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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: independent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Label: independent

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

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

Style: progressive black metal, symphonic black metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Ihsahn, Arcturus, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Dimmu Borgir, Septicflesh
Country: Georgia
Release date: 16 May 2025

The Progressive Subway isn’t just for local transit; our tracks are laid across the globe. You can hop aboard and ride to lands of Brazilian atmoblack, Norwegian prog rock, Canadian post-metal, Romanian blackgaze, Mexican tech death, or Greek gothic/industrial—and that’s just picking some reviews randomly from our site’s front page while I write this. In fact, as I look now, our ten most recent reviews cover bands from ten different countries. Progressive music is wonderfully global, and we’ve happily traveled to most corners of the world to cover it. 

But there’s still fresh ground to chart, and today the Subway has stopped somewhere new: Georgia. Not the U.S. state—we found ourselves there earlier this year, covering Tómarúm’s extraordinary release. Rather, we’re straddling Eastern Europe and West Asia in the country of Georgia, here to check out progressive black metal act Im Nebel. In their latest album, Hypocrisis, the band liberally blend symphonic elements into ten short, blackened tracks with plenty of progressive flair. It’s just the sort of thing the Subway was built to seek out. Let’s see whether the trip out east was worth the trek.

Despite its cold, dystopian cover art, Hypocrisis immediately strikes as theatrical. Its symphonic embellishments and dramatic clean vocals reflect a Baroque influence that brings a king’s halls to my mind, and across the album there’s a dark but quirky atmosphere—think Arcturus’s La Masquerade Infernale. Plainly put, the music is fun. This probably isn’t what Im Nebel were going for, seeing as the band describe Hypocrisis as “a bleak yet thought-provoking journey through the contradictions of modern existence … [that] explores the duality of human nature, inner darkness, deceptive truths, and the fragile boundary between the spiritual and the physical.” Somber stuff. Nevertheless, the twisted piano and staccato orchestral touches opening the album in “Prolog” set a stage that promises to be more playful than dire, and the rest of the album plays along. 

Standout track “Life” best shows off Im Nebel’s strengths: relatively straightforward but catchy riffs that leave plenty of room for symphonic elements to shine, a well-balanced use of harsh vocals and theatrical singing, and a compositional structure that’s not complicated but holds enough room for variety and surprises to keep things interesting. The track’s singable chorus is particularly infectious, with emphatic piano complemented by choppy guitar. In a similar vein, “Inside Out” also features simple but memorable interplay between the piano and guitars, as well as a melodic guitar solo that leads into a heavy outro with a mix of orchestral accents. Despite being the album’s longest cut, “Inside Out” falls just short of the five-minute mark. As with most of the tracks, it’s packed to the brim with ideas and would benefit from a slightly longer composition, giving the ideas space to repeat and evolve. But the short runtimes undeniably make the songs more accessible. And whether it’s the dark, music-box-like intro of “Corridors of Insanity,” the lovely acoustic guitars that fill “When Day Comes After Night,” or the riff salad that forms the center of “Smiling Faces,” Im Nebel keep Hypocrisis varied and entertaining. 

As enjoyable as the album is, however, its production isn’t convincing. The symphonic elements sound far from authentic or robust, and the core instruments all lack just a bit of punch. Unfortunately, this gives Hypocrisis an amateurish feel that undermines some truly interesting musical ideas. The band also seem to struggle with transitions. The introductory “Prolog” moves abruptly into “Where Horizon Starts” without any semblance of connection between the tracks. Similarly, “When Day Comes After Night” has an acoustic outro that clearly sets up the next song, but alas, the following track begins with a completely new idea, jolting the listener. Hypocrisis’s fumbled transitions aren’t just between songs, but also within them—”Corridors of Insanity,” as one example, builds enticingly through a prolonged intro, then right when it’s about to open up, a jarringly unfitting riff kills the momentum. All in all, Hypocrisis sounds more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive album. 

Yet, even with its flaws, Hypocrisis remains an engaging listen. Its quirky atmosphere, compositional diversity, and catchy, standout moments make it feel refreshingly distinct among progressive black metal releases—and on balance, these positives outweigh the album’s shortcomings in production and cohesion. Although Hypocrisis won’t have us staying in Georgia for too long, it was enough to make the Subway’s first trip out here worthwhile.

Recommended tracks: Life, Smiling Faces, Inside Out
You may also like: Lamentari, Belnejoum, Shade Empire
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Octopus Rising (an Argonauta Records trademark) – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Im Nebel is:
– Grigol Lobjanidze (guitars)
– Nick Rukhadze (drums)
– Alexandre Gurchumelia (bass, vocals)
– Michael Lenz (guitars, vocals)

The post Review: Im Nebel – Hypocrisis appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: George Nickels

Style: Deathcore, Blackened Deathcore (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Lorna Shore, Shadow of Intent, Whitechapel, Distant, Angelmaker
Country: North Carolina, United States
Release date: 9 May 2025

A surefire way to catch my attention is with an overwrought song title. Though bands like Alexisonfire have graced me with such gems as “Water Wings (& Other Poolside Fashion Faux Pas)” and “It Was Fear Of Myself That Made Me Odd,” it is often within the dim and slimeridden kingdoms of metal’s extremes where the shiniest treasures await. Offerings like “A Kingdom Built Upon the Wreckage of Heaven” (Outergods); or, to pluck a more “mainstream” example, Nile’s 2024 head-turner, “Chapter For Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes.” Yes, really. Before I run up any more of this word count limit, let me get to the stake, er, point.

This peculiar affliction of mine found me ensnared by North Carolina deathcore outfit Sold Soul and their 2022 sophomore LP, I Hope We Make It Out of This Alive; specifically, their song “Something’s Breathing in the Hallway, I Live Alone.” The spine-tingling track title, coupled with the Edward Gorey-esque album art, beset my mind with scenes of a bristling nightmare desecrating the idea of home as a safe haven. To my delight, the music begot doom-ridden and Gothic intentions. Crushing riffwork and howling leads backboned by foundation-rattling drums and foreboding atmosphere, with mainman Stevie O’Shaughnessy’s tortured roars and baroque cleans digging into this twisted firmament like a last grasp at sanity. Bespoke violin creeping across the tracklist like an icy shiver down the spine. Their style of deathcore is more deliberate than contemporaries like Lorna Shore, Shadow of Intent, To The Grave, etc.; more stalking nightmare than relentless assault.

Now, having in fact made it out alive after a three-year silence, Sold Soul return with third full-length, Just Like That, I Disappear Entirely. With cover art evoking Where’s Waldo shot through the prism of Hell, I have one question: Will Sold Soul’s return stand out, or is it destined to fade into the crowd, faceless and forgotten?

Sold Soul waste no time re-establishing their haunted-house vibes on “As Whisper, or As a Bellow,” with a menacing guitar line stretched across thundering double-bass kicks and O’Shaughnessy’s razored growls. There’s familiarity in the way the track moves from staggered lurching to headlong chase, the creeping tension melting away in the face of a full-on death metal assault before returning to a mid-paced hunt, complete with animalistic snarling and inhuman shrieks. O’Shaughnessy breaks out the cleans towards the end, pitched low and steeped in Draculian grandeur. As the album’s second-longest cut, “As Whisper, or As a Bellow” sets the tone well for what’s to come.

“For I Can Endure No Longer” sees a greater balance of clean and harsh vocals, crafting an operatic melancholia which pairs nicely against the bladed surge of the guitars. Follow-up “To Spit Contempt on the Tail of Every Uttered Word” veers into cartoonish deathcore waters with an extended run of barking, but manages to right the sails with a grooving bass section, jazzy drumming, and ethereal vocals by guest Kukielle. There’s a surprisingly Ithaca-adjacent taste to “Howl,” with its white-noise riffage and lock-step drum rolls, bringing measures of metallic hardcore to Sold Soul’s benighted feast table. I can almost hear Djamila Azzouz’s flensing shrieks toasting the event. The band even whip up a sadboi ballad in “Although I May Love You, I Must Leave You Here Alone,” a vibes-heavy cut which foregoes all heft and lets O’Shaughnessy flex his melodious pipes in all their melodramatic glory.

Deathcore is a genre of absolute extremes: big, bombastic, and excessive, with vocalists performing what amounts to the demonic version of pop singer vocal acrobatics—regardless of necessity. Sold Soul, refreshingly, understand that “excess” does not always equal “success.” O’Shaughnessy drives his roars down the middle lane, with only a few snarls and screeches peppered in for taste. His aforementioned cleans are perhaps the most dramatic weapon in his arsenal, and in another context they could be considered over-much; he has a tendency to lean into Gothic drama with his delivery, dipping low and soaring strong. However, by layering them against similarly rich and melodramatic music, the band manage to create a harmonious pairing where each element supports the other.

Sold Soul also refrain from the genre’s often cookie-cutter template, where every song becomes an exercise in executing a mammoth breakdown. They have their own formulas to watch out for (opening multiple tracks with creeping guitar lines along a mid-tempo plod), but by and large Sold Soul’s approach to deathcore feels delightfully reserved and atmospheric by comparison, more interested in crafting actual songs structured around varying (dour) moods, as opposed to simple vehicles for brutality and vocal gymnastics.

Yet, for all the enjoyment I’ve had with Just Like That, I Disappear Entirely, it is not without fault. “That Stranger in the Red Suit, and the Many Things He Promised Me,” derails the album’s doom-drenched vibes with a goofy “band members talking and joking” moment in its closing seconds. Penultimate track “I’ve Forever Yearned for an Angel of Mercy and Warmth to Sing Out My Name and Rend Me from My Earthly Sorrows; Yet Throughout All the Years of Idle Longing, I’ve Only Ever Heard a Profound and Crushing Silence” attempts to patch up the holes in the ozone by reinforcing the morose tones and predatory aggression of which the album had drawn its strengths, but never quite recovers from this point forward. Closer “When You Finally Realize How Small You Really Are” amounts to little more than nine minutes of atmosphere. It’s pensive, sure, flaunting some The Thing-esque “bum-bums,” but fails to do anything interesting with its runtime. The last three tracks are bonus cuts and feel disappointingly tacked-on, especially originals “Child of Night” and (second) interlude “I Am So Unbelievably Unhappy,” which may have served better had they been folded elsewhere within the album’s tracklisting. As is, this decision leaves the tail end of the album’s sixty minutes struggling to reclaim its mojo.

If prior entries in the Sold Soul pantheon enticed you, then Just Like That, I Disappear Entirely will undoubtedly keep you in the fold. The band have hardly strayed from their formula here, yet there’s enough iteration to keep things from sounding like a rehash of I Hope We Make It Out of This Alive (beyond the distinct lack of featured contributors).¹ If deathcore’s excesses have turned you away in the past, there’s a possibility Sold Soul’s more deliberate and mood-focused approach may create an exception, possibly even an inroad. Though I can’t answer my earlier question—will Just Like That, I Disappear Entirely fade or stay in memory?—I can say that I’ve largely enjoyed my time with the record. And since the future is never a guarantee, it makes moments like this feel like a win.

Recommended tracks: To Spit Contempt on the Tail of Every Uttered Word, A Lament for an Abandoned Heaven and All Us Who Lay Beneath, Howl, Child of Night
You may also like: Paganizer, Into The Silo, Cognitive, Face Yourself, Zeolite, Euclid
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Crestfallen Records – Facebook | Official Website

Sold Soul is:
– Stevie O’Shaughnessy (vocals, songwriting)
– Abiayup (songwriting, mixing)
With guests:
– Kukielle (additional vocals)
– Josh Null (additional drum compositions)

1. I Hope We Make It Out of This Alive is stacked with features: Stu Block (Into Eternity, Iced Earth), Brittany Slayes (Unleash the Archers), Chris Wiseman (Currents, Shadow of Intent), Matt Perrin (Angelmaker) ︎

The post Review: Sold Soul – Just Like That, I Disappear Entirely appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: atmospheric black metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Wolves in the Throne Room, Panopticon, Kaatayra, Mare Cognitum
Country: Brazil
Release date: 9 May 2025

An artist’s first few albums can only be compared against the greater canon. For an artist like Vauruvã’s Caio Lemos (Kaatayra, Bríi, et al.) who has twenty albums under his belt, though, evaluating a new album against his own oeuvre is the natural thing to do. Further, his style is entirely peerless (after his first two more straightforward atmoblack releases), a signature sound permeating any genre he’s attempted—from his trance-infused black metal (Bríi) and dungeon synth (Bakt) to darkwave (Rasha) and a return to atmoblack (Vestígio). So how does Mar de Deriva stack up against Caio Lemos’ extensive discography?

At first, Vauruvã was an improvisatory project from Lemos with vocalist Bruno Augusto Ribeiro, melding traditional black metal with the Caio Lemos Touch— since metal and improvisation rarely go together, it’s certainly an interesting experiment. However, the first two albums under Vauruvã were among the bottom of Lemos’ releases in quality, slightly underwhelming due to their emphasis on pure black metal. Mar de Deriva drops the improv aspect of prior Vauruvã albums and instead approaches the average sound of all Lemos projects. I hear touches of Kaatayra, Bríi, and especially Vestígio here. The loss of Vauruvã’s distinct identity among Lemos’ various projects is a tad disappointing—I’d love to see how far improvisation could be pushed in black metal—but Mar de Deriva is all the better for it, easily Vauruvã’s strongest album to date.

Structured as a triptych, much like his 2023 album Vestígios, Mar de Deriva glides between ideas seamlessly whilst growing in intensity from movement to movement. The three tracks flow together as if a part of one larger epic, although they all follow an identical, predictable structure: a slow, folky start building into ripping black metal riffs, concluded by an eerily calm resolution. Mar de Deriva’s ebbs and flows are natural, and listening to the release is like drifting through a surreal dream—even the harsh vocals and distorted guitars merely add a hazy layer atop the free-flowing hallucination. 

Mar de Deriva has moments with the most ominous gravitas of Lemos’ career thus far, such as in the beginning of the album’s closer “As Selvas Vermelhas No Planeta dos Eminentes,” which is backboned by dramatic percussion and darkly cinematic synths. But contrasted with the obscured darkness are moments of extreme levity, full of illusive ethereality. After the initial riff-centered section to start “Os Caçadores,” for instance, the track pauses before erupting in a barrage of blast beats and harsh vocals over a tranquil synth motif. The ending of that track is almost uncanny with its subdued beauty, full of atmospheric synth, clean vocalizations, arpeggiated acoustic guitars, and bird chirping—how can music sound so peaceful and comforting yet strangely detached? Lemos blessedly utilizes his acoustic guitar playing at several points in the project, too, with the highlight coming in the final few minutes of “As Selvas Vermelhas No Planeta dos Eminentes”; the section is reminiscent of his magnum opus Só Quem Viu o Relâmpago à Sua Direita Sabe with its trem-picked arpeggios acting in harmony with the energetic rhythm. 

While Mar de Deriva features many of Lemos’ greatest individual riffs, his playing on opener “Legado” comes across as slightly sloppy; it doesn’t detract from the liminal dreaminess of the track, but the tighter guitar performance on the next two tracks is stronger. Lemos uses every trick from his extensive discography, but he underutilizes some of my favorites on Mar de Derica, particularly his ever-improving clean vocals. His lulling incantations are a soothing counter to his shrieky harshes and complement his synth tones.

Minor quibbles aside, Caio Lemos has delivered. Mar de Deriva is a wonderful record, its atmosphere utterly sublime. Vauruvã mixes stormy black metal sections with rays of sunlight bursting through the clouds, and the listener floats along in the dreams Lemos creates. So, although this record isn’t quite a crowning gem for Lemos at this stage in his career, its diaphanous beauty through searing riffs successfully combines some of the best traits across his body of work to an indisputably excellent result. There is no other artist like Caio Lemos—no artist who drops masterpieces seemingly at will. This is yet another.

Recommended tracks: Os Caçadores, As Selvas Vermelhas No Planeta dos Eminentes
You may also like: Bríi, Negura Bunget, Vestígio, Salqiu
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: independent

Vauruvã is:
– Caio Lemos (instruments)
– Bruno Augusto Ribeiro (vocals)

The post Review: Vauruvã – Mar de Deriva appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: technical death metal, death metal, progressive death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Allegaeon, Psycroptic, Gorod, Soreption
Country: Mexico
Release date: 2 May 2025

We all love our Viking and pirate metal¹, but there are other badass peoples with awesome aesthetics just begging for albums to be made about them. The Aztecs were a metal people. The Sun god Huitzilopochtli (also the war god) demanded human sacrifice, which priests performed by the thousands in massive rituals, tearing out the still-beating hearts of the victims atop ceremonial pyramids. To obtain so many slaves to sacrifice, warfare was a constant in their society, driving the Aztecs to conquer their neighbors as an expansionist empire, all to satiate their god’s desire for blood. Kalaveraztekah, an up-and-coming death metal band from Aguascalientes, Mexico, tap into the Aztec aesthetic² on their sophomore album Nikan Axkan. Do Kalaveraztekah have Huitzilopochtli favor?

To set the stage for Aztec slaughter, Nikan Axkan sees Kalaveraztekah incorporate a healthy dose of regional folk music into their muscly tech death—pre-Hispanic indigenous instruments and percussion including ocarinas, flutes, conch shell horns, the ehecachichtli (Aztec death whistle), and the huehuetl (type of hand drum)³. With such ambitious syncretisms, the fear is always that the traditional instruments will be a gimmick, detached from the metallic core. Thankfully, Kalaveraztekah nail the stylistic clash, Óscar Dávila’s percussion specifically; beating away in tandem with Kalaveraztekah’s metal drummer, Julio C. Rivera, Dávila brings a polyrhythmic swagger to Nikan Axkan, as well as a ceremonial vibe. Besides the occasional, isolated folk section (to start the album on “Nikan Axkan – El Aquí y el Ahora,” at the end of “Tlazolteotl – La Devoradora de Inmundicia”), the whistles, flutes, and ocarinas merely take on a background role, providing ominous atmosphere behind the riffs with haunting, muted screams. The indigenous Mesoamericans weren’t messing around creating instruments ideal for metal.

While Kalaveraztekah manage to meld their folk and metal instruments impressively, the metal is woefully bland, especially when compared with the only other prominent Aztec-themed tech death band, Impureza, who sound like Beyond Creation with added flamenco and traditional percussion. Kalaveraztekah are death metal, mostly sticking to a mid-paced groove which works well with the exotic percussive elements but doesn’t create engaging riffs. The tones are all pretty standard, cookie-cutter death metal, not taking advantage of having both a lead and rhythm guitarist; lead guitarist Luigi V. Ponce’s (Indepth) “techy” parts are relegated to regrettably predictable arpeggios; and the bass playing of René Alpízar gets lost in an overly loud drum master. The production does no favors to Kalaveraztekah, making their music sound much more one-dimensional than it is—I want to hear those layers of folk and metal in their glory. 

Nikan Axkan works best at its strangest and spookiest—the centerpiece for me is clearly “Yowaltekuhtli – Un Sueño en la Oscuridad.” Ponce’s techy arpeggiation is at its best to start the track, and he even includes a slick clean guitar solo reminiscent of Stortregn. Yet what differentiates the track from the rest of Nikan Axkan is a dramatic spoken word performance, the female performer’s fright coming through even though it’s difficult to understand the lyrics. The extended noodly soloing to finish out the track also has much more energy than the more blah death metal Kalaveraztekah write on the rest of the album. I’m left wishing the band wrote more tracks with such flair.

Although birthed in the industrial hellhole of Birmingham, United Kingdom, metal is a global music like few others, and hearing bands put their local touch on the genre is a wonderful thing, especially when done well. And Nikan Axkan is a compelling fusion of metal with the traditions of Aguascalientes; that’s the hard part, and the band has nailed it. With a couple adjustments to the death metal side of the band, Kalaveraztekah can release something great while paving the way for more Aztecian death metal. So while I probably wouldn’t stage my next human sacrifice with Nikan Axkan as the soundtrack, the album sure inspired me to consider following Huitzilopochtli and to sacrifice my enemies to keep the Sun happy.

Recommended tracks: Tonalli Nawalli – La Esencia y el Espíritu, Yowaltekuhtli – Un Sueño en la Oscuridad, Xiuhmolpilli – El Amanecer del Nuevo Sol
You may also like: Impureza, First Fragment, Indepth, The Chasm, Moral Collapse, Acrania, Stortregn
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: independent

Kalaveraztekah is:
– Julio C. Rivera (vocals)
– Luigi V. Ponce (guitars)
– Julio Alpízar (guitars)
– Óscar Dávila (pre-Hispanic instruments, percussion)
– René Alpízar (vocals, bass)

1. Ok, I certainly do not love my pirate metal. ︎
2. Interestingly, Aguascalientes was never under Aztec rule but rather the Chichimeca tribes whom the Aztecs considered equally as badass as themselves, although primitive culturally. Read about the tribes here. ︎
3. This is not confirmed, but from my research and listening, I believe that it is a mix of these instruments. ︎

The post Review: Kalaveraztekah – Nikan Axkan appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Death metal, progressive metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Blood Incantation, Death, Morbid Angel
Country: Massachusetts, United States
Release date: 18 April 2025

Although the old school death metal revival has been going on for years, what’s with the recent spotlight? Offering a modern take on a classic sound, OSDM-steeped releases from proggier bands like Tomb Mold and Horrendous have seen huge underground acclaim. And Blood Incantation launched out of the underground altogether last year, with Absolute Elsewhere appearing indiscriminately on just about every year-end list. Backed primarily by Millennials and Gen Zers with no connection to the original acts, nostalgia doesn’t explain the recent explosion—it’s not the same force that sends our parents in droves to community amphitheaters to watch mediocre tribute bands play the same few classic rock songs. Maybe the renewed interest is a reaction against what some see as an increasingly sterile progressive music scene. That is, a counter to surgically precise, rigidly technical, overproduced music that’s lost its soul (hey, I like that kind of music). It could be a desire to recapture and build upon the blatantly badass sonic aesthetic of late ‘80s and early ‘90s death metal—style is circular after all, and what goes out of fashion often returns.

Whatever the cause, the momentum behind this scene continues to build, and another band has joined the fray. With their debut LP Ego Dissolution, Massachusetts-based Ancient Death announce their arrival in a concise thirty-five-minute statement. Drawing clear inspiration from Blood Incantation, as well as the stalwarts of the early Florida death metal scene, these newcomers offer OSDM with a psychedelic bend and a slight progressive tinge. With OSDM in vogue among the metal underground, will the band join the new crop of old-school elite?

Ego Dissolution could easily be mistaken for a late ‘80s release. The production, although warm and clear, isn’t sanded down and coated in lacquer—its surface is rough enough to let the album’s big riffs scrape the ears. Meanwhile, much of the instrumentation runs through the OSDM playbook. Most tracks have some combination of frenzied, technical-but-not-”tech” riffing; heavy, mid-paced segments overlaid with early Schuldiner-esque vocals; and ripping guitar solos, but not in the virtuosic, guitar-nerd type of way. Drummer Derek Malone Moniz isn’t afraid to slow things down and compliment blasting with groovy kick-drum patterns, and an active bass guitar growls beneath it all. “Breaking the Barriers of Hope” and “Unspoken Oath” are the record’s most straightforward ass-kickers, each offering a clinic in effective death metal execution. 

Ancient Death’s psychedelic and progressive elements appear mostly through slower passages that incorporate grainy synths, mellow guitars, and, on occasion, ethereal cleans provided by bass guitarist Jasmine Alexander. Rather than take us on full Tangerine Dream or Floydian detours, à la Blood Incantation’s latest album, these passages are shorter and integrated more naturally into the tracks. The effect is tremendous, adding dimension to the music and making the streamlined death metal sections hit even harder. The atmospheric bridge in the middle of the ripping title track makes the track feel massive and complete; and the first half of “Breathe – Transcend” is simply spellbinding, a chilled-out swirl of restrained guitars, locked-in rhythms, and cavernous growls complimented by Alexander’s celestial singing. For a full dose of psychedelic atmosphere, instrumental track “Journey to the Inner Soul” appears to be Ancient Death’s trippier, less technical response to Death’s famed “Cosmic Sea.” Each time the band ventures beyond the core death metal sound, they do so tastefully, the passages never sounding forced or out of place.  

To be sure, Ego Dissolution isn’t particularly inventive. Ancient Death take no issue in putting their influences out there for all to see. The album strives by reining these influences in and spinning them into a diverse, coherent set of tracks with no weak points. By the same token, there’s nothing that takes the album over the top: Ego Dissolution doesn’t quite have the innovation or depth to be monumental, and it doesn’t need to. Of course, I’d love to see Ancient Death push their sound further and carve out more of an identity in future releases—they certainly have the requisite talent and innate feel for songwriting—but as far as debuts go, it’s remarkably complete. 

Ultimately, Ego Dissolution is a resounding success. Ancient Death package an abundance of influences, along with some character of their own, into a cohesive work that’s as musically compelling as it is plainly fun. Front to back, the album is rock solid and its short runtime flies by, urging you to go right back to the start for another run. Just one album in, Ancient Death already sit notably among the new school of old school.

Recommended tracks: Ego Dissolution, Breaking the Barriers of Hope, Unspoken Oath, Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever)
You may also like: Tomb Mold, Horrendous, Undeath, Barn, Bedsore
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Profound Lore Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Ancient Death is:
– Jasmine Alexander (bass and vocals)
– Ray Brouwer (guitars)
– Jerry Witunsky (guitars and vocals)
– Derek Malone Moniz (drums)

The post Review: Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution 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: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris
Country: New Jersey, United States
Release date: 22 March 2025

Cooking up a band name is tougher than it seems—there are about as many artists on Metal Archives as there are words in the English language, so if you’re going for a snappy one-word moniker, you’re either gonna have to scour the Old Church Slavonic dictionary or fight it out to the death with a bunch of other gangly nerds. On Bandcamp alone, there are 59 artists named Atlas, and on Metal Archives, you can find 32 Legions, 30 Requiems, 27 Nemesises (Nemeses?), and more¹. Take your pick, I guess, cause with numbers like that, at least one of them is bound to suit your tastes. This brings us to Descension, the latest release from today’s band of discussion, Citadel—no, not the symphonic black metal band from France, it’s the—not the melodic power metal band from Russia, either. They’re the—it’s not the album Citadel by Ne Oblivi–will you just let me finish?

This Citadel was built in New Jersey and indulges in the grandiloquent prog-death excess of bands like Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Dessiderium, and the like, making light work of aggressive drumming, technical-yet-melodic riffage, and grand, cinematic song structures. Descension tries its hand at several compositional frameworks: “Veil” and “A Shadow In the Mist” are all about iteration on a central motif whereas “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” and “Crescent Dissentient” sometimes reprise melodies but are more interested in operating as a free-flowing stream of consciousness. “Under the Primrose” and “Downwards Ever” sit somewhere in the middle of these approaches, cycling through a set of established ideas across their runtimes while occasionally diverting into asides. Quiet interludes and outros are featured throughout to soften the blow of Descension’s expansive prog death assaults, utilizing any number of classical instruments from piano to flute to cello.

A swirling acoustic arpeggio is the artery of opener “Veil”, as the motif is hypnotically iterated upon in both loud and quiet moments. The ideas the track explores are a direct consequence of its establishing melody and act as the inevitable returning point after a detour. When this formula is followed, Descension‘s relatively lengthy compositions are quite easy to follow, and their success rides significantly on Citadel‘s ability to recontextualize ideas in engaging ways. “Veil” succeeds the most in this respect, showcasing some of Descension‘s most clever reimaginings and even ending with a satisfyingly plaintive acoustic outro. The first half of “A Shadow In the Mist” retraces “Veil” to an almost shocking degree, coming across more as “Veil 2” than as its own piece at first blush: a similar arpeggio centralizes the track, a similar blast beat section is used in the first verse, and it follows a similar overall progression. I’m not particularly mad because it retraces one of Descension‘s better tracks and near its midpoint it manages to carve out its own identity, but its presentation is without a doubt jarring.

Descension‘s results are much more mixed on its ‘stream-of-consciousness’ tracks: Citadel sometimes struggle to maintain focus when not homed in on a melodic nexus. “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death” in particular features many commanding high-energy riffs, opening on a blistering assault of tremolo picks and furious blasting, but when the guitars pull back, the track turns into a series of listenable but ultimately uninteresting ideas. This lack of focus even extends to the mastering, particularly in the verses: the extended dissonant chords that overlay the verses’ instrumentation are a production nightmare as they swallow up all the attention and make it difficult to focus on anything happening underneath them. Some tweaks in the production and a bit less going on in these verses would significantly help to give more direction to the great ideas that pepper “Sorrow of the Thousandth Death”. “Downwards Ever” is one of the more chaotic tracks, distinguishing itself with fast-paced melodeath riffs, flamenco guitar work, and even a discordant horn solo in its final half. The horns are brought back again, albeit much more restrained, in its quieter outro. It’s kind of a mess compositionally, as many of the ideas the track throws out don’t quite fit together nicely, but it’s admittedly a fun mess.

Citadel try their hand at a slew of compositional approaches on Descension, coalescing in a decent but flawed package. When tracks are sharply attuned to a single motif, they glide effortlessly across their runtime, but the more chaotic pieces struggle to maintain focus or get buried under mastering woes. A balance between more intense and more languid ideas adds a pleasant variety to Descension, and with a bit more polish and maturity, Citadel’s compositions can fully encompass the cinematic grandeur they strive towards.

Recommended tracks: Veil, Downwards Ever
You may also like: Dessiderium, Disillusion, Ubiquity, Piah Mater, Luna’s Call, Amiensus
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Independent

Citadel is:
– Ameer Aljallad (guitars, vocals, drums)
– Owen Deland (bass)
– Noah Romeo (guitars, synthesizers)

1. Numbers gathered from this very helpful Invisible Oranges article. Long live the singular Necrogay! ︎

The post Review: Citadel – Descension appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive death metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, An Abstract Illusion, Fallujah, Wilderun
Country: Georgia, United States
Release date: 04 April 2025

My knowledge of art history is limited, as is my understanding of visual art, but I’ll go to a few museums a year to get my required dose of culture and keep the illusion of sophistication alive. Even if I don’t fully appreciate the paintings, there’s one type that always leaves me awestruck: the big-ass painting. The canvas that occupies an entire wall. The painting so epic in scope it draws in ignorant tourists like me through sheer magnitude, even though none of us can offer more than, “Wow, that thing’s huge. Pretty colors, too.”

There’s a certain brand of modern progressive death metal that’s tantamount to the big-ass painting. Bands like Ne Obliviscaris, An Abstract Illusion, and Wilderun are putting out albums so ambitious, epic, and grand that, whether they resonate or not, their enormity alone should knock the listener into a state of awe. Fortunately, I’m better at comprehending music than visual art, and many of these epics sit among my favorite modern works—they strike me the same way the immense paintings are probably intended to. Apparently plotting to join this distinguished group of artists, Atlanta-based Tómarúm have grabbed a vastly oversized canvas and painted it with their sophomore LP, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria. I won’t bury the lede: this work makes a worthy case for inclusion in the hallowed halls of big-ass prog death.

Holding nearly seventy minutes of dense, nuanced compositions, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is an intimidating chunk of music. But Tómarúm provide plenty of hooks and lighter instrumental passages that serve as aural footholds, allowing the listener to regroup along the journey—and what a journey it is. After about a minute of airy synth swells and a delicate motif sitting on top, the album’s opener bursts forth with frenetic drums and bass accompanied by soaring guitar leads before transitioning into an intricate, techy verse. Emblematic of the album as a whole, the ten-minute track wanders through mind-bending riffs and off-kilter rhythms, melodic refrains, a bass-driven bridge with acoustic guitar and synth accents, and harmonious guitar solos. With each band member holding a vocal credit in the album notes, a mixture of throaty howls, low growls, stoic cleans, and melodic singing tells the album’s tale: one of striving to rise from the depths of despair, seeking transcendence and triumph.

The despair-to-triumph concept underlying Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is ever-present in the album’s atmosphere, which oscillates through all shades of dark and light, enhanced by ubiquitous synth touches and diverse vocals widely covering the tonal and emotional spectrums. The most consistent feature is meandering guitar leads that ring gloomy yet hopeful—bittersweet melodies floating over blasting drums and dexterous bass. It’s impossible not to compare the feel to that of Fallujah, who have mastered the art of using gliding guitars and turbulent rhythms to build impactful soundscapes. Perfectly complementing Beyond Obsidian Euphoria’s atmosphere is its earthy and organic production, applying just enough polish for each instrument to stand out while avoiding the plastic, sonic sheen that coats many modern albums.  

Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is most impressive in its holistic execution of a wildly ambitious vision, but plenty of distinct moments stand out. For one, the way the immaculate, whimsical instrumental “Introspection III” carries right into the cataclysmic opening moments of “Shallow Ecstasy”—like black storm clouds sweeping in to fill previously gossamer skies. Or the bass solo in “Blood Mirage” followed by a contrabass solo in the next track, “Halcyon Memory: Dreamscapes Across the Blue.” And even having gone numb to guitar solos over the years, my brain locked right onto those strewn throughout “Shed this Erroneous Skin.” Perhaps the album’s high point, Tómarúm throw everything they have at you in the fourteen-minute penultimate track, “The Final Pursuit of Light”: from rolling, blackened riffs to tasteful dissonance, drumming that exhibits inhuman endurance, and an abundance of bass guitar flourishes. Meanwhile, Opethian influence shines through the track’s middle section with Åkerfeldt-esque growls over punchy minor chords, dark and soulful guitar leads, and groovy, atmospheric bridges built on top of clean guitars in Ghost Reveries style. The song is a grab bag of captivating ideas performed ridiculously well. And if all this weren’t enough, the relatively short closing track brings back the album’s opening motif, tidily putting a bow on this behemoth.

We couldn’t expect an album this massive to be without some cracks, and fortunately Beyond Obsidian Euphoria’s are few. Although the vocal barrage, evidently coming from all five members, keeps the sprawling tracks fresh, no performance is particularly noteworthy. The differing harsh vocals are average for the most part, and, if being generous, the cleans are at best serviceable in context—they’re welcome for the variety they add but aren’t always in key or tonally compelling. The opener’s monotone chorus and the awkward cleans in “Shallow Ecstasy” are a couple of spots where the vocals dip from neutral to negative. Moreover, as with nearly any album of this length, some of it begins to blur together. “Halcyon Memory” and “Silver, Ashen Tears,” while enjoyable on their own, don’t quite distinguish themselves as much as the other tracks. Then again, if Beyond Obsidian Euphoria were trimmed to a more concise length, it just wouldn’t hold the same grandeur. And, considering how extraordinary most of the album is, its few issues are mere drops in the metaphorical ocean.

All in all, Tómarúm have done it: their latest big-ass painting deserves to be displayed in the halls of modern progressive death metal. Maybe Beyond Obsidian Euphoria won’t be the main exhibit, but wherever it’s hung, it’s every bit worthy of the spot. Tómarúm envisioned an album frighteningly large in scope and shaped it into an intricate, immersive, and rewarding work. As excited as I am to see how the band fills their next sonic canvas, there’s certainly no hurry—after spending several hours with this one, I’m still uncovering new layers to appreciate.

Recommended tracks: Shed This Erroneous Skin, The Final Pursuit of Light
You may also like: Orgone, Disillusion, Iapetus, Dessiderium, Amiensus, Virvum
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Tómarúm is:
– Kyle Walburn (Guitar, Vocals, Programming)
– Brandon Iacovella (Guitar, Vocals, Programming, Contrabass, Narration)
– Matthew Longerbeam (Guitar, Vocals)
– Michael Sanders (Bass, Vocals)
– Chris Stropoli (Drums, Vocals, Programming, Sound Design)

The post Review: Tómarúm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria appeared first on The Progressive Subway.