving subtle and eerie synthetic whines and heart-wrenching strings before being lead to an a capella group-sung close.

Projects such as these commonly take the form of splits, where each artist submits separately penned songs that contribute to a larger idea, but the nature of Ilus​ã​o’s collaboration proves itself to be different, presenting instead as a melting pot of Sangre de Muérdago’s chthonic Galician folk soundscapes and Judasz & Nahimana‘s quasi-industrial ritualistic droning and hauntingly gorgeous vocals, the end product a record neither could pen on their own. Moreover, Ilus​ã​o’s centerpieces feature uncommonly long track lengths for both artists, making it clear that their collaboration provided space for them to experiment not only instrumentally but with song structure as well: the two “Cantiga”s stretch out to sixteen minutes apiece, meditating and morphing around themselves until crumbling under their own weight, only to piece themselves back together by the end into something just as beautiful, a Galician folk analog to Japanese kintsugi crafting techniques.

Staggering in its execution and breathtaking in its prosody, A Ilus​ã​o da Quietude effuses an undeniable sadness, and yet I can’t help but feel elation among its melancholic foggy breath. It is rare that I am this immediately enthralled with such a cursory find, but Ilus​ã​o’s inventive instrumentation and soul-touching vocal work immediately floored me with its ability to evoke a strong and primal wistfulness. Ilus​ã​o is without a doubt one of the greatest folk pieces to come out this year, and I’m hopeful that Sangre de Muérdago and Judasz & Nahimana will come together in the future to grace us with more forward-thinking orchestrations.

Recommended tracks: Cantiga da Rainha das Aguas, Murmurios a Correr, Cantiga de Folhas e Agulhas
You may also like: The Visit, Musk Ox, Thragedium
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links (Sangre de Muérdago): Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic
Related links (Judasz & Nahimana): Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic

Label: Throne Records – Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook

Sangre de Muérdago is:
– Pablo C. Ursusson (guitars, strings)
– Georg Börner (strings, percussion)
Judasz & Nahimana is:
– Pricila da Costa (vocals, percussion)
– Angelo Mangini (synthesizer)

The post Review: Sangre de Muérdago, Judasz & Nahimana – A Ilus​ã​o da Quietude appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Sludge metal, experimental post-metal, drone (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Lathe, Big|Brave, Mizmor, Five the Hierophant, Thou
Review by: Dave
Country: Canada
Release date: 21 June 2024

My taste in music generally leans towards the cheesy, the fantastical, and the dramatic: albums like Amorphis’s Silent Waters and Seventh Wonder’s The Great Escape are my bread and butter, showcasing passion and storytelling in a borderline saccharine manner. However, I am a man (read: gay little forest goblin) of many facets, and I, too, like to indulge in things that are dissonant, angry, and bizarre on occasion, whether it be the untethered intensity of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Dissociation or the psychedelic explorations of The Mars Volta’s Frances the Mute. So when I hear of Sumac’s The Healer and its dark, unsettling sludge improvisation, I’m curious to try it out, despite the chance that it sits well outside my tastes. Will Sumac buck the traditional Dave taste trends, or will The Healer’s healing message fall completely on deaf ears?

A name like Sumac would suggest a shady tree in a meadow with perhaps a slight air of contemplativeness, but this is about as far from Sumac‘s approach as you can get: their music is gray, decaying, and occasionally menacing. The Healer is the logical conclusion to the imagery of Ashenspire‘s Hostile Architecture, where a dystopian hellscape designed to make you suffer has finally collapsed in its entirety and all that remains are rubble and the shell of a former civilization. Moments of vile intensity are juxtaposed against droning feedback where your gaze cannot be pulled from the weathered skyline until you’re buried under yet another tower crumbling underneath its fractured structure. The Healer is a good illustration of how catharsis and the healing process are often non-linear and occasionally outside of our control, as both moments of dread and moments of brief brightness are often bookended by droning improvisational sections, a faint glimmer of hope apparent in lyrics that juxtapose grim imagery with optimistic symbolism, such as “World of Light”’s “Rats stir, quiver / Under sun’s unbidden pallor / Oh, muted hearts / Through clasped hands glimmer / Shine!” and my personal favorite, “New Rites”’s “From flesh and fallow limbs / Petals open.”

The Healer luxuriates in moods and atmospherics, with extended and feedback-heavy guitarwork making up a considerable chunk of the album, but Sumac are also not afraid to incorporate heavier, more focused moments where they are needed. Incomprehensibly huge opener “World of Light” drifts in and out of improvised sections, but fills its last two minutes with an explosion of Opeth-gone-dissodeath riffs; “Yellow Dawn” starts off in a similar fashion to “World of Light,” but a third of the way through slides into an aggressive and psychedelic jam with squealing guitars, pummeling drums, and thick rumbling bass; “New Rites” sits the longest in sludge territory, including the heaviest drum instrumentation on the album, coalescing with The Dillinger Escape Plan-esque buzzy jazz guitarwork to positively crush the listener to smithereens before closing on an emotive guitar solo accented with powerful drum stabs; and “The Stone’s Turn” is likely the most terrifying track, introduced with scraping guitars that build into a whirlpool of abject incomprehensible chaos through a variety of unsettling guitar textures with only the faintest blip of conventional riffage shining through its murk.

While The Healer is certainly well-paced, giving the listener time to meditate to improvised drone moments before accompanying these sections with heavier sludge sensibilities, a considerable amount of patience is needed to fully enjoy it, along with a willingness to sit in dissonant, bleak, and occasionally terrifying atmospheres. This is not helped by the runtime: The Healer’s shortest two tracks are just shy of thirteen minutes and the longest are a towering twenty-five minutes, making for a difficult-to-digest experience over its nearly eighty-minute runtime. Those who revel in avant-garde instrumentation and improvised jazz will find this a quote-unquote “comfortable” experience; for me, however, this makes for an album that’s highly regarded but requires a particular state of mind to revisit.

The Healer has succeeded in expanding my taste palate, giving me an appreciation for oppressive soundscapes through its vivid lyricism and message of finding hope among decay and rubble. I would have preferred it to be just a touch shorter, but I will most certainly be picking this up when I have a craving for drawn-out, experimental sludge. If you have a taste for extended pieces that ebb and flow between unsettling mood exploration and sludgy chaos, The Healer will unequivocally restore you in full.

Recommended tracks: Yellow Dawn, New Rites, The Stone’s Turn
You may also like: Minsk, NNMM, Bong-Ra, Zos, Sol
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Thrill Jockey Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Sumac is:
– Aaron Turner (guitars, vocals)
– Nick Yacyshyn (drums)
– Brian Cook (bass)

The post Review: Sumac – The Healer appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde doom metal, experimental rock, drone, dark ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Bohren & der Club of Gore, Lingua Ignota, Spencer Zahn, Talk Talk, Bell Witch
Review by: Andy
Country: Denmark
Release date: 24 November 2023

I would name my child after Italy’s I, Voidhanger records if I could: their motto—“obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground”—says it all. Their roster of eclectic, artistic bands has no parallel, and essentially every album is worth listening to because you don’t know if you’ll get freaky jazz fusion tech death (Sarmat), drone/jazz/world music triple albums (Neptunian Maximalism), or any other style of freaky, unusual (typically metallic) music. I knew I needed to claim Sol as soon as I saw the list of instruments used on the album, including (and certainly not limited to) marxolin, church organ, tuba, bass clarinet, hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre… indeed, they really looted an entire university music department. 

Promethean Sessions invokes a particularly unusual compositional style, closer to Talk Talk’s Spiritof Eden than any metal project. Recorded over many years’ worth of sessions, Emil Brahe (the mastermind of Sol) painfully stitched together a diverse tapestry of sounds into an intricately-detailed, thought-out composition still oozing with an improvisational vitality. Getting lost in the textured ambience of Promethean Sessions is ineluctable, especially with such spacious, dynamic production. Sol has a rich sound, befitting of the contemplative ambience found on tracks like “A Choir of Teeth,” which feels deeply spiritual in a manner similar to Lingua Ignota—minus her death industrial harshness. Going along with the ambience, Promethean Sessions’s flow is distinctly divorced from typical metal composition, even I, Voidhanger’s weirdest offerings. Indeed, Sol sound beautifully ecological here, letting the spirit meander like the branching of a river delta or of a root system, fractal intricacies breaking off from the main composition beautifully.

Despite the evocative, harrowing atmosphere Sol’s music seeps, the album feels pitifully one-dimensional. For example, the magnificent cast of instruments really doesn’t add much except for occasional texture: my disappointment that the bowed lyre and tuba weren’t prominent features of a metal track is immeasurable. Speaking of, the tracks that verge on metal at all (“I bred a Sun from the Golden Mouth,” “Paranoia Sunrise”) are surprisingly non-exploratory, borrowing the fuzzy distortion of stoner-doom rather than a more dynamic style. At first, these straightforward metal sections are a fitting contrast to the slow atmospheres, but on closer examination, I found that the ambient sections showed off Sol at their strongest, providing a richly textured soundscape suited both for close listening or a peaceful background for reading. 

Moreover, the vocals across the album are unspectacular, even when regarded as just another instrumental texture. Except for the slightly ecstatic vocals on “A Choir of Teeth,” the droning monotony of most of the vocal lines is, to be quite frank, bland as hell. None of the vocalists have a spectacular enough timbre to work well as a drone above the concord of sounds and instruments. I can feel a hint of the energy that the vocalists attempt to contribute, but instead they make a disappointingly flat, slow album even more one-note until parts like the climactic choir at the end of “Where the Trees Meet the Storm.” Had Promethean Sessions had more overwhelming moments like the final minute of that track, this review would’ve gone a lot differently.

While I criticized Promethean Sessions a lot, it still perfectly fits every aspect of the “obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground” except for possibly the metal part. I can’t fault the uncompromising vision or immaculate attention to detail of Sol, and I still think this is a worthwhile album to let wash over you; however, the execution was lagging a little bit behind the vision here.

Recommended tracks: A Choir of Teeth, Paranoia Sunrise
You may also like: Neptunian Maximalism, Forlesen, Intaglio, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Galya Bisengalieva, Aerial Ruin
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: I, Voidhanger Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Band in question is:
Emil Brahe: Synthesizer, organ, accordion, electric mandolin, gong, vocal
Andrew Dorman: Vocal, synthesizer, guitar, marxolin
Rikke Alminde: Vocal, church organ, vibraphone
Tor Brandt: Vocal, guitar, piano
Stine Kloster: Vocal, bowed banjo, guitar
Christian Qvortrup: Drums, vocal
Andreas Hansn: Guitar
Peter Borre: Bass
Lotte Maxild: Bass clarinet, clarinet, organ
Olga Goija: Viola
Jens Balder: Trombone, tuba
Christian Sinding Sondergaard: Dulcimer, violin, guitar
Mikkel Reher-Langberg: Clarinet
Jens Peter Moller: Double bass
Aske Krammer: Double bass, percussion
Anna Emilie Wittus Johnsen: Hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre
Mikko Mansikkala Jensen: Feedback guitar

The post Review: Sol – Promethean Sessions appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: IDM, Experimental, Post-Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sunn O))), The Ocean, Primitive Man
Review by: Cooper
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 25 August, 2023

Whenever I am looking for albums to review I make sure to pay special attention to any albums that may be parts of a larger series or serve as companion pieces to other works because if there’s one thing that gets me going as a prog metal fan, it’s concept. When a band puts in the effort to create a companion piece to an already great album, I take notice, and with The Crimson Queen Has No Tongue, The Salt Pale Collective have done just that. Before reading, make sure to check out my review for A Body That Could Pass Through Stones and Trees; it will provide essential context for the discussion here.

Composed of a single 20 minute song, this companion EP begins in quite a similar manner to its big brother. In fact, I believe the synth track that begins both may be identical. However, where the album delved into brutally heavy riffs and harsh vocals, the EP further explores the dark, synth-laden atmosphere. Vocal samples fade in and out of existence like dark planets on some intergalactic voyage and the synth wails on the like the hum of the engines propelling us. And this is how The Crimson Queen Has No Tongue continues. Changes are gradual to the point where I often didn’t notice a new chapter had commenced until it was well under way, and the only constant is the humming synth.

Never content to stay in one place, the synth tones on this track range from grimy and muted to pristine and breathtaking. The highlights of this track are in its transitions which as I have said are difficult to initially hear, but infinitely rewarding when clued in on. The cello entrance around the midway point is especially spectacular, but that is all I want to spoil. In fact, there is very little I want to spoil about this track. It is so unlike anything TSPC did on the true album, that I cannot confidently recommend it even if you enjoyed that release. Try to go in with zero expectations, and let the synth carry you away to wherever it will.

Recommended tracks: The Crimson Queen Has No Tongue
You may also like: Bruit, Sabled Sun, Cryo Chamber
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Independent

The Salt Pale Collective is:
– Baz (Ebow)
– Dave, Alex (Vocals)
– Ross, Rubby, Jimmy (Voices)

The post Review: The Salt Pale Collective – The Crimson Queen Has No Tongue appeared first on The Progressive Subway.