Style: avant-garde metal, progressive metal, chamber music, progressive rock, Romanticism (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Mertz, Liturgy
Country: California, United States
Release date: 1 August 2025

What makes metal metal? Indubitably, it’s some blend of attitude, riffs, lyrical themes, instrumentation, and “heaviness” (that last one is to say, you know it when you hear it). Until 2020, I would have thrown in distortion to the list of essential characteristics, but Kaatayra’s Só Quem Viu o Relâmpago à sua Direita Sabe, currently still my album of the decade, changed that as a fully acoustic yet recognizably black metal album. New avant-garde metal band Rintrah push my conceptions of metal even further, abandoning even the harsh vocals of Só Quem. That’s right, The Torrid Clime is classical acoustic guitar, drumming, and reedy, belted clean vocals. So what makes Rintrah metal? 

Their unabashed veneration for the Romantics. I mean, ask anybody; Romantic poetry is hella metal. But seriously, since metal’s earliest days, its practitioners have been neoromantics, intentionally or not. The genre’s acolytes are obsessed with individuality and freedom of expression, an idealization of the past and the exotic (through incorporations of folk music, for example¹), and, above all, a singular desire to attain the sublime. Metal mainstays—crushing heaviness, screamed and growled vocals, blast beats, crazy displays of guitar wizardry, singing of gore and nihilism—all act to make you, the listener, feel small compared to the display of sonic power. As eminent Romantic philosopher Edmund Burke said: “Whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”² Like Romanticism, metal is, at its heart, a rebellion: against the shackles of a boring life, from the very start in the industrial hellscape of Manchester. It’s designed to make you feel something profound, with heaviness as its modus operandi.

Simply put, metal is obviously Romantic, and Rintrah fully embodies the philosophy more explicitly than any other band I’ve ever heard, so those dulcet acoustic guitars and blast beats are more than enough to be metal to the philosophical core. Rintrah’s Romantic aesthetic is, in a word, audacious. Adorning the album cover of The Torrid Clime’s is the 1818 painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, a work which is literally first on Wikipedia if you search “Romantic art.” The lyrics across Rintrah’s debut record are pulled from various Romantic poets—William Blake, Percy Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Charles Baudelaire, and Charlotte Smith.³ There is even a Mertz piece, “Nocturne, Op. 4, No. 2,” on the record fitted in as a mid-album interlude. 

So yeah, The Torrid Clime is pretty damn metal, although musically it’s a far cry from what I’d expect. There are no grandiose orchestrations here à la Mahler, Mendelssohn, or Dvorak. Classical guitarist Justin Collins manages to make his instrument sound like a harp, while Arsenio Santos on bass (Howling Sycamore) gives The Torrid Clime a Rush-like rhythmic edge. The vocals provided by Otrebor (Botanist) and William DuPlain (ex-Botanist) are also Rush-y, powerful, nasal-y tenors; like Geddy Lee, I could see Otrebor and DuPlain’s vocals being a sticking point for listeners. Yet their delivery of the various poems is admirable, with drama, bombast, and spot-on cadence. It’s quite the bardic performance, in fact, and one could easily imagine one of the vocalists with the charmingly strummed guitar lines traveling city to city performing their poetry.⁴ The guitar tones are succulent with plenty of technical embellishment, keeping the music quite harmonically complex. During the faster moments, like those in “Ozymandias” and “On the Giddy Brink,” I even hear strong hints of Kaatayra with the rhythmic intricacy of the guitar parts—not to mention the wonky rhythms of tracks like “The Chariot.” The compositions are also full of masterful transitions which perfectly underscore thematic shifts in the text, such as the transition between the main riff and the softer, richer one in “Fearful Symmetry.” 

For much of The Torrid Clime, the frantic blast beats are in wonderful juxtaposition with the calmer classical guitar and breathily belted vocals, but at times Otrebor’s drumming becomes completely detached from the plot as Collin’s guitar and Santos’ bass fall out of rhythmic contact with him—the vocalists are off doing their own thing in the stratosphere most of the time, regardless. Rintrah’s unique combination of sounds works in its favor until their delicate synergy becomes unraveled. Thankfully, for most of the tracks on The Torrid Clime, Rintrah stay in their lane, letting those euphonious guitar lines, thumping bass, unique vocals, and blast beats all interact with surprising cohesion. The tracks that change up Rintrah’s characteristic sound are also strong points on the record: instrumental “Nocturne, Op. 4, No. 2,” blast-less slow track “Mutability,” and a cappella finale “Into an Echo.” Even within the band’s focused sound, one can never know what to expect. 

The Torrid Clime is a unique album driven by guitars that sound like harps and charismatic vocalists who could travel town to town in some idyllic reimagining of the past. Fraught with gentle tension and unruly percussion, The Torrid Clime doesn’t induce the sublime as obviously as in lots of metal but rather in a wholly unexpected way; as I kept returning to the album, it revealed itself to me in the dramatic performance of the lyrics, in the percussive transitions between riffs, and in the complex, expansive chords. Rintrah is an intriguing project, undoubtedly not for every metalhead, but for those with an open mind and an appreciation for the philosophical, the sublime awaits.

Recommended tracks: Fearful Symmetry, On the Giddy Brink, In Tempests, Into an Echo
You may also like: Botanist, Forêt Endormie, Howling Sycamore, Kaatayra
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: Fiadh Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook

Rintrah is:
– Justin Collins – guitar
– Otrebor – drums, backing and lead vocals
– William Duplain – lead and backing vocals
– Arsenio Santos – bass

1. The Romantics’ glorification of the past, promotion of shared heritage, and emphasis on extreme emotion all contributed greatly to the rise of nationalism. This is also how I believe NSBM became such a problem in the black metal world. Metal’s full embrace of the Romantics’ philosophy comes with its negatives, too. ︎
2.  From A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. ︎
3. Rintrah don’t even quote some of my favorite basic-bitch Romantic poets like Colerdige, Wordsworth, and Keats. Definitely look into all of these Romantic poets, though! ︎
4. The bard is a common Romantic motif in their exaltation of the past. ︎

The post Review: Rintrah – The Torrid Clime appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album Art by Paige Weatherwax

Style: Avant-Garde Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Between The Buried and Me, Devin Townsend, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Mr. Bungle, Diablo Swing Orchestra
Country: United States, TN
Release date: 11 April 2025

Flummox are a band that defy singular definition. Are they death metal, bluegrass, circus music, musical theater, power punk, or psychedelic rock? If your answer is “all of the above—and then some,” you’re only beginning to grasp their ambition. Over a decade ago, Alyson Dellinger and Drew Jones birthed this Frankenstein of a band in the unlikely crucible of Tennessee—a state steeped in musical tradition. With the creative spark of new members and several years of maturing, Flummox hit their stride with 2022’s Rephlummoxed. With all its surreal, avant-garde grandeur, that album left one lingering question: how do you follow it up?

To understand how Southern Progress attempts to answer the album that preceded it, we first need to examine the structural blueprint of both records. Rephlummoxed built its identity on sprawling, multi-part compositions—songs whose lengths have a floor of five minutes and a ceiling of fourteen. The vast song lengths give the band’s pandemonium room to breathe, allowing the manic ambition to unfold at full scale. What emerged was bold, momentous, and endlessly engaging—a charismatic, aural riot fully earned by its ambition.

The architecture of Southern Progress sharply deviates from the long-form approach. Gone are the whimsical interludes and sprawling epics, save for the final song; in their place, Flummox attempt to use a leaner, more streamlined framework, with most tracks hovering around four to five minutes in length. None of the band’s genre-blurring mastery is lost—there’s still enough stylistic whiplash and personality to earn the approval of Mike Patton or Frank Zappa—but something about this new structural gamble doesn’t quite work.

A dissonance of expectation permeates this album, manifesting as a subtle but persistent disconnect between form and function. Everything that made Rephlummoxed soar feels truncated here. Something essential in the magic of their chaos gets lost when it’s compressed to the length of a standard pop rock song. That tension leaves many tracks feeling like incomplete snapshots of something greater, or ideas that might have been better served by embracing more conventional songcraft.

The first two tracks of the album, “What We’re in For…” and “Southern Progress,” immediately showcase the record’s fundamental confusion. The former opens with proggy, deranged grooves, then settles into a gentler, swing-inflected rhythm. From there, it pivots back into metal grooves that almost carry a sense of symphonic grandeur—only for Flummox to completely kill the momentum by abruptly oscillating between still sound samples and disjointed riffing, before trailing off into a full minute of ambient drift. “Southern Progress” then kicks in with an almost whiplash transition, fusing proggy power punk, death metal, and sludge. It starts off promising but soon collapses into a series of metal breakdowns that occupy far too much of the track’s runtime, before hastily returning to its original theme and ending without resolution. Both songs feel like fragments of a greater idea, pieces that would have been better served by being combined into one longer, more ambitious work.

Following these disorienting misfires is “Long Pork,” which assaults the listener with monolithic, sludgy riffing that drones through your bones, steadily building in intensity before attempting a vaguely post-rock crescendo. The whole endeavor falls flat because there either isn’t enough material to properly earn the climax or the song ends immediately upon reaching it.

Southern Progress closes with its longest track, “Coyote Gospel,” clocking in at just over eight minutes. Flummox clearly aimed to end the album with something grand as it’s a concept song tackling the hypocritical, cynical reality of Christian society. What they actually delivered, however, is a track that confuses concept with songcraft. “Coyote Gospel” comes across as a smorgasbord of ideas whose disjointedness outweighs its charm and gets in the way of any kind of momentum it could possibly build.

A few glimpses of coherence appear on this record. “Siren Shock” locks onto a well-structured, quirky southern metal aesthetic, with riffs that draw from the most charming corners of country rock—only amped up into a glorious rodeo that sounds like it could trample the stars out of the sky. “Executive Dysfunction” blends imperious sludge with tongue-in-cheek nods to Mr. Bungle, before shifting in its second half into lush prog and symphonic black metal. It’s chaotic, but perfectly balanced and fully realized, a rare moment where Flummox’s madness feels not just unleashed, but sculpted.

Ultimately, Southern Progress feels like the work of a band whose ambitions outpace their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses—caught between the pull of vast ambition and the demands of focused brevity. Structurally, much of the album sounds like what you’d get if you hacked a random four-minute section out of a fifteen-minute Between the Buried and Me epic and tried to pass it off as a self-contained statement. Instead of embarking on a glorious journey across ten different dimensions of bedlam, you’re handed fractured, short-lived fragments of aimless indulgence. The ineffable eldritch opossum that defines the soul of Flummox can’t be contained within earthly constraints—it must either tame itself to speak the common tongue, or fully embrace its madness. But it can’t do both.

Recommended tracks: “Siren Shock”, “Executive Dysfunction”
You may also like: OMB, Schizoid Lloyd, öOoOoOoOoOo, Victory Over the Sun
Final verdict: 5.5/10

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

Label: Needlejuice – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Flummox is:
– Alyson Blake Dellinger (vocals, guitar, bass)
– Chase McCutcheon (guitar)
– Max Mobarry (guitars, vocals, fretless acoustic bass, keyboards, midi programming, percussion, trumpet, sound design, scoring, editing and production)
– Jesse Peck (keyboards)
– Alan Pfeifer (drums)
With guests:
– Jo Cleary (violin)
– Melody Ryan (flute)
– Braxton Nicholas (tenor saxophone)
– Eric McMyermick (accordion)
– Angela Lese (flute)

The post Review: Flummox – Southern Progress appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Dissonant black metal, avant-garde metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Rotting Christ, Behemoth
Country: Cyprus
Release date: 5 April 2025

Many black metal bands tout an ‘evil’ and ‘satanic’ aesthetic; among the grim and frostbitten band photos, becoming a Progeny of the Great Apocalypse, and embodying a trve kvlt lifestyle, imagery of hellish landscapes should be par for the course for the genre. After all, what hotter place is there to hang out for a black-metalhead than The Devil’s Condo? Well, on closer inspection, one finds that black metal is often missing that je ne Satan quoi, choosing to focus on evil acts instead of embodying the nature of the underworld. And that’s to say nothing of the myriad hippie black metal bands who write about nature and skirt the subject entirely.¹ That’s where today’s topic of discussion, Frozen Winds, come in: on latest record, Keys to Eschaton, the Cypriots aim to create a truly hellish experience, getting to the heart of all things twisted and incomprehensible. Does Keys to Eschaton open the gates of Hades to the listener, or is there a better chance of getting in when Hell freezes over?

Frozen Winds incorporate melodics and variety into their black metal base through adjacent styles, including heavy metal (“Theosphoros”), thrash metal (“Crown”), and doom metal (“Jesters of Desolation”). Additionally, a bevy of vocal techniques are used across Keys to Eschaton, from guttural bellows and throaty shrieks to clean verses and even throat singing. Tracks follow virtually no resemblance of a verse-chorus structure, instead exploring ideas in a free-flowing framework designed to transition between ideas from moment to moment. What ties this approach together is the unwelcoming and occasionally nightmarish atmosphere that pervades the record: unsettling soundscapes, manic vocal delivery, and dissonant riffs appear on nearly every track.

All of these elements coalesce in an experience that sounds as if it were actually manufactured in Hell. Frozen Winds invoke black metal’s Hadean sensibilities by searing them into every moment of Keys to Eschaton—the listener is unceremoniously sentenced to wander a vast oblivion, some places hopelessly expansive and others claustrophobic and cavernous. Ominous, incoherent whispers on opener “Theosphoros”, shrieking laughter and punctuated, dissonant guitar stabs on “Spirit of the Womb”, and foreboding throat singing on “Jesters of Desolation” and “Epiclesis to Amenti” work to remind the listener that the world they are exploring is designed for creatures wholly unlike them. The effect isn’t overwhelming, but it’s enough to elicit a surreal and existential discomfort along with a morbid curiosity that urges onward the exploration of its twisted crags.

While Keys to Eschaton‘s pieces are undoubtedly challenging and hostile, Frozen Winds are endowed with a compositional understanding that makes these extended stream-of-consciousness pieces flow with ease. Between variation in style and clever use of dynamics, the flow of these tracks tempers the hellacious experience and prevents it from teetering into frustration. “From the Caverns”, for example, begins with black metal riffage and overlaid clean vocals before transitioning into punctuated heavy metal, bouncing back and forth between these styles until the ground collapses underneath to a sparse bass line; hushed whispers join in, adorned by acoustic guitar. A standalone shriek pierces through the contemplative moment, mercilessly yanking the listener back into ferocious tremolos and blasting drums in one of Keys to Eschaton‘s most powerful and compelling moments.

Exemplary songwriting can only go so far without a solid backbone in instrumentation, however. Each track manages to have at least one moment of intrigue, whether it be the explosive interplay between staccato riffing and expansive tremolos on “Jesters of Desolation”, the soaring and deliciously melodic solo on “Io Agia Pantokratora”, or the idiosyncratic rhythmic stylings of “Crown”, which sound as if Tool were headlining a festival in the seventh circle of Hell. Unfortunately, Keys to Eschaton‘s instrumentation fails to transcend ‘decent’ most of the time, as its best moments come from dynamic compositional techniques and not from the riffs themselves. This means that individual moments of tracks like “Spirit of the Womb” and “Theosphoros” come across as relatively anonymous, serving more to contrast dynamics and style than to draw in the listener or create a point of intrigue. The comparative dearth of powerful riffs reduces any overall enjoyment of Keys to Eschaton from an exciting visceral reaction deserving of its vivid imagery to ‘this is a cool way to combine these ideas and form a piece’, preventing its expert composition from elevating into something beyond analytical interest.

Were every riff as compelling as those on “Jesters of Desolation” or “From the Caverns”, Keys to Eschaton would unquestionably sit as a landmark of dissonant black metal. Unfortunately, this is just not the case, as the main facet holding back Frozen Winds is a sense of underwhelm in their riff construction, attenuating the potentially massive impact of their diverse songwriting style. Don’t let this stop you from indulging in their hellscapes, though: little can hide the fact that Keys to Eschaton is put together magnificently, imparting harrowing compositions with a smooth flow that adds a shocking degree of listenability to its infernal aesthetic.

Recommended tracks: Jesters of Desolation, Crown, From the Caverns
You may also like: Thy Darkened Shade, Aenaon
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Visceral Promotions – Facebook | Official Website

Frozen Winds is:
– AdΩnis (vocals, guitars)
– Panagiotis (drums)
– Sophia (vocals)
– Stelios (bass)

1. I make this joke because I am, in fact, one of those hippie black-metalheads. ︎

The post Review: Frozen Winds – Keys to Eschaton appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Atmospheric sludge metal, avant-garde metal, poetry (Spoken word, harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Isis, Neurosis, Chat Pile, Thou, Mizmor
Country: Canada / Maryland, United States
Release date: 25 April 2025

‘We didn’t demand more from a democracy of monsters.’

The grimy post-apocalyptic imagery conjured by post-rock and avant-garde artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Ashenspire are sharp critiques of the hostile world crafted by modern society. Canadian sludge metallers Sumac explored similar themes and soundscapes on their 2024 opus, The Healer, but with a balmy twist: Aaron Turner and co. find beauty and catharsis among the aftermath, exploring healing as a non-linear process in a series of cacophonous, improvised sludge metal pieces. On their latest release, The Film, Sumac join forces with industrial hip-hop artist Moor Mother, crunching the scope of The Healer’s pieces down to relatively bite-sized movements and giving them structure through spoken word. How does The Film play out?

The atonal warbling of Sumac’s guitars adorn the crooked canvas of “Scene 1”. Seas of crumbling gray buildings stretch beyond the horizon, and the mind desperately claws for tonality and rhythm among the scraping dissonance of Aaron Turner’s guitarwork. Figures and forms almost coalesce in the coarse and mangled chords; by design, they’re just a bit too out of reach to fully form into a cogent shape. The listener is left to sit in anxious ambiguity as a consequence. Then, a voice materializes from the rubble, a rudder to a vessel with no form. First distorted, then yanked into clarity, it calls out:

‘I want my breath back.’

Throughout “Scene 1”, Moor Mother sneers in the face of an invasive hegemony through spoken word poetry, unearthing a siren call against the Colonialist tendrils that push into the scree’s every crevice. We’re told over and over that the kudzu has died, but she insists that anyone with a keen eye can see how its roots continue to spread and how its vines choke out the grove’s most vulnerable.

‘That’s why we don’t believe. We don’t believe. We don’t believe. We. Don’t. Believe. WE—DON’T—BELIEVE.’

Among the swirling cataclysm laid down by Sumac, Moor Mother exudes both a razor-sharp focus in spoken-word verses and an assertive bluntness in her punctuated litany. By way of hypnagogic paranoia in “Scene 2: The Run”, war-torn landscapes in “Scene 5: Breathing Fire”, and frustrated inner conflict in “Camera”, Moor Mother anchors The Film, cleverly intertwining her poetry with amorphous and wailing instrumentation. Calls of ‘So long they’ve been hating, waiting, debating how to keep you enslaved / Better lose your mind, lose your mind, lose your mind, lose your mind / Run away, better lose your mind / Hurt off, dust off, hate off, change off, devil off / Better run and lose your mind’ on “Scene 4” exemplify The Film’s percussive lambasts, branding themselves onto the surface of your mind with each repetition and leaving behind no ambiguity in her snarling conviction.

Though some moments come across a bit referential for my tastes (e.g., a reference to the Whip and Nae Nae on “Scene 3”, and a callout to Blue’s Clues on “Scene 5: Breathing Fire”), Moor Mother’s approach is overwhelmingly effective as a whole. The sentiments on “Camera”, for example, are masterfully executed, cleaved in two as tension is forged between opposing forces. On one hand, her lyricism portrays a strong desire to be cognizant of injustices and engage in activism against them; on the other, a pang to ‘stick one’s head in the sand’ emerges, as the deluge of nightmares constantly surfaced is simply too much for a single person to bear. The effect is heightened when Moor Mother’s voice takes on an unearthly form, malleated into a down-pitched, ominous panopticon:

‘Let the camera do the talking. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Don’t. Look. Away. Let the camera do the talking. Get away, get away, get away, get away, get away, get away.’

Moments of clarity and conventional song structure occasionally bubble to The Film’s surface. “The Truth is Out There” utilizes consonance and pleasant textures, acting as a small palate cleanser before The Film’s mammoth closer. Even in its more melodic passages, though, Sumac opt to use oblique, eccentric chord choices to keep the listener from getting too comfortable in their sense of levity. “Scene 3” features a relatively standard post-metal song structure, slowly building into a massive apex and crushing the listener under pounding drumwork and frantic reiteration of ‘In the way of our dreams…’ by its end.

“Scene 2: The Run”, in contrast, teeters between the more constructed and the more nebulous: the thrumming, pulsating bass across its runtime acts as an oscillating searchlight, keeping its sparse soundscape grounded. Led by Moor Mother’s poetry, one has a brief window to dive between concrete crags and reach shelter between the rumbling flashes. Intensity ebbs and flows, exploring dissonant tremolos and weighty dirges but each time returning to the searchlight’s bassy thrum. The track’s closing moments unveil a climax of explosive drum grooves, hypnotic, swirling guitar chords, and ghoulish howls. The crumbled remains coalesce into a tumbling, horrific golem, shattering off pieces of itself as it thrashes about.

‘Memories. Looping. Dead. Sky is. Falling. Falling. Blood. Red. Blood. Blood. Red. Blood.’

“Scene 5: Breathing Fire” is a consummation of The Film’s elements, a Chekhov’s Arsenal of ideas and techniques introduced earlier in its runtime. Anchored by Moor Mother’s poetry, the track melts and morphs between stillness and intensity, smoothness and texture, consonance and dissonance; its introductory moments beget premonition of something more chaotic, more violent, and more powerful than anything encountered up to this point.

‘War breath always breathes—fire. Time’s in neglect, and I’ll see you on the other side. I’ll see you on the other side.’

The instrumentals bear a laserlike focus: whereas before the rhythms lumbered in dissonant chaos, they now punch the back of your head with militaristic precision.

‘I need a moment. I need a moment. Sorting through snakes and serpents. I need an omen.’

The patterns aren’t quite discernible at first glance, using basic rhythmic building blocks in spectacularly odd meter. Tension builds around drums that congeal through kinetic cymbal splashes.

‘We’re in the boxing rings and fighting for our lives. Fighting for our lives. FIGHTING. FOR. OUR. LIVES.’

An instrumental bomb drops. Sumac settle in to a bulldozing groove while Moor Mother summons an apocalyptic fury, snarling overtop magnitude ten forces.

‘I PRAY THE TIDES GO. I PRAY THE TIDES GO. I PRAY THE TIDES GO THE WAY OF THE WOLVES. THE WAY OF THE WOLVES. AND OUT COME THE WOLVES. AND OUT COME THE WOLVES. TAKE WARNING. TAKE WARNING. TAKE CAUTION, TAKE. OFF. RUNNING. TAKE OFF RUNNING. TAKE OFF RUNNING. TAKE—OFF—’

The gravity of the instrumentals outmatches their stability, and “Scene 5” begins to deconstruct. A familiar chaos creeps back in as guitars melt into buzzing warbles and the frantic jingling of chimes fill every inch of negative space. A wailing, trembling guitar solo attempts to push back against the bubbling waves of bass, but the exertion of the two is too much, and the entire piece collapses. Little is left other than guitar scrapes, squeaks, and cresting cymbal washes.

‘Basic instructions before leaving Earth. Basic instructions before leaving Earth…’

For the first time during The Film, an unabashedly tranquil space is broached. Guitars amble around plaintive chords, and drums gently lilt along. The final stretch of “Scene 5” exudes catharsis, releasing a tension that’s been building since the record’s first moments and giving the listener space to rest and reflect.

‘I. Want. My. Change. But what do we return to? But what do we return to? What do we return to?’

In The Film’s calm aftermath, only pebbles and ash remain; in this dust is the space for something new to grow. The Film is at the same time heartbreakingly concrete and nightmarishly surrealist, juxtaposing dissonant sludgy improvisation against a spellbinding voice that confidently leads the traveler through a forsaken barrens. Despite a spate of horrific injustices and efforts from every corner to oppress, intimidate, and silence marginalized groups, we must continue to strike away at what makes us human, and at the same time fight to make the world something more than a place not designed for us.

Recommended tracks: Scene 5: Breathing Fire, Camera, Scene 2: The Run
You may also like: BÅKÜ, Ashenspire, Five the Hierophant, Lathe
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links (Sumac): Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives
Related links (Moor Mother): Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

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

Sumac is:
– Aaron Turner (guitars, vocals)
– Nick Yacyshyn (drums, percussion, synths)
– Brian Cook (bass)
Moor Mother is:
– Camae Ayewa (vocals, synths)
With guests:
– Candice Hoyes (vocals, track 3)
– Kyle Kidd (vocals, track 4)
– Sovei (vocals, track 5)

The post Review: Sumac, Moor Mother – The Film appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive rock, progressive metal, avant-garde rock, avant-garde metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Therion, Devil Doll, Ayreon, David Maxim Micic, Earthside, Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Country: Romania
Review by: Vince
Release date: 4 April 2025

Prose is the gravity by which stories anchor their readers. Cool concepts or complex characters won’t survive if the foundation upon which they rest—this voice—betrays them. After all, how can we engage with possible depths and merits if we can’t keep our feet on the ground long enough to dig? Concept albums are not dissimilar from books: They are built around character, drama, themes and, ultimately, a story complete with beginning, middle, and end. Music and lyrics provide the gravity. Or, possibly, a lack thereof.

Enter, our subject: Telluric Inharmonies, the sophomore full-length from Romanian avant-garde-ians, Hteththemeth. Their Bandcamp promo announces “70+ minutes of … an epic multilingual story … filled with dramatic progressive metal, intense spoken word passages, [and] dynamic musical shifts.” For fans who’ve patiently been champing at the bit (it’s been nine years since debut Best Worst Case Scenario), no doubt these words evoke great excitement. For this first-timer, it’s enough to get my boots on the ground, but will Hteththemeth be able to keep me there?

“A!” sets us amidst the soothing crash of waves and brief narration in Romanian, the intro establishing its narrative intentions swiftly. War horns and epic chanting follow before breaking against a swirly, synth-baked passage, where we get our first taste of the album’s multilingual voice. “Why the guilty one does not pay for his sins?” our narrator beseeches God. I feel my feet leaving the ground. “It’s only the intro,” I remind myself. Rough starts do not always beget rough journeys. However, as I dug deeper into Telluric Inharmonies, I found my lactose intolerance flaring up something fierce.

I’ve switched analogies, I know. We’re talking cheese now.

Normally, I’m rather fond(ue) of the dairy industrial complex—I grew up on a healthy diet of Euro-power and symphonic metal during my formative years and am no stranger to the endearing cheesiness prog occasionally orbits. Goofy lyrics can be forgiven if the music slaps hard enough, and it’s here Hteththemeth fights to anchor the listener: the instrumentation is often engaging, providing swells of dramatic heft and grandiose compositions that bring to mind some of the neoclassical verve and operatic aspirations of 90s-era Savatage (“The Fools and Failed Queens”), while elsewhere tinkling post-rock guitar lines buried beneath crunchy rhythms reward deeper listening (“Honest Lies,” “The Odyssey of Nothing”). And whenever vocalist Lao Kreegan slips into Romanian, it rolls with a naturalism and strength that begins to restore gravity. However…

Most of the album is performed in English, a decision which infects the proceedings with levels of unintended awkwardness that unmoored me constantly. This reaches its unfortunate apotheosis on the beguiling “I Buy Her Presence,” sounding like a violent collision of indie-folk and a direly chipper anime outro. It’s a jarring inclusion which feels alien amidst the baroque splendor of “The Fools and Failed Queens” or the Distant Dream-esque post-prog explorations of “The Odyssey of Nothing.” Elsewhere and everywhere, the spoken word passages bookending every proper song commit frequent violence upon the album’s flow, halting momentum constantly while providing little value to the overall experience. Only the intro (“A!”) and outro (“O!”) feel vital, with the latter’s sonic callbacks to the former propagating the idea of a narrative—even if the multilingual approach and discordant tracklisting offer no real sense of a cohesive journey. Thus, Inharmonies feels, well… lacking harmony as a whole.

That said, Telluric Inharmonies is not a bad record, per se. The music is full of lively movements and a fair share of emotive storytelling buoyed by a light and airy production, empowering much of the charm and whimsy encapsulated within. (Codrut ‘Codrez’ Costea’s drumming is of particular merit throughout). Despite my criticism of the lyrics and their delivery, Kreegan himself is a fine vocalist when anchored in the right places. His voice is colorful and able to conjure earworm melodies with frightening ease, with the storytelling gusto needed to match the theatricality of the music. Though his experiments don’t always pay off, I applaud his fearlessness when it comes to pushing comforts. Were the English lyrics to be tightened up or switched to Romanian entirely, I would endorse a future release without hesitation; such is Kreegan’s ability to impart feeling through the texture of his voice that I feel little would be lost in the (non-)translation.

Hteththemeth is a talented crew with the potential to whip up a tasty musical morsel. Sadly, Telluric Inharmonies’ voice presents a foundation too uneven for this reviewer to stand on, despite the album’s undeniable charisma and creative outreach. Those with a higher tolerance for the ol’ lyrical cheddar may find themselves more than sated by this second serving, but for my money I’ll have to send it back to the kitchen.

Final verdict: 5/10

Review by: Andy

Let it be known: ambition is never overlooked here at the Subway. Romanian act Hteththemeth’s new album Telluric Inharmonies was independently bookmarked by not one, not two, but three of our authors (because we’re incapable of using the search function on our spreadsheet), and the project is a behemoth. A seventy-minute, twenty-one track, multi-language concept album, Telluric Inharmonies is intimidating to approach; exacerbating the matter, Hteththemeth call their style “unhuman music,” and I’m human, so I don’t even know if I’m legally allowed to listen. Alas, for such an over-the-top project, one of us had to review it out of principle, and I drew the short end of the straw. 

So what does unhuman music sound like, anyway? Well, it’s surprisingly human, replete with one-note vocals, your average djent-y guitar parts, and keys to provide “atmosphere” that really do not much at all. The track title of “The Odyssey of Nothing” is a self-fulfilling prophecy for the whole project. Telluric Inharmonies is vapid, poorly paced, boring, and unimaginative. I knew I was in for the long haul when the first track “A!” did precisely nada for over four minutes—bland ambience and spoken word, aside. We have those in spades across Telluric Inharmonies with around twenty minutes of pointless interludes. Sandwiched between pretty much every “real” song on the album, the interludes absolutely kill any momentum Hteththemeth manage to build up. For instance, “Li(f)e” hints at a climax of sorts through its djenty outro, but then “A Șasea Zi” decides a full minute and a half of spoken word is the right call; spoiler alert, it has never been the right call on any album ever in the history of albums.

So let’s ignore the twenty minutes of pointless filler and focus on the meatier parts, shall we? The heavier hitting tracks are just plain weird, but not in an “unhuman” way, more in a “why would you mix djent with a dance music flavor with repetitive vocal lines” way. Despite the djent-y aspect of the guitars, the music never really gets heavy at all, instead opting for a sort of liminal state in between generic prog rock and metal, just aimless chugging riffs with no bite—we’ve all heard the type of amorphous style Hteththemeth plays. However, the guest cellist and pianist are quite lovely when they’re utilized, providing a more mature sound to the project than the synthesized djent; in fact, the compositions can be rather beautiful (“I Wanted You All,” “The Poetry of Failure,” “Adoriel Is Watching”). When Hteththemeth write honest-to-god songs and not dumb interludes, particularly with professional instrumentalists, they achieve far more than they do when they try to stretch themselves to be weird and unhuman—that always manifests as them trying too hard to be different. 

Regrettably, I don’t have access to the lyrics, so I cannot possibly keep track of a multi-language concept, but even if they taled the most heart-wrenching story I’d ever heard on a prog album, they couldn’t save Telluric Inharmonies from its glut. Hteththemeth flew too close to the sun here and crashed and burned like Therion on every release post-2012—that’s the tale of a band whose overly long, bombastic concept albums have been laughably bad for ages, for those who don’t keep up with the symphonic metal pioneers. Telluric Harmonies is the sad story of a band full of ambition and quirk but not quite able to avoid tumbling into cliché on their Icarian descent.

Hteththemeth are right to call themselves enigmatic, but there’s simply nothing to gain from deciphering this incoherent sonic puzzle. Try as I might to find redeeming aspects on my listens, there are no catchy melodies nor standout choruses, no dazzling solos nor grand climaxes, so everything washes over you, leaving only the bad taste of interludes. Hteththemeth ambitiously try to soar into ‘unhuman’ territory, but instead end up floating aimlessly in a string of interludes and bland progressive rock.

Recommended tracks: Honest Lies, The Fools and Failed Queens, The Odyssey of Nothing, I Wanted You All, The Poetry of Failure
You may also like: Pagan’s Mind, The Chronomaster Project, Destiny Potato, Seventh Station, Rise of the Architect, Vitam Aeternam, Max Enix, Dreamwalkers Inc
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram | Facebook | Metallum

Label: Layered Reality Productions – Bandcamp | Facebook | Website

Hteththemeth is:
LÄO KREEGAN – vocals and lyrics
VLAD-ANDREI ONESCU – piano, keyboards & FX, backing vocals
LUCIAN POPA – guitars, backing vocals
RADU CÎNDEA “CJ” – guitars, backing vocals
MIHAI RĂDULESCU “KOLDR”– bass guitar, backing vocals
CODRUȚ COSTEA “CODREZ” – drums and percussion

Featuring the guest musicians:
Alexandra Enache – Cello
Eric-Andrei Costea – Piano
Crina Marinescu – Vocals
Flavia Dobre – Vocals

The post Double Review: Hteththemeth – Telluric Inharmonies appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Costin Chioreanu

Style: Progressive metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, Ved Buens Ende, Enslaved (Monumension in particular), Arcturus
Country: The Netherlands
Release date: 13 March 2025

While in my daily life I tend to be a pretty goofy individual who tends to joke around in situations where one really shouldn’t (I once drew an apple and a pear on my real analysis in higher dimensions exam, said “pronounce: apple, pear respectively,” and proclaimed that they were manifolds—yes, I got full points), when it comes to music I am largely serious: I eyeroll over most of Haken’s and Between the Buried and Me’s whimsical breaks (the one in “Crystallized” might be the single most offensive section of music ever), and even in a genre like power metal which I adore, I tend towards bands who take themselves seriously like Virgin Steele or Angra over gimmick bands like Manowar or Sabaton. I do enjoy the goof sometimes, but it needs to be timed tastefully and the band has to deliver enough musical substance to back it up (Ethmebb my beloved). So, you tell me Cthuluminati, will this Tentacula entangle me in its wonders or will these silly tentacles touch me in places where they really shouldn’t?

Cthuluminati play a strange psychedelic brand of progressive black metal. While this combination of genres is by no means new—groups like Enslaved, Oranssi Pazuzu, and A Forest of Stars are infamous for this—Cthuluminati set out to make their sound as uncomfortable and bewildering as possible, borrowing their aesthetic from horror movie soundtracks while contorting their base prog black sound in a similar way to Ved Buens Ende with odd chord choices and unsettling rhythmic interplay. Their songs whirl and twirl in unexpected directions, relying on rhythmic modulations and ever evolving sound design to put you on the wrong foot. The latter is particularly impressive for how seamlessly black metal, psych rock, stoner, and post-metal guitarwork weave in and out to create a cohesive sound. And to finish things off, the vocal melodies tend not to be melodies as much as they creatively monologue in various shades of distortion, ranging from maybe-musical talking and Tibetan throat singing to raspy warbling and guttural screaming. The resulting sound is one of controlled chaos with dark psychedelia, somewhat as if Enslaved had figured out how to maintain cohesion in their excesses on Monumension. In short, Tentacula is an LSD trip not quite gone wrong but it’s definitely on the edge.

This sense of groundedness plays a large part of what makes Tentacula such a special record. For the most part, Cthuluminati deftly balance normality with their avant-garde tendencies. Opening track “Cthrl” exemplifies this approach, starting with spoken word and spooky synths before erupting in black metal riffage over a driving, almost danceable beat that slowly but surely contorts into disorienting psychedelia until you realize you’ve fully left familiar ground. But as you’re floating on the waves of Cthuluminati’s wicked imagination, they pull you back to the ground with impressive shredding and tom-heavy drumming, only to get weird again near the end with a full on psych rock escapade. “Abysmal Quatrain” similarly balances itself as it gradually builds from the uncanny into an almost normal post-black metal crescendo, and “The Illusion of Control” explores doom metal elements, giving rise to some very heavy, dramatic moments. However, “Squid Pro Quo” (song name of the year btw) does lose its footing at times by meandering for too long in slow, uncomfortable rhythms and creepy synths and vocal work while failing to provide sufficient comfort to the listener to balance it out, thus harming the album’s pacing.

Another way Cthuluminati toe the line between the normal and the avant-garde is in their song structures. The writing feels stream of consciousness at first, but Cthuluminati successfully instill a sense of order in their compositions by borrowing cues from post-metal in how they incorporate tension and release. In that sense, opener “Cthrl” is a bit misleading with how many things it throws at the wall. The following tracks all have a far stronger sense of identity: the slow and unsettling “Squid Pro Quo” borrows from 90s stoner rock redolent of Kyuss, “Abysmal Quatrain” is solidly embedded in post-metal, “The Illusion of Control” leans into cinematic death-doom, and closer “Mantra” is a ritualistic post-metal track recalling The Ocean with bonus throat singing. Not to say any of these tracks are easy—they all still have plenty of rhythmic mind benders and creepy sound design—but at least you know which song you’re listening to. However, like the quirky excesses of “Squid Pro Quo”, Cthuluminati do get lost in the sauce sometimes: the quiet middle section of “Mantra” meanders with too few interesting sonic developments, “The Illusion of Control” overstays its welcome a smidge with an unnecessarily long acoustic outro, and “Squid Pro Quo” isn’t ominous enough to justify its slow tempos. Fortunately, most of these are only minor mishaps in the overall experience.

All things considered, it’s safe to say that Cthuluminati do not rely on any gimmick to distinguish themselves. Tentacula is a bewildering album in all the right ways: clever genre mashups, challenging yet accessible arrangements, creative sound design, and tying it all together with compositions that strike a fantastic balance in being adventurous while remaining more-or-less grounded. Sometimes Cthuluminati do overindulge in their whims, but most of the time they remain on course to throughout whatever nightmare labyrinth they entrap themselves in. Tentacula is another shining example of why progressive black metal is one of the current most exciting genres around, and I recommend fans of curves and angles not native to this plane of existence to pick it up.

Recommended tracks: Cthrl, The Illusion of Control, Mantra
You may also like: Hail Spirit Noir, Schammasch, Murmuüre, A Forest of Stars
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Independent

Cthuluminati is:
– Devi Hisgen (vocals)
– Rami Wohl (guitars)
– Stefan Strausz (bass)
– Seth van de Loo (drums)

The post Review: Cthuluminati – Tentacula appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: free jazz, avant-garde drone, Hindustani classical music, ritual ambient (mostly instrumental, clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sunn O))), Sun Ra, Ravi Shankar
Country: Belgium
Release date: 11 April 2025

Art is subjecti… shut the fuck up. My viewpoint is certainly colored by being a reviewer, but while the enjoyment of art is subjective, I certainly believe that there are objective qualities to the form. The Belgian collective Neptunian Maximalism (NNMM) released one of the best and most important experimental albums of the 20s thus far, Éons. While I do find it a pleasure to listen to on occasion, at three disks long and about two hours of free jazz/drone metal/ritual ambient, simply considering another listen sometimes feels nauseating. But removed from the plane of subjectivities like taste (preferring to listen to a shorter album, for instance), Éons is genre redefining, taking drone metal to the zenith of its creativity and then some. With several engaging and trippy live releases since then, the collective have released their newest live-ish work, La Sacre du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI). Listening to LSDSI is practically a spiritual experience. NNMM lived in St John’s on Bethnal Green church in London for four days to integrate themselves within the space, to meld with its architecture and energy. Over the course of that stay, LSDSI was born. While it’s guaranteed to be a difficult listen, does LSDSI reach the objectively amazing heights NNMM attained in 2020?

Like Éons, LSDSI is an intimidating triple album comprised of three classical Hindustani ragas¹: Marwa, Todi, and Bairagi, interpreted by NNMM as “Dusk,” “Arcana,” and “Dawn,” respectively. Its music is ecstatic, thrumming with an indescribable energy; that NNMM were divinely inspired by their sanctuarial sojourn is clear, yet unlike Éons, LSDSI doesn’t wield a chaotic, primordial energy with brusque free jazz and tribal ambient. In place of the power of nature—Éons details an apocalyptic event—is the power of a deity (or deities). The Church-setting of the recording is translated by the Hindustani overtones—music for the soul. Meditative classical passages such as at the first movement of “Arcana” are not merely imitations of traditional Indian music; project supervisor Sundip Balraj Singh Aujla as well as the instrumental masterminds behind NNMM all have experience with the medium—I’d recommend Czlt, Hindustani drone metal project of NNMM’s guitarist, vocalist, trumpeter, and zurna and surbahar player, Guillaume Cazalet. He is a true student of the tradition.

Along with the Hindustani classical music sections, heavy guitar drones reverberating through the Church form the base of NNMM’s sound, upon which the collective painstakingly layer a variety of other instruments to perfect their sonic tapestry, including a diverse collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian instruments: electric saz, daf, zurna, and surbahar. LSDSI is improvisational, too, letting whatever divine muse resides in St John’s on Bethnal Green use them as a mouthpiece, yet NNMM always remain grounded in the ragas. 

Starting with “At Dusk : Raag Marwa,” the plot of all three tracks is unveiled—slowly. While the larger-than-life, rapturous crescendos, such as the vocals seven minutes into “Vilambit Laya Alaap” or the faster-paced metal in the second movement “Drut Laya, Chaotic Polyphonic Taan Combinations” in “Arcana” are divine, so many of the album’s hundred minutes are vacuous buildups serving only as a way to set the stage. It’s difficult to call them pointless; they have meditative power and are clearly integral to NNMM’s experience of the Church and the live performance. However, the length of time between noteworthy sections grows tedious almost immediately. The guitar tones are your average drone, and drone they do, typically without accompaniment from enough of the ensemble to maintain my attention more than a Sunn O))) album would. Even when the rest of the collective joins the fray, the result can still be incredibly arduous to get through, the longform compositions a bit too challenging. The second and third movements of “At Dawn” are incredibly satisfying when they hit, the grumbling electric bass and stoner-y guitar parts giving way to rapturous vocal parts; but I can’t help but compare these moments to Wyatt E.’s stellar tribal drone release from January which accomplished as much spiritually captivating drone… in a third of the time commitment of LSDSI. The highs on LSDSI match any drone release ever—listen to the buildup of “At Dawn” culminating in “Sthayi & Antara Composition”—but with so much empty space as a fan not present in the Church during the recording, the album seems impossible to approach. 

I don’t think that LSDSI is an objective masterpiece like Éons, and it’s certainly also a difficult album to turn on unless you like meditating to distortion—in which case, LSDSI is right for you. However, LSDSI is still worth listening to, capturing the energy and power of a spiritual place and only further cementing the group at the top of my bucket-list of bands to see live. NNMM are clearly one of the most forward-thinking groups in metal, and I look forward to what they offer us next, even if it’ll certainly be a hefty time commitment of ambitious and challenging music.

Recommended tracks: Arcana, At Dawn
You may also like: Wyatt E., Zaaar, Czlt, Sol
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

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

Neptunian Maximalism is:
Stephane Fedele : Drums, Gong
Didié Nietzsch : Synthetiser, iPads
Romain Martini : Rythm Electric Guitar
Reshma Goolamy : Electric Bass Guitar, Vocals
Joaquin Bermudez : Electric Saz, Ebowed Electric Guitar, Daf
Guillaume Cazalet : Lead Electric Guitar, Vocals, Trumpet, Zurna, Surbahar

1. A raga is the underlying structure of Hindustani classical music, each one containing specific motifs allowing the musician to improvise on a provided melodic framework. The theory behind Indian classical music is vastly different from Western classical but extremely interesting. Please feel free to read up on it here! ︎

The post Review: Neptunian Maximalism – Le Sacre du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive black metal, avant-garde metal, dissonant death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Charles Mingus, Oranssi Pazuzu, Blut Aus Nord, Ulcerate
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 21 March 2025

Imperial Triumphant have artfully captured life in the Big Apple with their music for over a decade now, and their music—like the city itself—is dichotomous, a portrayal of the vileness and luxury of life in the greatest city on earth. The band’s groundbreaking mix of discordant dissonant metal, atonal jazz, and gleaming Art Deco exterior is cerebral: Imperial Triumphant is an acquired taste like black coffee¹, grimy but energizing, for the working class and the elites alike. Dating back to my neonatal dissonant metal-loving form in 2020, I knew Imperial Triumphant would be a permanent favorite of mine². I’ve discussed them endlessly with unwilling friends and family, given them an uber-rare 10/10 for Alphaville³, and even written a thirteen-page term paper on the band and their usage of free jazz in metal as an embodiment of their NYC-centric philosophy. 

Goldstar is a conceptual and musical reframing for the New York power trio with an emphasis placed on how the material will sound in a live setting. This materializes as a punchier Imperial Triumphant: tighter song lengths, more cutthroat, riffier. While no stranger to the Almighty Riff on Alphaville and Spirit of Ecstasy, Imperial Triumphant lay down a new barbed focus on guitar parts and punchy rhythms on Goldstar, hitting with the force of King Kong. For example, “Gomorrah Nouveaux” opens with an intricate percussive rhythm courtesy of North African gnawa while Ezrin hypnotically chugs the pattern in disgusted agreement. The track never relents the punishing, Meshuggah-esque march except in a dramatic grand pause around a minute in. Thankfully despite the increased emphasis on staccato, precise guitar parts across Goldstar, Ezrin’s playing still uses atonal jazz technique to dizzying effect—as on the gritty “Rot Moderne” and the slow-burning “Lexington Delirium.” He also opts to play outright melodies more than on previous releases, his parts twice breaking free of the noisy chaos to recognizable tunes: a Handel motif weaves through the main melody of “Hotel Sphinx,” and the closer “Industry of Misery” ends with an extended jam around The Beatles’ heaviest track, “I Want You (She’s so Heavy).”

Recorded in only five days as the final project produced at Colin Marston’s legendary Queens-based Menegroth studio, the frantic, improvisatory moments scattered throughout Goldstar successfully capture the energy of a live performance. The Dada-ist grindcore track “NEWYORKCITY” is a thirty-second burst of sound, embodying the city that never sleeps with studio-adjusted improvised chaos. Sound clips of sirens, spoken word, and the ominous groan of buildings are also mainstays of Goldstar. You’re never left in doubt that you’re still in the city so nice they named it twice while listening to Imperial Triumphant. 

Steve Blanco on bass and Kenny Grohowski on drums are a rhythm duo from heaven playing in hell. Long my favorite drummer, Grohowski throws everything at this album from black metal blasts more common than on any previous release to unceasing Meshuggah rhythms, from delicate jazz cymbals to Brazilian Maracatu. He’s got backup from Thomas Haake (Meshuggah) on “Lexington Delirium” and “Pleasuredome” as well as from Dave Lombardo (Slayer) on “Pleasuredome” although neither is a highlight (I reckon no matter who you are it’s gotta be impossible to keep up with Kenny Grohowski). Blanco’s highlight occurs when he takes smooth leads from the jagged playing of Ezrin, such as on “Hotel Sphinx” or on “Lexington Delirium”—you can see him play the latter in the Chrysler Building itself in the music video for the track. 

Keeping in theme with this release cycle’s live-performance focus, the trio once again unfurled new masks to up the theatricality—glossy Art Deco pieces at home within the architecture of the Chrysler Building. Yet despite the album title, donning of new golden masks, and finally recording at the Chrysler building like the band had dreamed of for years, Imperial Triumphant have lost some of the gilded luster of previous releases. Opener “Eye of Mars” has the brassy undertones of Vile Luxury’s opener “Swarming Opulence,” but it’s more drowned out by the guitar, losing the urbane impact of the brass. Goldstar lacks Steve Blanco’s regal piano-playing, opting instead for Krallice-y synths, and although they are awesome, they lack the glittery pizazz of high-life in The Capital of the World. In a similar fashion, I wish Goldstar had more of a jazz focus because while the influence is still clear—and this realization of Imperial Triumphant isn’t lacking anything—I struggle to acclimate to the relative lack of jazz. Goldstar doesn’t contain any tracks like the late-era John Coltrane-coded “In the Pleasure of Their Company” from Spirit of Ecstasy or the transcendent freeness of “Chernobyl Blues”—except for the thirty-second unconfined grindcore track, of course. 

Tightening up songwriting for a more approachable package—particularly with an emphasis on playing the tracks live—certainly doesn’t guarantee a band is selling out: Pyrrhon and Scarcity both placed highly on my year-end list last year despite a significant boost in their accessibility. Goldstar is still a complex and cultured metal record; Imperial Triumphant’s riffs are stronger than ever before; and at thirty-nine minutes the album is easy to listen to on repeat. So while Goldstar isn’t as transcendent nor stately as the golden packaging would have you think, basking in the filthy riffage and potent songwriting is luxurious in its own way.

Recommended tracks: Gomorrah Nouveaux, Hotel Sphinx, Rot Moderne, Industry of Misery
You may also like: Ashenspire, Pyrrhon, Krallice, A Forest of Stars, Thantifaxath, Dodecahedron, Kostnateni, Sarmat, Scarcity, Voices
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Century Media Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Imperial Triumpahnt is:
Zachary Ezrin – Vocals, Guitar
Steve Blanco – Bass
Kenny Grohowski – Drums

1. Once, Imperial Triumphant released their own blend of coffee as merch (which I did purchase and brew). Isn’t that the coolest merch item ever, though?? ︎
2. Never mind that there is documented evidence of a younger and stupider version of me in the Angry Metal Guy comments of Alphaville calling the record appreciatable but not enjoyable, an “uncomfortable” experience. The love affair between Imperial Triumphant and me wasn’t immediate. ︎
3.  Strong 9.5 for the followup Spirit of Ecstasy ︎

The post Review: Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-garde metal, folk metal, witchcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sepultura, Ok Goodnight, Orphaned Land
Country: India
Release date: 12 Feb 2025

The annals of progressive metal history are littered with concept albums that stumble and falter under the weight of ideas too heavy for the composition, lyrics, production, or delivery to support. For every Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory or Operation: Mindcrime, there are dozens of lesser albums that tried to do too much. Concept albums can be something of an all-or-nothing affair; depending on how ambitious and pervasive the concept is, listeners may have a hard time appreciating the music without buying into the whole package.

So, how should modern metal bands thread this needle? Do too much, and listeners will bemoan the overwrought tackiness; do too little and they’ll be at your throat for not breaking the mold. What to do? Well, if you’re Mumbai-based Serpents of Pakhangba, you—deep breath in— release Air and Fire, an album telling the story of an endangered shamanic tribe under attack from a corrupt political group, divided into chapters and featuring spoken word; English, Japanese, Manipuri¹, and Goalparia² lyrics; throat singing; rapping; singing bowl; violin; and a host of guest musicians on various traditional instruments. What could go wrong?

Surprisingly, not much. Serpents of Pakhangba are a roaring engine with only a few cylinders misfiring. Air and Fire’s highs handily outpace its few lows, earning the band’s self-ascribed labels of avant-garde metal and shamanic music with aplomb.

A spiritual, shamanic concept is baked into Serpents of Pakhangba’s entire ethos as a band; they begin each of their albums with an invocation of Pakhangba, a traditional Manipuri deity often represented in the form of a dragon. The band’s promotional materials make it clear that they consider this ritualistic, ancestrally-attuned premise equally as important as the heavy elements in their music. 

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Serpents of Pakhangba wait until Air and Fire’s fourth track, “Carnivorous”, to remind us that this is also a metal album. Here, the frenzied, almost jarringly heavy introduction calls to mind some of Ok Goodnight’s heavier moments, until, out of nowhere, there is a rap interlude. The track rights course soon after, including seething guest growls by Mallika Sundaramurthy (Emasculator).

The musicianship of the many contributors on Air and Fire shows very few cracks. At the forefront, Hinoki on lead vocals delivers a smouldering performance. She traverses a husky mid-range, almost Gollum-like rasps (“North of Koubru”), and sedulously enunciated spoken word with ease, though her voice does thin slightly in the upper register. The one counterpoint to this fully committed delivery is that it can read a bit parodic—there are times when the spoken word reminds me of Calypso, the voodoo practitioner/goddess from Pirates of the Caribbean. Also on vocals, Akash’s Mongolian throat singing is foundational to the band’s tribal folk metal sound, at times crossing over into guttural almost-growls (“Fury”).

Air and Fire also features a long list of instruments, some familiar to Western metal listeners and others less so. Whether it’s a brief but incisive bass solo (“Carnivorous”), the mono-stringed Manipuri pena featured on several tracks, or the violin going off on wild tears—at its best (“A Wounded Leader’s Last Stand”) somewhat reminiscent of the cello in Leprous when it goes really nuts—each instrument is showcased with reverence. No single track shows off this diversity better than eight-minute “North of Koubru”, a highlight of the album. The pena at the 46-second mark soars, primal and plaintive, and the vocals that join in soon after in traditional Manipuri are timeless and haunting. The guitars and drums blast unforgivingly under it all, before relenting to a single pulsing drumbeat. Onto this, the band carefully stacks back each element—singing bowl, throat singing, guitars, pena, synths—until the towering wall of sound is rebuilt.

Outside of traditional instrumentations, the album also employs atmospherics to vivid effect: chirping birds and a fly buzzing in “Ancient Forest”, or the flowing water in “The Soul of the Word”, which weaves a sparse yet evocative background for the chanting vocals alongside monotonic strings and ringing bells,. Even listening to the album while buried under a metre of snow somewhere in the unending Canadian winter, I can almost breathe in the thick, rain-soaked air of the forest and its sacred trees in monsoon season.

While little fault can be taken with the performances on the album, some creative choices, such as the rapping, fall flat. Just because you can have a nu-metal moment, doesn’t mean you should. Additionally, Air and Fire’s pacing is a little off from a narrative perspective. Of the four spoken-word interludes on the album, three come in the album’s first five tracks, but then they disappear until a final brief interlude in “Air and Fire (Part I)” (which, also, does not have a part two). With most listeners relying on the English lyrics to situate themselves in the narrative, there is no true resolution to the story. The penultimate track “A Wounded Leader’s Last Stand” tees us up for a denouement that never comes, as the album closer “Soraren Chant” offers only a few non-English lyrics before ending in a fade-out (booo), leaving the listener to guess at the tale’s ending.

Does Air and Fire occasionally miss the mark? Certainly, but if the band was doing anything less, they wouldn’t be Serpents of Pakhangba. Their reverential fusion of shamanic spirituality and roiling heavy ingredients is one-of-a-kind; you should sort of know what you’re getting into when the t-shirts for sale on a band’s website come with incense included. With a fine-tuned distillation of the creative highs displayed on Air and Fire, in combination with the already formidable musicianship on display, I could see the next album from Serpents of Pakhangba being truly monumental.

Recommended tracks: Invocation of Pakhangba, Fury, North of Koubru
You may also like: Dub War, Amogh Symphony, Kartikeya, Grorr

Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Serpents of Pakhangba is:
– Hinoki: Vocals
– Akash: Vocals, singing bowl, synth, samples/turntable
– Varun: Drums, percussion
– Tamara: Violin, vocals
– Mousumi: Bass
– Vishal: Guitar, dotara, vocals, synth, symphonic orchestral arrangement

1. A Tibeto-Burman language spoken in India’s northeastern Manipur region. ︎
2. A dialect comprising multiple Indo-Aryan languages, spoken in Assam, also in northeastern India. ︎

The post Review: Serpents of Pakhangba – Air and Fire appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive black metal, heavy metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Haggard, King Diamond, Fleshgod Apocalypse
Country: Italy
Release date: 31 January 2025

If I won the lottery, I’d pay for Wilderun and Ne Obliviscaris to record and perform with whatever orchestra and choir they’d like. In my humble opinion, (competent) orchestration and metal pair like peanut butter and jelly, elevating both to hitherto unknown heights. Truly, few things in life compare to the wedding of these disparate styles. On one man band Selvans’ third album, the Italian horrorist enlists the help of a sixty-member orchestra and choir. That’s damn ambitious and I respect it; do his compositions justify the cost?

Saturnalia exudes campy fun, living up to the Roman festival it’s named after. With a baseline of King Diamond-y heavy metal, Selvans amplifies the sound with eclectic black metal riffing and an aura of Fleshgod Apocalypse’s grandeur. Selvan’s vocal attack is similarly varied: he shouts at you in Italian, performs freakily accurate King Diamond highs, attempts silly little whispers and more goblin-y harshes (“Fonte del Diavoli”), and showcases operatic talent (“Madre Dei Tormenti”). For every vocal success, however, he has several which work less well: like the obnoxious burp which heralds the start of “Madre Dei Tormenti” and the out-of-place spaghetti-Western styled whistle in “Il Mio Maleficio V’incalzerà!,” but Selvans is clearly an entertainer to his core, his performances full of drama and refreshingly passionate—over-the-top but deservingly so. The all-Italian lyrics are also quite the riot (according to my Italian peer Francesco), chronicling loony tales of cultist orgies (“Il Mio Maleficio V’incalzerà!”) and… um a man who escapes an asylum, is flayed and burned alive, only to have the devil come and make him into a figure of terror who goes and curses people with a band of outcasts (“Il Mio Maleficio”) (thanks for the translation help, Francesco!).

Instrumentally, Selvans achieves similar bombast, even disregarding the orchestration. Chock-full of heavy metal swagger, guitarists Chris D’Onofrio and Antonio Scelzi rip solos whenever they get the chance—highlights including the ends of “Il Mio Maleficio V’incalzerà!” and “Il Capro Infuocato.” When not soloing, the trem-picked riffs provide the ghastly horror vibe Selvans aims to achieve, creating a sense of maniacal unhingedness like Le Grand Guignol did almost twenty years ago. A bevy of retro prog rock organs and synths create a spooky atmosphere during the more metal-y tracks (so all but “Necromilieu” and “Madre Dei Tormenti”); both keyboard styles are fun, but with all the sounds at once in the heavier parts, everything can be a bit overwhelming.

And alas, the metal bits completely lose the orchestra. Just like Fleshgod Apocalypse, muddy production kills the full experience. The lead guitar and vocals are crisp above the menagerie of other textures, but those all blend together into a noisy, cluttered mess. In an ideal world, all of Selvans’ orchestrations and compositions would be a bit more deft—not to the level of Aquilus but perhaps handled like Lamentari. And this is where Selvans loses me despite their vibrant enthusiasm and jubilant, creepy songwriting: the group just get lost in the sauce. The ebbs and flows are thrilling, but by the end it doesn’t do much with symphonic grandeur, the songwriting never crescendoing to a satisfying enough climax (although the solos are undoubtedly great—I wish Selvans used them more). Along the same lines, the album closer “Fonte Dei Diavoli” is a little underwhelming: why does Saturnalia end on a fadeout???

I always respect ambition; it’s the driving force of prog, after all. But sometimes an artist has to rein it in, and that’s the case for Selvans. Fantastic musician, solid composer, fun ideator for concepts and stories, but the whole project just doesn’t coalesce in a satisfying way. That is not to say Saturnalia isn’t worthwhile, but I am sad that this is supposedly the final project under the Selvans name.

Recommended tracks: Il Mio Maleficio V’incalzerà!, Madre Dei Tormenti, Pantàfica
You may also like: Malokarpatan, Le Grand Guignol, Antipope, Pensées Nocturnes, Dissona, The Circle, Aenaon
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Selvans is:

Selvans: vocals and keyboards
Chris D’Onofrio: guitars
Agares: bass
Marco Berrettoni: drums
Antonio Scelzi: additional lead guitars
Triumphator: solo track 4

The post Review: Selvans – Saturnalia appeared first on The Progressive Subway.