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: experimental, noise, dark ambient, industrial, avant-garde black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Merzbow, Ben Frost
Country: Finland
Release date: 13 June 2025

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Finnish experimental metal artist Oksennus sees a pile of rocks and grinds them to dust in his deconstruction of metal, like a postmodernist would, on his newest release(s): Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä and its sibling EP Naama Ummessa. Metal is broken down to its atoms—distortion, percussion, and vocals—and reassembled in a completely novel way. The shorter of the two EPs, Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä, works within the confines of two tracks, each precisely 13:00 long to construct its cathedral of broken riffs and vomitous¹ vocals. 

Taking up the first half of the release, “Loppu” plays around within a unique, uncompromising atmosphere. Microtonal guitars ramble onward until gurgling vocals à la the Demilich guy on ketamine dominate the foreground—although they often drop into the background as Oksennus use the mix as an ever-shifting playground for which texture dominates. In the background, various “whooshing” noises recall a variety of things: a muted train going “chugga chugga,” shoveling snow, falling down the stairs with an electric guitar. As ominous as the sounds are unusual, Oksennus shatters conceptions of genre by dragging his distinct style of black metal from rawness to beyond—a primally unrefined ambience.

Not until “Tuli” does Oksennus make his most revelatory strides within a strictly metal framework. Beginning with inescapable blast beats in the vein of Plague Organ, he quickly contorts the rhythms into free time atop a buzzsaw guitar. As the track progresses, drum parts collapse at the seams as complex arrangements of percussion are stitched together, seemingly recorded a couple of seconds at a time. Moreover, the demented ambient noise of the first track continues throughout “Tuli” but in increasingly distorted tones—bringing them more firmly into the world of metal along with the blast beats—transitioning between the sound of blowing a raspberry and the droning vibrations of the cicada. Like how the best black metal rebels against religion and/or mankind, Oksennus is a perversion of an inimical power structure, as well.

“There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” – Brené Brown

In Oksennus’ case, they rebel against the human eardrum. Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is nearly unlistenable without suffering the risk of a migraine, the EP transcending the comprehensive capabilities of the human mind in 2025 CE. The experimental elements mentioned are hardly intentional. The guitars are microtonal because Oksennus doesn’t know how to tune his instrument; the mixing shifts in and out of focus from engineering ineptitude; and the time is free because he can’t even program a drum correctly. Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is proof that the postmodernists often become satire of themselves (look into Salvatore Garau, for instance). I don’t think that Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä was truly going for something revolutionary nor was his take a postmodernist interpretation of metal intentionally². The world of the experimental, progressive, and avant-garde will always create missteps, and Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is chief among them, purely as a result of Oksennus’ radical incompetence in composition and performance.

Recommended tracks: Loppu
You may also like: Jute Gyte, Botanist, Simulacra, Plague Orphan
Final verdict: 2/10

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

Label: Sacrifical Dance – Bandcamp

Oksennus is:
– K. Olavi K.virta

1. Oksennus means “vomit” in Finnish! ︎
2.  It’s a testament to how silly postmodernism can be that I bet you believed me for the first chunk of the review. ︎

The post Review: Oksennus – Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-metal, blackened sludge, ambient (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cult of Luna, Amenra, Neurosis
Country: France
Release date: 21 March 2025

Enthusiasm for progressive metal is actually a relentless pursuit of novelty. Music of this genre is diverse, transgressive, abrasive, but above all else, wonderfully strange. Through this lens, each stab at originality that a musician takes is commendable; even the most misguided of attempts are unilaterally positive contributions to the medium. Experimentation pushes boundaries. You know the old joke about how the first person to taste cow’s milk must have been really, really hungry? This is an accurate characterization of every prog critic.

Dear reader—I have tasted at the Frenchman’s udder. I have come to know the weird and wonderful. BÅKÜ’s SOMA is excellent. The “OPPOSITE” suite that constitutes this record’s five tracks is a darkly fun psychic exploration. Oftentimes the label of “experimental” is the dinner table stand-in for “it sounds like ass,” but SOMA is the rare album that both abounds and astounds with left-field surprises. It has a wholly unique tongue-print. Rather than try to capture this vibe with so many wafer-thin descriptors, I would like instead to strongly recommend a blind listen to anybody with the slightest predilection for post-metal. I treasured my time with this music.

Sonically, I interpreted SOMA as a collage of unconscious experiences. “Soma” is a Greek root word referring to the body or flesh (as well as the tranquilizing narcotic from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World). Save for the occasional brain-in-a-jar, each listener to SOMA is bound by some corporeal form that has been subjected to impulses beyond their control. BÅKÜ casts a fearful mood over these impulses, as if they are intrusions on our somatic reality. Sleep, fear, panic, autonomic processes (thoughtless, like a breath or heartbeat), even natural death: these experiences are part and parcel of living with a human body. They exist in parallel (dare I say OPPOSITE) to our conscious actions and decisions—the control that we believe we have. I ask without disdain: what medium could be better suited to such themes than post-metal, the easiest metal subgenre with which to dissociate?

BÅKÜ demonstrates an astonishing mastery of their genre on this debut album—it is delightfully easy to get lost between the sounds of SOMA. I often think of the Apple Music description of ISIS’s seminal Oceanic: “Post-metal must be an ordeal.” Add a helping of lurching ambience and sludgy riffs and each track off SOMA sounds like a terrific tumble down ten flights of stairs, as later recalled on a morphine drip. A careful hand controls the chaos. Riffs are afforded the exact duration of a welcome stay, slip back to make room for new ideas, reintroduce themselves when appropriate. Some of them are incredibly catchy, too; this allows SOMA to exist in the valley between inviting and off-putting.

“OPPOSITE 1” explicitly states its purpose by sampling English-language medical advice: getting less than six hours of sleep at night will cause a breakdown of the body itself. “Lack of sleep will even erode the very fabric of biological life itself,” the voice forebodes, describing incidents of cancer, sinus disease, and the destruction of DNA before signing off with a tongue-in-cheek “I do hope you sleep well.” Here BÅKÜ gives us the musical equivalent of Rod Serling describing a time he had to get up early for work, then showing us half an hour of graphic combat footage. This passage consists of the only decipherable vocals on the record and sets the tone for what is to come: a picture of lived experience painted with violent ambience.

SOMA—to invoke another fictional drug—is a mélange. Every “OPPOSITE” introduces itself as an individual, separate soundscape. Contrast the world music and cultic hymnal chants that open “OPPOSITE 2” with the ASMR muttering and night sounds that open “OPPOSITE 4.” Synths (credited as oscillateurs) and samples are used liberally to build atmosphere. By the end of the record it is abundantly clear why the band needed three guitarists. BÅKÜ has a gripping fascination with guitar tones and effects that matches the chaotic and diverse energy of its more synthetic elements. The common element threading these songs together is the tortured vocal performance by Daniel Arnoux. “OPPOSITE 3” accompanies his screams with the faintest tinkling of ivories, and the production is so crisp that each catch in his voice can be heard. It is a genuinely affecting listen. SOMA puts both the agony and the theatricality of metal front and center—the atmosphere fits its genre like a glove.

Post-metal has given us vast, churning, meditative works. Cult of Luna’s Mariner, The Ocean’s Pelagial, ISIS’s seminal Panopticon—each is an auditory planetarium of its own making. “Live, Båkü’s strengths are multiplied tenfold,” reads the official description of SOMA on BÅKÜ’s Bandcamp page. “The concert becomes a hardcore pagan ceremony, a moment of shared trance, a collective waking dream…” Having never experienced a BÅKÜ concert even thirdhand, I can not attest to the accuracy of this claim. However, SOMA is so vivid that I am inclined to believe them. The album hints, if not outright demonstrates, that BÅKÜ are capable of writing a classic in the genre. If they bottled this sound, I would not drink it. I would bathe in it.

Recommended tracks: OPPOSITE 3, OPPOSITE 5
You may also like: The Salt Pale Collective, Sumac, Obscure Sphinx, Adrift, Old Man Gloom
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Independent

BÅKÜ is:
– Daniel Arnoux: vocals, guitars, synthesizers, samples
– Mathieu Oriol: guitars
– Thomas Brochier: guitars
– Yoan Parison: bass
– David Esteves: drums

The post Review: BÅKÜ – SOMA appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork for illustrated/photographed by Hajo Muller and designed by Carl Glover.

Style: Progressive rock, art rock, ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, John Hopkins, and a little band called Porcupine Tree
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 14 March 2025

On November 3rd, 1967, Robert McNamara, the US Defence Secretary under President Lyndon Johnson, announced that the Soviets were developing a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, a nuclear missile that would reside in low Earth orbit, ready to be fired from space. It was an escalation in Cold War tensions and another driving force that would eventually lead to the USA winning the space race by landing a man on the moon just two years later. Steven Wilson could conceivably have heard this announcement if there were a radio in the room he was born in in Kingston Upon Thames, London, that same day. 

Wilson is a man who needs no introduction, but he’s getting one regardless. Be it Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, No-Man, Storm Corrosion, or his countless remixes and remasters of classic prog rock and heavy metal, if you know anything about modern progressive music, you know his name. His solo career arguably contains his best work, a boundless journey across the art rock and prog spectrum, from the noisy alternative rock of solo debut Insurgentes to the classic prog worship of The Raven That Refused to Sing to the post-punk and art pop influenced The Future Bites. Wilson has consistently experimented and evolved with each new release. His eighth album, The Overview, is named for the perspective-altering effect that being able to see the entire planet has upon astronauts’ sense of self¹, and resides in the empyrean realm where the landing of “Staircase” left us at the close of The Harmony Codex: ‘miles above the surface of the earth’ contemplating ‘a trillion stars in a billion galaxies.’ 

At a svelte forty-two minutes, The Overview is comprised of two epic suites, Thick as a Brick style: “Objects Outlive Us” and “The Overview”, themselves subdivided into several smaller sections. Shades of Wilson’s solo career can be heard throughout, but its clearest antecedent is a blend of the eclecticism and scope of The Harmony Codex with the progressive sensibility of Hand Cannot Erase, heard most obviously in those grandiloquent chords and the guitar tone. However, in typical Wilsonian fashion, The Overview defies easy comparison, and fans will certainly hear elements of his entire discography, as well as a grab-bag of his pet influences. 

Piano leads just as often as guitars, and the two instruments provide a bold contrast between serene and charged sections, from cosmic voyage to quantum turbulence. This is the fundamental dichotomy underlying The Overview; space as dreamlike wonder, space as existential terror. Without wanting to give a blow-by-blow account of the music, from the pensive opening atmospherics of “Objects Outlive Us” we enter a chant with Wilson’s vocals layering with each stanza to become a legion reproving humanity’s rapacious exploitation of the planet, ‘no longer able to find some kind of perspective amongst all the invective.’ From here piano leads us into a proggier section, a repeating motif that draws us into the central song, a more stereotypical Wilsonian affair with lyrics penned by Andy Partridge (XTC), segueing into a clearly Rush influenced section where the bass thrums with energy… and we’re not even halfway through the track! Both suites continue to unfold in distinct sections—hitting a heavy riff, back into a gossamer verse, dissolving into dreamy ambient, exploding into a chaotic solo—a little disjointed at times, but with an overarching sense of organisation. 

There are riffs and solos where one can hear Wilson and lead guitarist Randy McStine channel Rush (“The Cicerones”) or King Crimson (“Cosmic Sons of Toil”). Drums are contributed by Russell Holzman (Caroline Polachek, son of Adam) and Craig Blundell (Frost* and regular Wilson collaborator) on the respective tracks and both contribute fine work; Holzman a bit of a foil for Harrison in his steady nuance. Meanwhile, Blundell a little under-utilised in the earlier sections of “The Overview”, but allowed to go ham, as is his perpetual wont, later on, unleashing his kit-sojourning style. “The Overview”, meanwhile, opens with “Perspective” in ambient electronica fashion, layering in complex beats and new layers of synth over the top—Wilson as John Hopkins student. Around nine minutes into the title track, it all goes a bit starman with funky Bowie-esque moog, and Wilson putting on a little Ziggy in his delivery. “Permanence”, the section which closes the record, drifts into Tangerine Dream inflected ambient. The bass work (Wilson and McStine) may well be the instrumental highlight, frequently channeling Geddy Lee and Chris Squire in its dominant tone and pleasingly complex riffing. One gets the feeling that Wilson has decided to make space his playground, and he’s rather enjoying cramming its infinity with all his favourite influences. 

A more curious feature of The Overview is in the production. Wilson is undoubtedly a genius producer—his ubiquity on classic prog rock and heavy metal remasters is testament to that—and his style is usually drenched in atmosphere. The Overview, however, is much more raw, airless, and the central instrument in a given moment, be it piano, guitar, voice, synth, tends to dominate the mix, with the other instruments providing set dressing. Evoking the suffocation of space seems a conscious decision—in space no one can hear you say “there’s no atmosphere.” There are distinctly ambient sections, but these ebb and flow as needed. Curiously, this decision is of a piece with Wilson’s upcoming restoration of Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii concert, of which he says his production job is less ambient because he wanted to evoke how the band sounded on that particular day for that particular performance, which happened to be a far more arid sound than typical. Whether the Pink Floyd remaster influenced The Overview’s production, I don’t know, but there’s a peculiar synchrony between the two. Nevertheless, it works, and the production seems even more capacious, as though each instrument is a body in orbit and their relative distance defines their volume. [Edit: listening to the actual release (this review was based on what I heard from an advanced livestream), this paragraph barely passes muster; there’s so much goddamn ambience as well as a hell of a lot more musical details that I couldn’t hear (or possibly weren’t even present) before! Live and learn, I guess, but man that livestream didn’t do the details any justice at all. I blame Veeps².]

The Overview isn’t without issues, the main one being the grating spoken word on the title track. A robotic female voice recites a litany of celestial objects and their sizes for a baffling length of the track—’Tarantula Nebula: size beyond one zettametre, 10^21’—and Wilson reprises the idea twice. Spoken word in music is hit or miss (and usually the latter) but this particular idea is a rather artless way of conveying the sheer size of planets and nebulae. It has neither the wit of the shopping list recitation from “Personal Shopper”, nor the emotional thrust of the narration on “Perfect Life”, which is a shame because the bulk of the track might well be the album’s jewel were it not for this glaring annoyance. The disjointedness of the suites is also notable given the lead instrument often changes with each new section, and while a suite can get away with some choppier transitions (looking at you, “Closer to the Edge”) than a through-composed work, some of these nevertheless feel a tad jarring. Every section is consummate in and of itself and the sense of progression is always logical, but there are moments when the stitched-together-ness is a tad Frankensteinian. “Objects Outlive Us” suffers more from this, despite being consciously arranged around a nineteen note theme which is revisited in different time signatures, keys and the like, but it’s also, to my mind, the stronger of the two tracks. When you’re playing with twenty minute epics, contradictions abound. 

Andy Partridge’s lyrics for “Objects: Meanwhile” juxtapose banal everyday tragedies with cosmic events, and the whole section is very Hand Cannot Erase; a little cliché, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t come to like the playfulness, ironies, and sincerity. On the title track, Wilson’s astronaut drops the fact that ‘back on earth my loving wife’s been dead for years’—my man can’t resist giving his characters a tragic backstory. The most arresting lyrical idea is the one which bookends “Objects Outlive Us”, with Wilson contemplatively crooning ‘And there in the mist you asked me: ‘Did you forget I exist?’ I said ‘yes, ‘cause you played too hard to get’; It’s a beautiful and quite profound epitaph for our falling out of love with the empyrean. Wilson was two when humanity first landed on the moon, but since then our fascination with the cosmos has dulled. We thought the future lay up there but when the Cold War dulled, the money ran out and we became wrapped up in our petty terrestrial squabbles. Space wouldn’t bend to our whims, and so we abandoned it. 

As “The Overview” closes we’re treated to ambient synth notes colliding and fading like little atomic disturbances, as though we’re at the furthest extent of the universe, a place infinity continues to expand into and yet there’s nothing except these faint glimmers of something that may be a precursor to life. Four years out from the 60th anniversary of the moon landing, it seems that art is the only transport that will take us to such realms. We won’t terraform Mars, no matter how much uneducated megalomaniac billionaires think we might³. Wilson has always been a very human artist, and while his foray into outer space isn’t without blemishes, it’s an ambitious and emotionally-centred record, worthy of a musician of his calibre and another broadly successful entry into his storied discography. 

Recommended tracks: there’s only two but if you’ve only time for one, go for Objects Outlive Us
You may also like: Esthesis, Smalltape, Mile Marker Zero
Final verdict: 8/10

1.  In a Q&A, Wilson remarked that the astronautical testimonial that struck him most was that of William Shatner, the erstwhile Enterprise captain who was treated to a sojourn into space courtesy of Jeff Bezos’ phallic rocket. Back on terra firma, Shatner reflected that it “felt like a funeral”. Out there was nothing, death; all the life was in the place he’d just left.  ︎
2. To rant further: I suspect that the livestream and subsequent upload on Veeps differed as an anti-piracy measure. I swore blind to myself there was a sax solo closing out over the chiming synths on the title track, but on subsequent listens it didn’t appear. I did pay my £11.18 with VAT for the early listen, but if Steven read the original review before these addendums then he probably thinks I’m a scurvy seadog. ︎
3.  It has no magnetosphere. Terraforming Mars is virtually impossible, and if we did do it, the amount of energy involved would basically destroy Earth and make a far inferior alternative. The worst of both worlds, which does feel like the Musk guarantee.  ︎

Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Fiction Records – Facebook | Official Website

Steven Wilson is:
– Steven Wilson (vocals, guitars, keyboards, sampler, bass, percussion, programming)
– Randy McStine (guitars)
– Adam Holzman (keyboards)
– Russell Holzman (drums on “Objects Outlive Us”
– Craig Blundell (drums on “The Overview”)

The post Review: Steven Wilson – The Overview appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive rock, neofolk, ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Anathema, Heilung, The Pineapple Thief, Lunatic Soul
Country: Sweden
Release date: 31 January 2025

You’re traveling alone along a dark forest path, wrapping your cloak tight as the first raindrops of an impending storm begin to tap softly upon the boughs above. Night has begun to fall, the clouds occluding any semblance of a sunset as the slate-gray sky slowly shifts from light to dark. As if in response to your imminent need for shelter, the glow of a fire beckons from between the trees. Cautiously approaching, you see a strange man in foreign clothing, sitting at a campfire in a shallow cave shielded from the elements. Upon seeing a fellow traveler in need, he invites you in, and while you’re wary of sharing a cave with a stranger, it beats the prospect of staying out in the increasingly harsh elements. While cooking a modest meal upon the fire, the man shares stories and songs from a faraway land, some grandiose and fantastical, some muted and mundane. With every tale, his careworn yet smooth voice begins to meld with the surrounding soundscape of crackling logs and the pounding rain just outside, and the tension from a long day’s travel slowly seeps out of your soul. The journey ahead is long, and many dangers remain, but for a brief moment, there is respite.

Such is the experience of listening to the music of former Tribulation guitarist Jonathan Hultén. While Hultén is no stranger to abrupt genre swings, having overseen his previous band’s transition from straightforward death metal to blackened goth-rock, his decision as a solo artist to abandon metal entirely in favor of hushed, acoustic folk music on 2020’s Chants From Another Place was about as much of a 180-degree turn as he could have possibly made. For his latest effort, Eyes of the Living Night, Hultén aims to diversify his new sound into something more lush, dynamic, and sweeping. Sure, the soft, acoustic Nick Drake-isms of his previous work are still present, particularly in the campfire croon of “Vast Tapestry”, but with the addition of a more colorful sonic palette this time around. You’ve got electric guitars, synths, gnarly organ (“The Dream Was the Cure”), and programmed electronic beats (“Afterlife”), to name a few, and it makes the overall genre of the album rather difficult to pin down. Hultén calls it “ambient dream-grunge”, which seems at first blush like an intentionally absurd mess of self-contradictory terms, yet ends up being as good a term as any to categorize the fuzzed-out, melancholic, ethereal sounds on offer.

Still, with all this experimentation in genre, there is always the risk of straying from the carefully maintained tone of hazy, primeval warmth that wraps around the listener like a warm blanket, tossing it aside in favor of mere shallow gimmicks. Happily, that is decidedly not the case here; every switchup in the soundscape is but a tool in service of establishing the album’s positively immaculate sense of vibe. The closest comparison would be later-era Anathema, who similarly used whatever musical elements made sense in crafting their melodramatic yet ultimately sunny and optimistic brand of soft prog– and while Hultén may approach things with a bit more melancholic, woodsy mystique, he too makes music aiming to unburden the listener’s soul and make it soar. From the grandiose post-rock-adjacent dynamic swells in opener “The Saga And the Storm” to the atmospheric solo piano piece “Through the Fog, Into the Sky”, there’s a sense of sweeping, transportive magic throughout, no matter the scale, as though each song were its own unique yet equally cozy little fey dimension.

How Hultén achieves this is a bit difficult to neatly describe. The melodies are a part of it, to be sure. Like all of the best folk music, a number of the melodies here, such as the gentle yet hypnotizing waltz “Song of Transience”, feel timeless, as if they had thrummed for millennia in the collective subconscious of humanity before Hultén plucked them out of the ether and gave them physical form. The arrangements and production are also warm and full of depth, lending a sense of vitality and fullness throughout. However, the biggest X-factor here is Hultén’s voice. True, he’s not some showy virtuoso (though parts of “The Dream Was the Cure” and “Starbather” show he can belt it out if needed) but rather he sets himself apart through his absolutely stunning use of vocal timbre. Not only does his natural tone have just the right tinge of roughness to add a sense of humanity to an otherwise-angelic croon, but his use of layering and timbral shifts makes his voice blend into the instrumental arrangement in a truly unique way. Take, for instance, the thrumming, vibrant harmonies in “The Dream Was the Cure” that sound reminiscent of the drone tones in bagpipes or hurdy-gurdy. Or maybe the mesmerizing combination of rasp and vibrato that somehow makes a held note in “Riverflame” remind me of the talkbox intro to Snarky Puppy‘s “Sleeper”, of all things.

Any criticisms I can muster towards Eyes of the Living Night are relatively minor, and stem largely from personal taste. I would say that Hultén’s complete avoidance of any outright solos or anything remotely “metal” does slightly dampen the album’s more energetic songs. Some slightly heavier guitars at the climax of “The Saga and the Storm” would have made it hit so much harder, and adding in some kind of extended, progressive instrumental passage to “Starbather” would solidify the ’70s prog throwback vibe the song flirts with but doesn’t quite commit to, while also making it feel like a proper showstopping closer. In addition, the ballads’ melodies do occasionally skew a bit simple and “nursery rhyme” for my liking (“Vast Tapestry” in particular), and “A Path Is Found” is a decent but somewhat inessential interlude where the guitar and violin mostly spin their wheels for a minute.

At the end of the day, though, these are small blemishes upon an absolute stunner of an album. It successfully takes the sounds of Hultén’s previous work through a marked expansion in scale and musical diversity without sacrificing the fragile yet heartfelt coziness that made it special in the first place. Eyes of the Living Night takes that quiet, peaceful inner sanctuary and expands it into its own world, a starlit realm whose shadowed corners hold no dangers, just treasures that the light hasn’t quite reached yet. The night within is, in its own way, a living thing, a dynamic entity whose darkness and dread can be dispelled if one has the determination to press on and the will to switch one’s perspective. It is a challenging journey, yet a rewarding one, and there is no shame in resting for a moment by a nice, warm campfire before pressing on.

Recommended tracks: Afterlife, Riverflame, The Dream Was the Cure, The Ocean’s Arms
You may also like: Tvinna, Silent Skies, Oak
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Kscope – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Jonathan Hultén is:
– Jonathan Hultén (vocals, all instruments except those noted below)

With:
Esben Willems (Drums)
Ida Nilsson (Harmonica on “Dawn”)
Maria Larsson (Violin on “A Path Is Found”)

The post Review: Jonathan Hultén – Eyes of the Living Night appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Devin Townsend, SikTh, Bjork, Haken
Country: China
Release date: 26 April 2024

With the world’s second-largest population, China has a musical history spanning thousands of years. In spite of this, relatively few Chinese metal bands have reached Western audiences. OU (pronounced “oh”) is a four-piece group formed in Beijing in 2019. The band released debut album One in 2022; earnest and fresh-sounding, it didn’t register a strong impact on the seismograph of the progressive underground, but set expectations high for those who did take notice. 蘇醒 II: Frailty, released in 2024, sees the quartet return in an attempt to raise the bar again.

On the relatively uncluttered canvas of Chinese metal, OU has plenty of room to establish their own identity. While there are none of the bone flutes and plucked strings pervasive in the most well-known or stereotypical styles of Chinese traditional music, the band nonetheless incorporates the traditional when it comes to musical style and a few featured instruments, amidst a host of influences from across metal and other genres. All the lyrics are in Mandarin, with English translations listed alongside each track title; the overarching themes are inspired by Buddhist theology. The band’s sound flits across the map: their prog-metal core of exuberant, heavy buildups bursting at the seams is contrasted with electronica, ambient soundscapes, and dreamy vocal melodies.

The opening title track, “蘇醒 Frailty,” wastes no time showing us what’s in store, stacking up a wall of heavy, energetic sound that showcases the chops of everyone in the four-piece and then pulls back at all the right moments. Among the diverse musical DNA on display, there are hints of Haken and SiKth, but one of the more prominent influences is that of OU’s mentor/stan, prog metal hall-of-famer Devin Townsend. Having been paired up with the band at the suggestion of InsideOut label head Thomas Waber, Townsend subsequently served as a producer on Frailty, made more than a few posts on social media praising the band, and even made his Mandarin singing debut with a featured vocal performance. And speaking of that vocal feature, blaaaaghh – Heavy Devy starts off “淨化 Purge” with a scream, taking a backseat for the next part of the track before returning to underlay vocalist Lynn Wu’s melody with signature ragged-edged vocals. He feels a bit underused; the potency he brings makes the listener long to hear more of him.

Sometimes on 蘇醒 II: Frailty, you might think you know where a melody is going, but it zigs in a delightfully unexpected direction when you thought it would zag. This happens on a larger scale, too—instead of launching into another heavy riff after the softer, understated “血液 Redemption,” which feels like an interlude, OU takes us on a diversion into electronica-flavoured sounds with “衍生,” intriguingly translated as “Capture and Elongate (Serenity)”.

While 蘇醒 II: Frailty sits at a tight 42 minutes, and calling any of it filler would be a stretch, some tracks are more memorable than others. The second half of the album blurs a bit from one song to the next, with fewer of the Townsendian or Hakenesque buildups to smack you in the face, and the occasional passage that stretches past its natural lifespan, such as in the mostly instrumental track “歪歪地愛 yyds”.

Lyrically, it will be hard for the average Western listener to pull anything but the sparest hints as to the song’s themes, relying only on the English translations of song titles. Your mileage may vary here; prog metal has its fair share of cringey or overwrought lyrics, so it may be a welcome change for some to colour in their own interpretations between the lines of notions like rebirth, redemption, and cleansing.

Singer Lynn Wu’s voice has a thin, delicate quality to it, like a strong thread woven in and out over the instrumentals. Indeed, historically, Chinese vocal music tends to be sung in a non-resonant or falsetto voice. However, there are moments when Wu’s delivery hints at something richer and thicker, and 蘇醒 II: Frailty would benefit from leaning into these moments more. As for the other band members, you can sometimes get an inkling when the drummer is a band’s main songwriter, and that’s certainly the case here: Anthony Vanacore’s drumming is central and unrelenting in the album’s heavier moments. It also has djent-y undertones that might alienate some who dislike that style. By contrast, Zhang Jing on guitar and Chris Cui on bass are more like musical shapeshifters, molding unassumingly to the form of each track’s mood, be it heavy, ambient, or somewhere in between. There are also some tasty synth moments sprinkled throughout; they glitter and pop in “海 Ocean”, and bounce along spryly in “衍生 Capture and Elongate (Serenity)”.

Closer “念 Recall” builds a lush soundscape like falling raindrops, using only various percussion instruments and vocals. Onto this, a ‘recollection’ of a motif from 蘇醒 II: Frailty’s opening track is layered, the effect meditative and even hypnotic. The intricate textures gradually give way to an increasingly spare vocal/rhythmic pulse. “念 Recall” gives the listener plenty of space; perhaps you will use this time to meditate on the album’s overall effect. The countless details woven into 蘇醒 II: Frailty make denying the creativity, musicianship, and fresh, stimulating sound on display in this sophomore album all but impossible.

Recommended tracks: 蘇醒 Frailty, 淨化 Purge, 衍生 Capture and Elongate (Serenity), 念 Recall
You may also like: District 97, Kate NV
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: InsideOutMusic – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

OU is:
– Lynn Wu 吴玲玲 (Vocals)
– Jing Zhang 张晶 (Guitar)
– Chris Cui 崔文正 (Bass)
– Anthony Vanacore 安咚咚 (Drums)

The post Missed Album Review: OU – 蘇醒 II: Frailty appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Prog Metal, Prog Rock, Experimental
Review by: Ryan
Country: Australia
Release date: Many.

Toehider, the prolific Australian project that combines visual art and progressive music, are in the midst of releasing 12 EPs in 12 months. The first four releases contained songs in the style Toehider is mostly known for, 80’s style synthpop about Teen Wolf, medieval acoustic music, and conceptual prog metal. Those reviews can be found here. Now the second 4 EPs continue the chaos with power metal, fake cartoon theme songs about ducks, a 70s-style prog rock epic, and a spoken word cyberpunk synth-driven lullaby. 

EP 5 – Take on a Tank

Style: Prog, Power Metal, Thrash Metal
Recommended for Fans of: Sonata Arctica, Iron Maiden, Nanowar of Steel
Release date: Patreon – July 2, 2023 | Public – November 30, 2023

Picking up on the style he previously flirted with on 2017’s “Millions of Musketeers” from the album Good, and “How Much for that Dragon Tooth” from 2020’s I Like It, Toehider has gone full bore into that small gap between power metal and NWOBHM. Take on a Tank is a cocktail equal parts Iron Maiden and Sonata Arctica served with a fine cheese and a dash of Salt. It’s hard to choosing the strongest track of the four is hard since they all employ the style so well, but my personal favorite is the (not bird, but) batshit “You Love Heavy Metal… Don’t You?”: an ode to that kinship we’ve all experienced when randomly meeting another metal fan.

EP 6 – Children of the Sun 3: A Collection of Cartoon Theme Songs from an Alternate Timeline in Which All Cartoons Are Duck-Themed

Style: Saturday Morning Cartoon Theme Songs
Release date: Patreon – July 25, 2023 | Public – January 18, 2024

You know how you’ve always desperately wanted to know what theme songs to Saturday morning cartoons would sound like if we lived in a universe where every cartoon was about ducks? Well, Toehider has answered that call with the third installment of his cartoon theme song cover series, Children of the Sun.  Only this time, he’s broken through the multiversal barrier to bring us covers from the duck dimension. We get both the opening theme and end credits to cartoons including Truck the Duck (the subject of Andrew Saltmarsh’s Toehider Patreon-exclusive comic book), Quackbeard the fowl pirate, and Dr. Mallard, the quack celebrity therapist. We also get to revisit an old friend introduced on Quit Forever with the 16-bit theme to Uncle Aqua’s videogame tie-in, which I’m sure was a huge hit in the world of ducks.

EP 7 – Toad Hirer

Style: 70’s Prog Epic / Rock Opera
Recommended for Fans of: Rush, Gentle Giant, Kansas
Release date: Patreon – August 31, 2023 | Public – February 16, 2024

And now we enter the Toe-emple of Syrinx with (Toe-wenty112?) Toehider’s Toad Hirer, is an eighteen-and-a-half minute long 70’s style epic. The rock opera follows a tick-averted clockmaker who employs toads to craft his tock-only timepieces and the goings-on in his workshop – including one worker who begins to give birth through her back. The song flows through a myriad 70’s influenced styles like Rush, Gentle Giant, and maybe a dash of Jesus Christ Superstar all enveloped in Toehider’s whimsical world. Also, just in case you find either the vocals or the music distracting, Mike has graciously included both an instrumental and a vocals-only version of the song for your listening pleasure.

EP 8 – Stereo Night Ash: Music for Relaxation, Meditation, Decatastrophizing and Deep Sleep

Style: Spoken Word, Synth, White Noise
Recommended for Fans of: Devin Townsend, Grails
Release date: Patreon – October 26, 2023 | Public – March 18, 2024

An even more left field release from Toehider, Stereo Night Ash is an ambient project specifically made to listen to when one needs to de-stress, meditate, or relax. It harkens back to Devin Townsend’s Ghost and Snuggles and his current ongoing project DreamPeace, but with a spoken word cyberpunk story overlaid. Even the artwork is very unlike anything in Ol’ Salty’s past portfolio. While this release may be quite divisive, it absolutely nails exactly what it’s going for with its dreamy, soothing textures, and Mike’s nearly ASMR narration.

With this second installment, Toehider has gone even further into the experimental. This collection will mostly be love it or hate it for many. I do find myself mostly forgetting about both Children of the Sun 3 and Stereo Night Ash, while absolutely loving Take on a Tank and Toad Hirer. That being said, at this time, two more EPs are available on Toehider’s Patreon that may be some of his most interesting work to date. With the public releases looming and only two more EPs to complete, this experiment thus far has been largely successful with only a few middling moments.

Recommended Tracks: Meet Me at the Stronghold, You Love Heavy Metal… Don’t You?, Quackbeard!, Toad Hirer

Final Verdict: 7/10
Related Links: Official Website | Bandcamp | Spotify | Patreon | Twitch | YouTube | Facebook
Label: Toehider
Toehider is:
Mike Mills: All Instruments, Vocals, Production
Andrew Saltmarsh – Art

The post Review: Toehider – XII in XII in MMXXIII – Part 2 appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: djent, ambient, choral music (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Vildhjarta
Review by: Andy
Country: Texas, United States
Release date: 29 February, 2024

Dear Mr. Christian Culak, my pal Zach’s arch nemesis,

You have some serious balls and an admirable sense of self-awareness to send us a promo after Zach’s last couple reviews of your work. I loved how you made him suffer, but over the sound of my guffaws when you sent us a triple album for him to be subjected to forcefully, I heard a small whisper from Sam to Zach that Zach had earned a break and it was my turn to be tortured: I get the honor to review somebody as noble art thou this time. You might be hopeful that I’m nicer than Zach, but handing me a triple album of djent is certainly a foreboding first impression. 

Godspeed Chris,

Andy

P. S. I hope you don’t mind if I review all three once in one fell swoop.

Underneath the Veil opens promisingly enough with a nondescript piano solo, but painfully quickly Mr. Culak punishes you with unbearable djent. While the over-quantized, hyper-clean sound of modern stalwarts of the genre sounds pitifully inhuman and played-out, I wish that Underneath the Veil had squeaky clean production. I don’t know whether to start with the detachedness or the overall quality of damp swamp-ass, so I’ll discuss the Extermination Dismemberment-esque bass slams (see 2:46 in “Ayn” for the first example of many). Everything in the sound is shoved aside for a huge swell of bass, but he implements and produces it with all the finesse of boogie-boarding a tsunami. Prog metal never jumped onto the bass boosted trends as far as I’m aware, and I’m relieved after hearing the lowest quality attempt. Back to the detachedness: Underneath the Veil sounds like the instruments were tracked in separate rooms while the recorder was also in the building next door, turning the entire project into a hollow mess. If minutiae in the riffing were there (trust me, it’s not), this would be a shameful production job, but it’s par for the course for Culak. Everything that you can hear is drowned out in enough reverb to sound and smell like Zach’s ass after a long summer’s day peddling meth and wrangling gators in Florida—thank god we can’t do scratch-and-sniff fonts yet.

So what exactly is going on beneath the tortured production and reverb-pedal? Well, a whole lot of not much. Like The Dark Atom, Underneath the Veil flows a bit like ambient, but the riffs Culak wrote are worse than Dennis Martensson’s… and those are *procedurally djenerated*. Culak writes worse riffs than a primitive algorithm could cook up for ten hours straight. Underneath the Veil is unadorned with anything except the most mindless of chugging and several ambient tracks which are mind-numbingly dull filler, although still better than the djent. On its own, Underneath the Veil would rank among the worst djent albums I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing (if I had to say something positive, I think his piano arrangements every couple tracks are rather lovely), but it’s paired with eighty more minutes of the stuff. Shall we keep going?

Oh Veil of God, a single word away from the title of my favorite album of all time. If Culak knew me personally, I’d be sure it was a cruel joke, but it’s only the universe laughing at me. Veil of God is immediately much better than its predecessor, though, simple choral music that is totally ok at its best! It’s not the most beautiful arrangement you’ve ever heard nor does Culak bother fixing the reverb problems—particularly noticeable when it’s human voices—but ok choral music is infinitely better than senseless djent. However, in classic Culak fashion, he pushes me far beyond my limitless capacity for patience, and this, too, grows incredibly tiring quickly, especially since tracks like “Evanesce” make it crystal clear that these are cheaply synthesized human voices and not actual choirs. I’m not mad or even surprised, I’m just disappointed. I’d love to continue bashing Culak for his stupid ass choices, but this disk really doesn’t leave a lot to write about; it’s slow, uneventful, poorly produced, dubiously paced with those stupid ambient interludes in an already ambient-adjacent choral album, bland, insipid, still-better-than-Underneath the Veil, not good…

If your brain works at the frightening pace of a mile per minute, you probably didn’t put together that Underneath the Veil of God is the two previous albums superimposed, and the choral djent works surprisingly passably at times—certainly more synergistically than either part on their own. But it leaves one with the age-old question: why on god’s green earth would you listen to this instead of Vildhjarta (never mind why would one listen to Vildhjarta)? While the choirs fill a bit of that space between the recording device and the instruments that Underneath the Veil left, the release still feels pitifully weak with neither the heaviest chugs hitting hard nor the ambient parts landing as particularly valuable resting periods. 

I respect Culak’s ambition and his obvious ability to take criticism on the nose, but releasing three albums where two are just constituents of the (already lackluster and strangely empty) third all at once, and calling it a triple album feels particularly silly. While the two albums stitched together makes Underneath the Veil of God tolerable, listening to either of the other disks separate—or all in one sitting twice as I did—is torture and simply stupid. There is no reason for Culak to believe his process or music is special enough to release two extra half albums and demand all three to be listened to. Perhaps he doesn’t intend for all three to be listened to, but since we received all three as a promo and they’re all up on his Bandcamp without explanation, I figure they are, and to that I must bash Culak for his overinflated ego. If you read this and even considered clicking the embed, you’re loooooong gone, craving djent enough to be scraping underneath the barrel for your fix. 

Wait, what’s that? Is somebody screaming??

Final verdict: Under the Veil – 2/10; Veil of God – 2/10; Underneath the Veil of God – 3/10; {(Underneath the [Veil) of God]} – 1/10

Review by: Zach

Well, well, well. We meet again Mr. Culak. You really thought you could shake me off that easily, did you? You seem to misunderstand, your fate and mine are intertwined. With every album you send me, my average score grows lower, and once I start properly rating albums it’s over for all of you. Mr. Culak, with this heaping helping of a triple album, you have given me the greatest gift of them all: experience. Now all the limiters are off. I’ve given you two chances, and you just won’t listen. My apologies, my musical rival, but this is the end for you.

Underneath the Veil of God, and that’s what I’ll be referring to this shitshow as, is all of that Culak ambition coupled with the Culak style of songwriting. For those of you not insane enough to follow the last two installments of this trilogy, Culak has been “working” “hard” on releasing at least one album every year since 2013, and has now upped the ante to multiple a year. I stumbled face-first into this rabbit hole with Holy Tempest, Culak’s take on some prog/power/death/folk CLUSTERFUUUCK. While it was terrible, the least I can say was it’s a hell of a lot more creative than whatever the last two have been.

Somewhere along the line, Christian Culak discovered this band called Vildhjarta, henceforth abandoning all other elements in his music to make what we like to call “thall”. Bog-standard thall, mind you: the most creative we get on this whole musical massacre is the piano that starts ‘Ayn’. The first part of this horrible “triple album” contains not an ounce of notable riffs, moments, or anything to speak of. It’s the musical equivalent of taking an Ambien. Just as it bores me to tears, it also makes me ponder what Culak thought when he was releasing this mess.

See, Underneath the Veil of God isn’t a triple album in the traditional sense. Disc 1, Underneath the Veil, is all djentstrumental, Veil of God is just a midi choir, and Underneath the Veil of God has the novel idea of putting those two together. These are not musically connected in any way shape or form, and may as well be the same album thrice. To be quite honest with you, I think this is somehow worse than last year’s Dreamforge because of the lack of anything to latch onto. Throughout these three albums, there’s not a single song that even sounded remotely put together. Culak’s signature style of “no songwriting’ is put on full display here. Each section moves glacially through chugs, dissonant clean guitars, and weird pitch-shifter sounds. Not to mention three-minute tracks that are just ambient whooshing. 

So, let’s have a chat here, Christian. I get that you think my reviews are hilarious, and you flatter me. But this may be the single most derivative piece of music I’ve ever listened to for this blog. I love Vildhjarta too, and I’ve seen their influence displayed in non-Buster Odenholm projects (see The Ritual Aura and the new Firelink single). This “triple album” isn’t influenced, it’s blatant stealing. For a guy who releases so many albums every year, you really want your mark to be “the guy who copied Vildhjarta without any of the songwriting prowess of Vildhjarta”. You have given up on writing riffs, and instead, you replace them with computerized chugs. Your riffs weren’t good, but you never gave yourself the chance to edit. You push out slop like some kind of musical sausage factory, and knowing damn well you read these, you have neglected my advice of “slow the fuck down and learn to write”.

You had folk and power metal influence on Holy Tempest, and you abandoned all of that for something that was even worse. Where did those other influences go? Were they washed aside for this newfound thall obsession? Sure, the choir is a nice choice, but you don’t do anything with it. It’s just these computerized voices atop the same sluggish “riffs” that haunt disc one. There’s no spice, and the album feels lifeless as a result.

Christian, I’d love to say it would be nice to catch up next year, but I really hope we don’t. I admire your ambition, and the swiftness with which you release albums, but how many times do I need to say it: learn your fucking craft. Stop pumping out musical slop every year. There is truly nothing about this album that I can say that Andy already hasn’t, so I’ll leave you with this: Go on your anime training arc, come back stronger than ever, and fix this mess of a final score.

Final Verdict: 1/10

Recommended tracks: Vildhjarta
You may also like: No One Knows What the Dead Think, Discordance Axis

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Culak is:
– Christian Culak (everything)

The post Review: Culak – Underneath the Veil, Veil of God, and Underneath the Veil of God (or alternatively {(Underneath the [Veil) of God]}): A triple album review appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: technical death metal, brutal death metal, experimental ambient (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Nile, Obscura
Review by: Andy
Country: India
Release date: 2 June, 2023

Indian band Moral Collapse’s debut record earlier this decade convincingly blended technical death metal flourish with a brutal catchiness not unlike Nile or Hideous Divinity. On Divine Prosthetics this time around, Arun Natarajan (guitar, bass, vocals) wants to push himself closer to my forte, the avant-garde, by incorporating dark ambient/electronica driven tracks. I am all for more experimentation in metal–it’s kinda what I’m drawn toward–but why do there need to be so many extended ambient passages in Divine Prosthetics? 

The album starts with one, has another after only two more tracks, and then finishes with the longest one, rendering about half the album as of little interest to your typical metal fan. Luckily, I can get behind dark ambient and weird, glitchy electronic beats like on “Disintegration” or the steady, occasionally distorted pulse of “NORDescendant,” but they’re as lengthy as can be and don’t feel particularly attached to the surrounding death metal. Man, if any of these detached tracks could simply have a nice transition into the next, maybe I’d be more enthused. As it stands, they should be a separate EP or a separate band completely. My tolerance is unusually high for such daft and excessive experiments, but the bloat and style exceeds my threshold for such a style… we haven’t even discussed “Divine Prosthetics II” yet, but we’ll get there.

So I’ve complained a lot about the new aspects of Moral Collapse’s sound, but damn their death metal is still tight as hell. With peaks like “Your Stillborn Be Praised” on the debut, the band clearly have a complete mastery of the style. That continues. “Precise Incision” kicks off the death metal part of the album with surgical precision (seemed too obvious to pass up with that title), the gargantuan drumming performance of Hannes Grossmann challenging the melodic instruments to rise up and match it. Every riff and solo on the album is as tight and stank-face inducing as a crawl space flooded with sewage. “Calamitous” stealthily increases the groove from “Precise Incision” without sacrificing any of the lovely staccato blasts or bass solos–and yeah, the production has a lovely, substantial low-end in which the bass audibly plods along. For more bass highlights, listen to the end of “Divine Prosthetics”–Natarajan goes off. 

After the sweet climax of “Divine Prosthetics,” however, Moral Collapse decide to launch into a ten minute ambient piece. “Divine Prosthetics II” complicates the sound with some free improv jazziness featuring Julius Gabriel on saxophone and Mia Zabelka on a very quiet violin, but even the wonderful world of free jazz can’t cover that Moral Collapse aren’t ambient musicians, and the final product sounds amateurish, though interesting because hearing Hannes Grossmann jazzily improvise like Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant) is awesome. 

As much as I’d have loved to dote on Moral Collapse because of how awesome their debut was, it’s impossible to ignore that half of this album really isn’t that great. Sloppy ambience and jagged, but ultimately weak, electronica genuinely feel out of place on a brutal tech death album. While I hope Natarajan continues trying his hand at new ideas and techniques rather than falling into a pit of repetitious releases–I truly do applaud his efforts here to expand the sound–I think considering a different angle or more practice at this one is necessary. Finally, I hope Natarajan continues collaborating with Grossmann because he brings out some of Grossmann’s best work ever, and that’s a seriously impressive claim considering Grossmann’s legendary catalog. All in all, though, Divine Prosthetics expands in the wrong ways, but at least the tech death tracks are great!

Recommended tracks: Precise Incision, Calamitous, Divine Prosthetics
You may also like: Hanness Grossmann, Hideous Divinity, Alustrium, Labyrinth of Stars, De Profundis
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: Subcontinental Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Moral Collapse is:
– Sudarshan Mankad (guitars)
– Arun Natarajan (guitars, bass, vocals)
– Hannes Grossmann (drums)

The post Review: Moral Collapse – Divine Prosthetics appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Death Metal/Psychedelic/Ambient (mixed vocals)
Review by: Sabrina
Country: US-CO
Release date: February 19, 2021

What first drew my attention to this debut album, besides its sleek 1990s anime style cover art, was the fact that The Lylat Continuum contains musicians from well-known bands in the prog metal scene. Members such as Jordan Eberhardt, the current bassist of The Contortionist, and Mike Caramazza, the drummer of Last Chance to Reason. This supergroup-esque assembly of musicians is what had gotten many of their new listeners interested, but from what I can tell from looking at analytics on Last.fm and Spotify, much of their popularity was short-lived as their listening frequency has died down a bit. However, I would like those of you who have seen this album in passing or have listened to it once or twice to offer some reconsideration.

Cut to the chase, what one will find on this album is a very complex blend of technical progressive death metal with some metalcore influence (not metalcore enough for RYM but too metalcore for MA) very reminiscent of Between the Buried and Me and early The Contortionist. This is combined tastefully with elements of ambient and psychedelic space-rock which give this album a fairly unique atmosphere. This dynamic duo of genres does well to provide a balanced album by contrasting its very heavy, and technical moments with its drifting atmospheric spacey moments. Aside from a few problems, which I will delve more into later, this album really sticks out this year for creating something unique, unconventional, and well produced.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like every science fiction metal album that involves space, must also involve death. As the concept of this album involves a fighter pilot who has been fatally injured during a large interplanetary battle and is drifting through space on a failing ship. He bears witness to the destruction and debris of the conflict and contemplates his nearly approaching demise. The primal feelings of a nearly approaching death will naturally make one frantic, even in the face of conscious peace. This erratic emotional journey is a charitable way one can interpret the fact that this album, though generally becomes more atmospheric as the album goes on, has no clear structure to follow.

The thing about this album is that its complexity is simultaneously one of its strengths and one of its biggest weaknesses. The way the album is structured with two gargantuan songs at the near beginning and other more moderate length songs later is a weird way to structure it all. Additionally, the cut-off from one song to another can feel daunting at times. It seems like the members of The Lylat Continuum will intentionally not place the song endings where they would make the album flow the most intuitively. On the contrary, they choose their cut-offs seemingly more with the intention to try and be overly innovative which sacrifices the smoothness of the album. Just for example, from “Into the Vast” to “Zero” feels like it could have transitioned earlier in “Into the Vast” as it built up with a beautiful psychedelic introduction then it blasts you with very BTBAM-esque riffs and growls before the intro song ends, where it sharply cuts to the next song back to a momentary pause.

Additionally, the compositions within each of the songs focus a ton on the technicality of their musicianship, rather than on memorable riffs and melodies. Though from time to time there are some really great riffs like on 1:03 of “Epyon”, but riffs like these are admittedly few and far between. Much of the heavy moments of the song are djent-like mathcore breakdowns, alongside its more tech-death Between the Buried and Me style riffs. A lot of the time it feels like there is no meaningful direction the music builds up to in much of Ephemeral. In most songs on this album, there are many technical and innovative twists and turns, but the song always suddenly ends without much of a direct payoff. In essence, the chaos of this album makes it very hard to follow and it takes many listens for one to start being able to remember a lot of its composition. This can make the album forgettable and unenjoyable on the first few listens because of the lack of its accessibility.

However, I will say that this album starts to come around more once the listener devotes time to it. It is a very complex album and it should be treated as such. It has a lot to offer once one has gotten over its unconventional songwriting. The album is produced pretty well, it conveys exceptional musicianship, and has a lot of rhythm and atmosphere. There is also a good bit of variety on the album. For instance, the synths provide a gorgeous background to a lot of the ambient sections and help create its more open, introspective moments. There also are a good bit of jazzy sections on the album in its psychedelic interludes. Additionally, besides the many guitar solos throughout the album, there is an enjoyable saxophone section on “Level 5” done by Patrick Corona who does the saxophone for Rivers of Nihil live.

Overall, this album has a lot going for it, but because of the way it is constructed, the whole may not equal the sum of its parts. But maybe that was part of the artist’s intention, we can only speculate. If you are someone who can take the more chaotic side of technical death metal/-core, and if you are interested in a very high paced and musically dynamic adventure, then Ephemeral might just be for you.

Recommended tracks: Into the Vast, Zero, Epyon
Recommended for fans of: Between the Buried and Me, The Contortionist (Old), Circle of Contempt
Final verdict: 7/10

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Label: Independent

<The Lylat Continuum> is:
– Chrys Robb (vocals/keyboards)
– Chris Garza (guitars)
– Ian Turner (guitars)
– Jordan Eberhardt (bass)
– Mike Caramazza (drums)

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