No artist credited

Style: Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal, Progressive Metal (Harsh vocals with cleans on the last track)
Recommended for fans of: Krallice, Thantifaxath, Celeste
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 15 October 2013

The early 2010s were a volatile and explosive time for black metal, full of experimentation and change. A decade earlier, bands like Blut Aus Nord, Abigor, and Dødheimsgard were planting the seeds of an uglier, more abrasive twist on the genre; not long after that, Deathspell Omega would blow the scene wide open with their infamous trilogy. Since then, countless groups have tried their hands at the style of dissonant black metal laid down by these titans of the genre to wildly varying success. Many bands have come and gone, lost to the wind, with Castevet counted among them—though not for lack of quality. 

Castevet were a modest three-piece outfit consisting of Andrew Hock on guitar and vocal duty, Ian Jacyszyn on the drums, as well as sharing Krallice member Nicholas McMaster on bass. The style of music played by these three certainly follows in the footsteps of the aforementioned titans but takes a subtler approach to the oddities and complexities that are so prevalent in the genre. Krallice is, fittingly, the main point of reference to be heard on Obsian, though with a shimmering, prettier take on their sound, even dabbling in softer ambient pieces like on the title track. Obsian is an album full of technical marvel wrapped up in a vague, melancholic atmosphere; an ever-unfurling organism that refuses to be fully defined.

“The Tower” introduces the primary style found on Obsian: harmonically and rhythmically dense black metal. Instantly recognizable and distinctly memorable is the psychedelic fuzz of the bass tone of McMaster, who spends nearly as much time providing countermelody and even lead melody as he does laying down a foundational groove. The production—courtesy of other Krallice mainstay Colin Marston—is warm and just hazy enough for the instruments to shine while also providing context for the atmosphere created by their performances. Herein lies one piece of the puzzle that makes the sound on Obsian so unique: the performances create just as much of the atmosphere as the production job does. From the jarring chords at 2:20 in “Cavernous” that seem to spill out of the aether, to the assertive bass line that drops down to the tonic during the intro/chorus riff on “The Curve,” Castevet make full use of the context provided to them through the stellar production job. 

As Obsian continues, it patiently reveals more of its unique strengths, most notably an acumen for intricate songwriting. Castevet are less overtly dissonant than their peers, instead choosing to utilize smart composition and performance techniques to achieve the same effect. The guitar and bass will often play similar arpeggios that are just slightly off from one another, giving an organic off-kilter feel. Unique chord voicings and smart chord inversions are littered throughout Obsian’s runtime that, when paired with its stilted rhythms, give the experience a sense of constantly folding in on itself—like an auditory set of penrose steps. More specifically, Castevet have a knack for finding strong melodic lines and recontextualizing them through harmonic interplay, giving the listener an opportunity to approach the same sections of songs from different angles during repeat listens; look no further than opening track “The Tower” or the back half of “The Curve” for examples of this.

Another piece of Obsian’s puzzle is its bold rhythmic flair, especially when coupled with some of the more idiosyncratic instrumentation choices and drum kit orchestration. Castevet weave in and out of time signatures, extend and cut phrases short, and play with subdivisions, always in a way that is still conducive to just sitting back and instinctively nodding your head. “As Fathomed By Beggars and Victims” is perhaps the best example of this rhythmic quirk: a pervasive 9 against 4 polyrhythm being played on the hi-hat gives the song an unsteady gait, and even the foundational groove shifts depending on how you listen to it, with 3/4 and 4/4 time each being equally valid ways of counting. When put together, the result is a sonic illusion that is not unlike a desert mirage, shifting from afar but coming into clarity when given more attention. This same song is also a good example of Jacyszyn’s clever kit orchestration. The drums drive the song forward, giving the relatively stationary guitar performance much more bite than it would have on its own. Jacyszyn is able to fill in droughts of movement from the rest of the band with precisely tuned toms and flowing fills, and the drum performance can largely be listened to as melodically as the guitars. 

What really ties everything together for Obsian, though, are the subtle details that Castevet incorporates into every aspect of the experience. Acoustic guitars accentuate riffs at opportune times (“Cavernous”) that, while not quite folky, make the performance feel more human and easier to attach to emotionally. Castevet knows when to vamp on a good idea (ending of “The Curve”) but always have some sort of subtle variation to keep it interesting, allowing the atmosphere to consume the listener while keeping the music engaging. Phrases often start with familiar riff structures and harmonic voicings, only to devolve into swirling, gestural approximations of these forms in the second half of the same phrase. A question is being posed: what exactly are the most important aspects of these beloved techniques and tropes? What makes them tick? Castevet probes for answers with a delicate touch, achieving and even exceeding the same standard set by classics of the genre, doing more with less.

Just when you think that Castevet have shown all they have to offer, they pull one final trick out of their sleeve with “The Seat of Severance”, starting with one of the most straightforward riffs yet and marking the only time that clean vocals make an appearance. The choice to forgo harsh vocals completely is a brave one in music as harmonically vague as this, and proves that the music on Obsian is not reliant on familiar textures and cliches; instead, rock solid composition is what carries the sound and makes it a standout experience. While Obsian is certainly dense and full of anxiety, it is not quite as dreary or oppressive as its peers, merely introspective. The run time is short, inviting necessary repeat listens while also justifying its experimentation and occasional ambiance. My single critique of Obsian is that I wish there were two or three more songs to flesh out the experience, though this is just because I can’t get enough of the sound crafted on this forgotten relic. As it stands, the listener is left with the same feeling of finishing an exceptional book or television series, where you sit there in silence for ten minutes thinking… What now?

Well… you hit play again.

Recommended tracks: The Tower, The Curve, As Fathomed by Beggars and Victims
You may also like: Scarcity, Flourishing, Yellow Eyes

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Metal-Archives page

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

Castevet is:
– Andrew Hock (guitars, vocals)
– Ian Jacyszyn (drums)
– Nicholas McMaster (bass)

The post Lost in Time: Castevet – Obsian appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify

Label: Relapse Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

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

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

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

Style: folk black metal, atmospheric black metal, trance, drum’n’bass, jungle (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Kaatayra, Fishmans (Long Season)
Country: Brazil
Release date: 11 October 2024

October 11th 2024 was a big day for me. My girlfriend and I got up bright and early to travel four hundred miles to see Opeth live. Two hours before the show, however, I got an email from Bandcamp that Caio Lemos’ solo project Bríi had released his next album Camaradagem Póstuma with his usual lack of prior announcement. That I didn’t know if I was more excited for an Opeth concert or the newest album from Lemos should say enough about how much I love Bríi’s music. Halfway through the decade, and each year a Lemos project—Bríi, Kaatayra, and Vestígio—has been at or near the top of my end-of-year list. At this point, dangling this paragraph with some rhetorical “it can’t possibly live up to expectations, can it?!” is a sleight to your intelligence: we all know Camaradagem Póstuma is another masterpiece. 

Bríi has the distinct Caio Lemos sound—a vitalistic rhythmic pulse, blackened rasps, magical, tropical synths—yet like with every new iteration, the beast has evolved, incorporating new and refined elements into the formulae of previous projects. Like last year’s (disappointing) Último Ancestral Comum, Camaradagem is transitory and fuzzy, as if recorded from a dream. There’s an evanescent detachment that’s charming and intriguing but also profoundly eerie, compounded with the vocals being produced almost as if they were ghosts in the background. The rasps are delicate, quietly buried in the mix, and the recorded screams that start the album on “Médium” are haunting. On the other hand, the clean vocals, although uncommon in Camaradagem’s thirty minute runtime, showcase one of Serafim’s¹ greatest improvements, with his voice much more rich and assured.

As always on a Lemos project, rhythm is king, and on Camaradagem Póstuma it primarily functions in the nebulous space between jungle and drum’n’bass, Serafim’s obsession with percussion manifested in the intricately syncopated breakbeats of electronic music. He continually exchanges the breakbeats for blast beats with transitions so smooth there’s hardly a noticeable change in the percussive brilliance, and he makes the combination seem so natural it’s hard to believe that other artists don’t do it more. Alternating between these two modes—ephemerally coalescing and diverging in complex rhythmic dynamics—Bríi finds an electrifying groove early on in opener “Médium” and builds the album outward from it, as he did on my 2022 album of the year, Corpos Transparentes. Even though the drumming seems cyclically repetitive, Serafim almost always mixes each variation up—the frighteningly complex cymbal patterns, which beat is rhythmically accented, or even the inclusion of little easter eggs like the Amen break at the end of “Aparecidos.” 

From the illusion of hypnotic repetition, the album’s melodic contours blossom into a near limitless diversity of musical texture. First, various synths flower underneath the drums like perennials, continually and ephemerally blooming and wilting. Guitars dazzle in brief leads (4:21 “Médium,” 4:07 “Aparecidos,” and the riffs throughout “Baile Fantasma”), breathy flutes dance (5:00 “Médium”), and synthesized choirs (“Enlutados” opening²) create breathtakingly surreal atmospheres. The only track which doesn’t excel at creatively evolving is penultimate and shortest song, “Entre Mundos,” which stagnates in the same jungle/DnB beat throughout. However, the best melodic embellishment throughout Camaradagem Póstuma is undoubtedly the acoustic guitar parts which are a direct callback to my 2020 album of the year and fully acoustic black metal album Só Quem Viu o Relâmpago à Sua Direita Sabe. The trem-picked acoustic is a unique sound, vibrant but frail, as if it could collapse in on itself at any moment. 

Nobody else could craft an album quite like Camaradagem Póstuma. This seamless mix between acoustic guitar, enveloping black metal, and atmospheric rave music just works; it’s Caio Lemos’ magic. The hypnagogic black metal is unsettling yet comforting, surprising yet instinctive, low-key yet sublime. You’ll see this on my list as is annual tradition.

Recommended tracks: Médium, Aparecidos, Baile Fantasma
You may also like: Bakt, Déhà, Vauruvã, Rasha, Wreche, Plague Orphan, Oksät, Vestígio
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: independent

Bríi is:
– Serafim (everything)

1. The pseudonym Lemos uses as instrumentalist and vocalist for the Bríi project on Bandcamp ︎
2.  Which, fun fact, is the exact same choir synth that Mechina uses lol ︎

The post Missed album: Bríi – Camaradagem Póstuma appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Experimental Rock, Post-rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Battles, Tool, Bull of Heaven
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 25 October 2024

Aesthetics is one of the most fundamental and easy to understand features of art: even with no training, I can tell whether I think something is pretty or ugly, and despite a surface-level simplicity, aesthetics can be a powerful tool to articulate complex emotions. Take Sumac’s The Healer, which spends most of its runtime indulging in fairly ugly ideas in the name of hope and optimism, turning aesthetics on its head in a way that is compelling and enjoyable. However, ugly aesthetics in the wrong hands can easily lead to disaster, as evidenced by today’s subject of review, Body Meπa’s Prayer in Dub, a release that eagerly foregoes consonance and other “traditionally pleasant” ideas in the name of chromaticism and experimentation with little payoff. Let’s discuss.

Body Meπa’s musical style is oxymoronic in nature, simultaneously indulging in jazzy improvisation and extensive repetition within a post-rock framework: a core background idea will lay the foundation of a track and repeat it indefinitely while other instruments explore around it, a role usually taken up by electronic soundscapes in the form of dire synthesizers, electronic pulsation, or metallic industrial grinding (“Etel,” “Adnan,” “Stones”). In theory, this songwriting approach is intriguing, especially as someone who thrives on repetitive soundscapes, but its execution here proves to be challenging at best and profoundly frustrating at worst, as despite the lack of radical changes within a track, it is nearly impossible to glean narrative structure within Prayer in Dub’s weaponized aesthetics.

Even from Prayer in Dub’s introductory moments, the listener is assaulted with ideas that do not agree with each other at all: the only mental imagery that I can muster from its pieces is the interaction of instrumentals that all hate each other. Sounds clash together in horrifically ugly ways, whether it be the chromatic guitar notes that standoffishly bounce off the underlying soundscape (“Etel”), drums aggressively building up into nothing as their climax is totally ignored by the rest of the instrumentation (“Scout”), or the grating interplay of harsh industrial noises and what can only be described as an overblown jazz flute sound (“Stones”).

The worst offender of all, though, is second track “Adnan,” which pushes Prayer in Dub’s negative facets to their limits: “Adnan” is introduced with a pulsating electronic noise which is at first somewhat pleasant and relaxing, but as the track progresses, the pulsating gets more and more intense, creating a sonic strobe light effect in the process. What began as something relaxing very quickly turned into absolute sensory overload, pummeling any instrumentation that may be underneath and overwhelming any remaining musical ideas to the point of unlistenability. For most of its runtime, it’s nearly impossible to hear anything outside of its oppressive electronic warbling, and when the pulsating finally capitulates in its latter moments, it’s replaced with equally annoying industrial sounds before once again punishing the listener with its original soundscape. Worst of all, the ideas underneath aren’t necessarily bad and would make a good showcase for some of the more listenable improvisation, but its execution leaves it all washed away under a sea of relentless electronic waves.

However, it would be unfair to say that it’s all unenjoyable and frustrating: the opening moments of “Scout” nicely balance repetition and improvisation by using a fully formed musical idea as its backdrop and building on it with some fun drum work. In its later moments, it begins to lose a bit of focus and fall back into amorphous rambling à la “Etel,” and I wish that it ended less suddenly, but at the very least there is a glimmer of interest present. I would struggle to call “Scout” compelling, but it is well and beyond the most convincing of Prayer in Dub’s pieces and comes the closest to a fully constructed song. Moreover, “Welcome” is a relatively chilled out piece with some pretty chords, and there are moments of “Deborah” that are enjoyable as the laid-back bluesy improvisation creates an air of relaxation, both of which are so desperately needed after the cortisol shot that is “Adnan.” However, these moments are not enough to save Prayer in Dub’s glaring songwriting flaws.

And that, I think, pins down Prayer in Dub’s underlying problem: no amount of repetition can save improvisation that has no backbone, and no amount of experimentation can stop a song without a core idea from falling into formless amalgamation. No matter how closely I listen, there’s almost nothing to hold on to, a feeling augmented by Prayer in Dub’s positively challenging chromaticism, grating textural choices, and inscrutable, amorphous song structures. I will admit that it’s not wholly irredeemable and there’s a good chance that I simply just don’t get Body Meπa’s point of view, but as it is, Prayer in Dub takes the “two extremes” approach to its limit: it’s simultaneously repetitive yet improvisational, simple yet unfocused, and frustrating yet utterly forgettable.

Recommended Tracks: Deborah, Scout
You may also like: Simulacra, Samlrc, NORD, The Mercury Tree
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify

Label: Hausu Mountain Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Body Meπa is:
– Greg Fox (drums)
– Sasha Frere-Jones (guitar)
– Melvin Gibbs (bass)
– Grey McMurray (guitar)

The post Review: Body Meπa – Prayer in Dub appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive rock, psychedelic rock, stoner rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Elder, The Mars Volta, King Crimson
Country: Norway
Release date: 11 October, 2024

It must be a universal experience for metal fans to have their music taste described as “angry” or “sad” or associated with some other emotion that’s typically viewed as negative. I, for one, distinctly remember being asked by a high school crush something along the lines of “Don’t you ever listen to anything happy?” This kind of judgment—and sometimes concern for your mental wellbeing—can be hard to shake, but veterans of the genre know that metal music need not be defined by negativity; rather, the unifying attribute tends to be intense expressiveness. While that commonality admittedly lends itself to anger or sadness or similar, it can also intensify the ability to express a brighter aesthetic. Although Kosmodome are not a metal band, they tap into some of that same passion to support the broad emotional range of their music.

Ad Undas is built on a fundamental contradiction of themes, with the explicit meaning of the lyrics and the implied emotional content of the music each pulling strongly in different directions. According to the band, “Lyrically [the album] delves into personal struggles with self-doubt, the pressures of societal expectations, and the existential battles of modern life. The songs touch on different aspects of the human condition, from the fear of failure and the need for growth to the turmoil of modern living and relentless self-exertion in a chaotic world.” However, while those feelings are explored outright in the text of the lyrics, they don’t seem like an obvious fit for the overall bubbly, energetic tone of the backing music. Despite opening with lyrics like “Why did I have to lose my ability / To feel like I’m good enough? / Here I am full of doubt / With my own negativity pulling me down,” you would be forgiven for drawing an overall positive emotional impression from the opening track “Neophobia” or from equally high-energy outings later in the tracklist like “Dystopia.” In fairness, this tonal contradiction plays well enough into the psychedelic aesthetic, which inherently questions what is real and what is just a product of one’s own mind, but it poses a puzzle for any listener intent on marrying mood and subject.

Psychedelic rock demands less rigid conformity from its constituents than some other subgenres do, and bands like Kosmodome pull together a broad mix of inspirations from their cohort. Early tracks like “Neophobia” and “Obsternasig” bring to mind King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with their lively jamming energy led by bright, fluffy guitar melodies paired with nasal, slightly pitchy singing. Other moments, like the middle and later parts of “Dystopia,” employ a crunchier, Elder-like mix, with more space reserved for layers of reverb and distorted guitars to build an enveloping atmosphere. Although never fully reaching the point of copying these other artists, the similarities help to corral Kosmodome’s freeform sound into a recognizable shape and focus their diverse energies into memorable moments. Once they grow tired of harping on external influences, Kosmodome bring out their own signature style, settling into steady, rolling grooves full of bass that are hard not to tap your foot to, but such interim moments rarely carry the same force as when channeling other artists.

With all these different styles competing for the spotlight, Ad Undas faces some instability in how strong and compelling different sections are. When using other bands as a template, Kosmodome’s music rolls along with captivating energy and a mysterious mood, but the more original—and thus less structured—interim portions often lose that momentum and stumble. The second track, “Hyperion,” fades into obscurity after a couple of listens primarily due to its lack of these borrowed vibes, despite a strong middle section featuring jaunty jams. In the more extreme case, “Turmoil” throws the quality of the album into turmoil with its bland, overlong instrumental intro leading only to unenthusiastic vocal sections. The closing song “Fatigue” then faces an overwhelming challenge to get the groove back on track and finish strong—a challenge it can’t quite meet. Despite its valiant effort, Ad Undas finishes on a bit of a low note as the depressive energies of the lyrics finally stifle the bold, energetic grooves that otherwise define the album’s high points.

Kosmodome’s lively energy is infectious whether or not it fits the lyrical text at hand. Despite unhappy themes of inadequacy, the overall musical mood is positive, often bouncy, and replete with energetic grooves. The band members make good use of their obvious psychedelic influences, including King Gizz and Elder, but falter somewhat when left to their own devices. With sections of clear inspiration that pay homage to the greats, it’s all the more disappointing when the band’s more original contributions lack distinction and fall prey to the low energy malaise brought forth by the lyrics. Still, Ad Undas leaves a solid impression, driven by those groovy and bright high points, which can’t be fully extinguished by the rest.

Recommended tracks: Neophobia, Obsternasig, Dystopia
You may also like: Himmellegeme, delving, we broke the weather, Mount Hush
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Stickman Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Kosmodome is:
– Sturle Sandvik (vocals, guitars)
– Severin Sandvik (vocals, drums)
– Erlend Nord (guitars)
– Ole-Andreas Jensen (bass)

The post Review: Kosmodome – Ad Undas appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Epic Doom Metal (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Candlemass, Khemmis, Pallbearer, Krux
Country: Chile
Release date: 18 October 2024

Hell yeah. Autumn is in full swing in the northern hemisphere, and I couldn’t be happier: I languish in the oppressive Georgia summer heat, and the cooling of this unlivable hellscape means that I can finally be outside and reconnect with nature for a little bit. Inevitably, that means busting out the dark folk for the fully immersive grass-touching experience, as nothing beats watching the trees change color while listening to my favorite dark-folk-meets-black-metal grou… Hold on. I’ve just gotten a message saying this is epic doom metal. It’s not even folk? But it’s November! You expect me to go through my November listening to music that isn’t adorned in pillowy moss and weathered by the ancient winds of time? …Oh, you’re telling me it’s a new release by Capilla Ardiente? Well, that changes everything: I quite enjoyed 2019’s The Siege, and I can most certainly make time for another album of theirs. So let’s take a quick break from the falling leaves and get a full view of Where Gods Live and Men Die.

Chile’s Capilla Ardiente are no strangers to the dramatic, playing a theatrical and progressive spin on epic doom metal: the Lief Edling (Candlemass) inspiration is palpable across Where Gods Live as guitar flourishes accentuate dire riffage in classic doom fashion, weaving ideas across extensive exploratory pieces accompanied by gruffly belted vocals, deliciously chunky bass, and pummeling drum work. Many tracks take at least one moment to pick up the pace, such as the faster middle sections on “As I Lie On the Summit,” the solos that bookend “Now Here. Nowhere,” or the retro-throwback assault at the end of “The Hands of Fate Around My Neck,” but compositions on the whole favor slower and mid-paced ideas. While no excessive change can be found between 2019’s The Siege and Where Gods Live and Men Die, this does not diminish the merits of Where Gods Live, as the formula just works: Capilla Ardiente have found a songwriting approach that affords them a balance of cinematics and catchiness, so as far as I’m concerned they can get away with it as long as they like provided they can maintain their flair for doomy theatrics.

A majority of the time, Where Gods Live and Men Die does well with this formula, establishing powerful riffs and iterating on them (“Now Here. Nowhere”) or riding the highs of the several mini-climaxes within a track (“As I Lie On the Summit”). Attention must be brought to the soloing of Julio Bórquez, which often borders on cinematic and adds central moments of interest across virtually every track: the instrumental break on “Now Here. Nowhere” is almost mournful and cleverly establishes the ideas in the second half; the repeated solo in “The Hands of Fate Around My Neck” creates an air of unease before exploding into its choruses; and the aggressive soloing that introduces the opening verse of “Envenomed” teeters on face-melting. Tying together the compelling instrumentals are the vocals of Felipe Kutzbach, whose gruff yet operatic timbre is a great springboard for verses to effortlessly roll from section to section. Highlights are found on “The Hands of Fate Around My Neck” and “Envenomed,” where moody verses meld easily into operatic choruses, and “As I Lie On the Summit” provides many interesting detours for Kutzbach’s voice to shine. Despite an overall dour atmosphere, Where Gods Live’s execution makes the experience more fun than anything, leading to songs that feel short and sweet despite their extended songwriting approach.

However, the remainder of Where Gods Live’s runtime exposes faults in Capilla Ardiente’s formula: though most tracks feel short on Where Gods Live, when the execution is improper, songs begin to feel meandering and bloated, and opener “Envenomed” suffers the most from this. While Claudio Botarro’s chunky bass-led motifs work well to centralize the track in its first half, much of the second half features many of the album’s weakest ideas and wanders in a way that simply doesn’t stick, resulting in a mostly aimless experience that fails to capture my attention again until its closing moments. “As I Lie On the Summit,” for example, avoids this by narrowing down the scope of the riffs and making a point to return to its central idea, and despite “Now Here. Nowhere” diverging in its second half, both segments maintain a strong identity through repetition and prevent the track from collapsing in on itself. With a trimmed down runtime or more thoughtful and intentional execution of its core components, the opener could be more fully realized, but as it is, it’s a bit of a sour note to begin an otherwise lovely album.

Where Gods Live and Men Die shows Capilla Ardiente once again indulging in over-the-top epic doom ideas to mostly great success, offering plenty for listeners to sink their teeth into over its extended compositions. Despite slipping into faux pas on occasion through meandering songwriting, Capilla Ardiente maintain an air of camp exuding from both the operatic vocal delivery and from the variety of soloing, showing that they are unafraid to lean into the sensibilities that make epic doom metal so compelling and enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind seeing them explore shorter song lengths in the future, as it may help them avoid the intermittent lack of focus that holds Where Gods Live and Men Die back from greatness.

Recommended Tracks: As I Lie On the Summit, The Hands of Fate Around My Neck, Now Here. Nowhere
You may also like: While Heaven Wept, Spirit Adrift, Marrower
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: High Roller Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Capilla Ardiente is:
– Claudio “Botarrex” Botarro (bass)
– Julio Bórquez (guitars)
– Felipe Plaza Kutzbach (vocals)
– Francisco Aguirre (drums)
– Igor Leiva (guitars)

The post Review: Capilla Ardiente – Where Gods Live and Men Die appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: dissonant death metal, technical death metal, progressive death metal, brutal death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Blood Incantation, Ulcerate, Devourment, Portal, Defeated Sanity
Country: United States-IL
Release date: 25 October 2024

Death metal’s evolution branches into two distinct paths: intelligent complexity or leaden heaviness. The boundaries are pushed from both of these sides. As far as complexity, bands try to one-up who can go fastest (it’s always Archspire) or create the most intricate compositions (Ad Nauseam, for my money), and for heaviness… well, it’s a steamrolling competition, punches thrown as various slams, breakdowns, and the like. Both sides are fun, and they often overlap (see Defeated Sanity, Nile); but that’s usually the tech/br00tal side, not the disso/brutal one. Chicago’s sci-fi death metal aliens Gigan, though, write music that’s firmly between Ulcerate and Devourment, an oppressive, monolithic blend of chaotic and crushing death metal. Is this the ideal blend of smart dissonance and smooth-brained heft? 

Like Ulcerate, Gigan are a three piece whose drummer is the hero: Nate Cotton of Gigan is an absolute monstrous presence behind the kit. While the other instrumentalist (guitar, bass, xylophone, theremin, synthesizers) Eric Hersemann makes a whole lot of noise to create a hazy labyrinth, Cotton goes ham atop it with relentless blast beats and often takes up the focus as a soloist of sorts. “Trans-Dimensional Crossing of the Alta-Tenuis” opens up with three minutes of atmospheric death metal guitars and bass while Cotton beats his drums in endlessly varied pitter-patters and explosive flurries of triplets. Other tracks like “The Strange Harvest of the Baganoids” start similarly, and the violent deluge of percussion is the highlight of Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus. In addition to the ridiculously sick drum fills that permeate the album, vocalist Jerry Kavouriaris complements Cotton well with his percussive barks, and the science fiction tales he recites are engaging and fun.

Speaking of the lyrics, they’re often rather prescient and meta; for example, “Square Wave Cognition” opens with the line, “madness, disorientation and confusion / upended cognition.” This album will cause all of these effects on the listener. The album is complex and shifty like Ulcerate, it also is produced like you’re inside of a cement mixer being thrown around in the pitch black with liquid concrete and is suffocatingly heavy like Devourment. Occasionally Gigan become recognizably tech death like in “Square Wave Subversion” and there are prog flourishes like how Afterbirth are prog—the sci-fi metal classics of theremin and vocoder, specifically—but overall it’s murky and enveloping noise. Gigan utilize all sorts of whooshing sounds, background synths, and distorted guitars to fill the space, and it’s a weighty experience that drowns you in sound.

I certainly want my death metal to be overwhelmingly heavy, but overall Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is a collage of noise from which it’s almost impossible to extract melodies or memorable riffs, even the breakdowns being lost. The worst offender is the ten-minute centerpiece “Emerging Sects of Dagonic Acolytes” which takes a leap beyond the overwhelmingly chaotic death metal straight into several minutes of swirling noise—A LOT of swirling, disorienting, filthy noise. Noise can be good, creating chaos and the dramatic soundscapes this sort of music needs, but when it takes away from the death metal parts, it becomes a problem for me. Thus, while the inclusion of the sound effects and overly layered instruments are acceptable and would be a neat songwriting tactic to close out a track, the extended noise sections kill the album’s flow, making sections of the album drag on far too long (the doomy intro to closer “Ominous Silhouettes Cast Across Gulfs of Time” is another). This is Portal’s approach to extreme metal, especially on their most recent releases, so fans of the Aussies should love this, but I can’t count myself among them. Ironically, despite being so dense I can hardly figure out what’s going on at several points, I think Gigan suffer from repetitious bloat more than anything else. 

In theory, Gigan should hit me like two continental plates colliding and make me put on my thinking cap while I beg for more aural punishment, but Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus can’t decide to what degree to be mercurial. I lose the plot in the buzzsaw of the guitars and the elaborate compositions, but I never find myself bewildered and beaten—just mildly bored waiting for the next distinct solo or riff, really anything that rises out of the turbulent murk. This album is certainly an anomaly, but it won’t be my go-to for brutal dissonance.

Recommended tracks: Square Wave Subversion, Katabatic Windswept Landscapes, Erratic Pulsitivity and Horror
You may also like: Artificial Brain, Mithras, Flourishing, Wormed, Diskord, Fractal Generator, Mitochondrion, Ingurgitating Oblivion, Warforged, Anachronism, Infernal Coil, Afterbirth, Wormhole
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Gigan is:
Eric Hersemann – All electric, acoustic and bass guitars, theremin, otomatone, synths, lyrics, concepts and madness.

Nathan Cotton – Drums, percussion and Sunny weather.

Jerry Kavouriaris – Vocals and violence.

The post Review: Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

DGM – Endless
Recommended for fans of: Evergrey, Symphony X, Vision Divine
Picked by: Francesco

In Rome, they don’t say “Wow, DGM’s newest album Endless is really great!”, they say “Bhe spigne tanto!” They don’t say, “Have you listened to DGM’s newest album Endless yet?” They say rather, “Aò! Eddaje!” They wouldn’t say, “Wow, those guys in DGM really play their asses off on the new album Endless!” Instead, they might say “Ancora je l’ammollano!” And they probably wouldn’t say, “On the new album Endless, DGM with technical prowess and expert arrangements once again demonstrate why this outfit is among some of the best names in today’s Italian metal scene.” They would be more likely to say, “Mica pizza e fichi, ah!” 

Don’t be a pariolino – if you’re into melodic progressive/power metal and actual instrumental wizardry, this album will check all the boxes.

You might also like: New Horizons, Icefish, Inner Vitriol, Labyrinth
Related links: Official website | Spotify | original review

Iotunn – Kinship
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Amorphis, In Mourning, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium
Picked by: Andy

Epic is a term that’s thrown around all too often, but Iotunn truly are epic. Jon Aldará is a titan of progressive metal vocals, on the same level as Einar Solberg (Leprous) and Mikael himself. Kinship is full of booming, earwormy choruses, spacey atmosphere, cosmic song structures, and tons of ripping solos. The Danish/Faroese giants (the band name is old Norse for “giant,” and, yes, pun intended) write remarkably fun music, and it’s a perfect soundtrack to close out the year.

You might also like: Barren Earth, Hamferð, Sunless Dawn, In Vain, Descend, Wilderun
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review

Carnosus – Wormtales
Recommended for fans of: Archspire, Revocation, Infant Annihilator, Psycroptic, The Black Dahlia Murder
Picked by: Zach

If I could just write “caveman like” and be done with this, I would. Unfortunately, I need to use all 10% of my brain to write how Wormtales makes me feel. Carnosus continues the amazing trend of “dumb music, smart musicians” that I’ve seen crop up in tech-death over the years. Everything about this album is stupid in a brootal sort of way. The drums are thundering, and blisteringly fast when need be, perfectly complimenting the chugging guitar rhythms and low-end fuckery. But the cherry on top is Jonatan Karasiak’s disgusting noises, all coming together to create something that rivals Replicant for the Subway’s prestigious Cave Species of the Year award.

You might also like: Hath, Slugdge, Afterbirth, Wormhole, Xoth
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review

The Circle of Wonders – IV: Timber
Recommended for fans of: The Dear Hunter, Seventh Wonder, Coheed and Cambria, Dream Theater
Picked by: Ian

Reader, I ask you this: do you like big, soaring melodies? How about heartfelt, melodramatic concept albums that build upon said big melodies with bigger, more theatrical reprises? Is your first reaction upon hearing an album lasts for 86 minutes something along the lines of, “Well, if they’ve got enough ideas to fill it out, why not”? Do you have positive opinions towards any of the following: folksy acoustic guitar and mandolin, intricately layered a cappella vocal passages, and/or indie-prog singing lightly seasoned with angst? If you answered “yes” to all of those questions, well, you’re probably just me, and my therapist says I should stop talking to myself so much. But if you resonate with the majority of what I described, definitely check out IV: Timber, a cheesy yet powerful tale of love’s uphill battle against heartache and despair with some of the best damn choruses I’ve heard all year.

You might also like: Adjy, Whale Bones, Good NightOwl
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review

Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean
Recommended for fans of: Behemoth, Solstafir, Enslaved, Cult of Luna, Tool
Picked by: Sam

Returning to and expanding upon their 2017 EP, Schammasch once again grace us with their intense, hypnotic songwriting. Like the previous Maldoror Chant, the emphasis on Old Ocean lies on atmosphere and percussion, and goddamn do they succeed at it. B.A.W goes completely ham behind the kit, making full use of every surface and tension of his instrument as his percussive talents dance around the sonic space like you’re getting a brain massage. The atmosphere is dense and layered with hypnotic chords, both melodic and rhythmical, an incredibly warm bass tone, and pelagic ambience. Furthermore, through Cult of Luna-esque crescendo structures the band reaches some of their highest peaks yet, and thanks to its consistently compelling atmosphere, Old Ocean is a thoroughly engrossing experience.

You might also like: Sermon, Antipope, Dark Fortress, Ultha
Related links:  Bandcamp | Spotify | original review

Non-Subway Picks

Frost* – Life in the Wires [neo-progressive rock] Frost* return with a hefty eighty-five minute double record of synth-soaked, conceptual progressive rock with solos and grooves aplenty. Recalling the style of Milliontown and Falling Satellites, Godfrey, Mitchell, Blundell and King’s powers are undiminished, proving they’re still the most energetic and innovative prog rock group around. A beautiful soundtrack to evaporate to. [pick by: Christopher]

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” [post-rock] Rarely can an artist accomplish both compelling musicianship and a powerful, concise political statement at the same time; NO TITLE does both effortlessly. In true post-rock style, GY!BE leaves the dark implications of the album and song titles to passively sink in as distorted atmospheres float by—sometimes beautiful and hopeful, but just as often dissonant and despairing. [pick by: Doug]

Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible [Mathcore, Alternative Metal] Better Lovers’ Highly Irresponsible is the welcome full-length return of Every Time I Die’s songwriting sensibilities combined with Greg Puciato’s ferocious Dillinger-esque form, effortlessly delivering many of the lovable facets of each group and even finding itself breaching catchy territory on occasion. [pick by: Dave]

The post Our October 2024 Albums of the Month! appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Héctor Pineda

Style: Post-metal, black metal, avant-garde metal (mixed vocals, uhhh, talking?)
Recommended for fans of: Behemoth, Solstafir, Enslaved, Cult of Luna, Tool
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 25 October 2024

Hailing from Switzerland, Schammasch has been one of the most consistently unique black metal acts of the past decade or so. Their debut album was primarily Behemoth worship, but ever since their sophomore, Contradiction in 2014, they’ve become notorious for their intense, hypnotic approach in which they combine a base black/death-ish metal sound with tom-heavy tribal drumming and varying quantities of post-metal, progressive metal, ambient, and a host of other influences. Their new album The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean is a continuation of their 2017 EP The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite, a thirty minute track split into seven parts in which Schammasch explored dark ambient, post-metal, and tribal drumming to create an otherworldly occult experience. Hermaphrodite is my favorite work of theirs, so the question is can Old Ocean live up to its forebear?.

Hypnotizing charm has certainly not left Schammasch—their intense ritualistic playing style remains as engrossing as ever. B.A.W’s percussion is especially crucial for this: his trademark tom-heavy style is played and mixed both superbly and spaciously: you can feel him move around the kit, each drum, tom, and cymbal possessing  their own coordinates in the mix (reminiscent of Baard Kolstad’s performance and sound on Leprous’ The Congregation). The man utilizes the entire kit, so when he lets loose the effect is akin to a brain massage. He also knows restraint, though, showing both a capacity for ambience with cymbal washes and sparse tom rhythms, as he shows the tact to keep the rhythms simple when the song calls for it. Often I find myself so captivated by his playing I forget the rest of the music—if we did awards for instrumental performances, B.A.W would certainly get my vote for drummer of the year.

But enough about drums, let’s talk songwriting. Like on the previous installment, Old Ocean is primarily a post-metal record, embracing Cult of Luna-esque crescendo structures and including more gentle parts, melodies, and clean singing, while most black metal aspects of Schammasch’ sound have been relegated to textural roles, only really coming to the forefront during the climactic parts, while their death metal leanings only shine through in the darker riff that underpins the crescendo of “Your Waters Are Bitter” and in C.S.R’s harsh vocal style. This approach pays enormous dividends because Schammasch are experts at keeping the listener engaged throughout their elongated buildups, consistently developing the atmosphere in interesting ways before any one idea can grow stale, avoiding the most common pitfall of the genre. In this sense, it helps that Schammasch is not a pure post-metal band and has other sources to pull from.

Take “They Have Found Their Master” and its quiet opening two minutes: under the guidance of a fingerpicked melody the atmosphere is developed first with tribal drums and breathy percussive vocals; after a minor crescendo, they up the anticipation with ethereal blackgaze strumming before the track explodes into their intense trademark style. Similarly, opener “Crystal Waves” manages to enthrall the listener for an even longer stretch with its occult atmosphere before any metal comes in, and the gentle interludes “A Somber Mystery” and “Image of the Infinite” are magical, too. Of course, the heavier moments also demonstrate tremendous craftsmanship. Besides B.A.W’s godly drumming, Schammasch uses a triple guitar attack so that each guitarist can cycle through riff, lead, and atmospheric duties depending on what the song needs, creating a densely layered soundscape at all times in which distinct genres can exist simultaneously—the almost power metal lead melody that drives “I Hail You, Old Ocean” particularly standing out amidst the song’s otherwise extreme metal character. With these elements, Schammasch crafts tremendous crescendos in basically every song, and makes the journey towards them compelling as well.

However, there is one minor criticism I have of Old Ocean, which is about C.S.R’s clean singing. He’s decent at it, but it lags behind the quality of his harsh vocals. Furthermore, some of the melody writing is a bit odd. One of the curious things about Old Ocean is that its lyrics really just read like a philosophical essay with little care for vocal melody or fitting the song’s rhythm. To accommodate this, C.S.R spends a lot of time literally just talking into the mic, sometimes in a normal voice, other times growling his speech. The man’s really good at this whole talking shtick, and it fits seamlessly into the band’s occult atmosphere. However in the sung parts, this odd approach to lyric writing can make the melodies sound a bit clunky. “Crystal Waves” does have good vocal melodies, but on “Image of the Infinite” and during the mid-section of  “They Have Found Their Masters” the melodies sit awkwardly in between singing and talking. On the former track C.S.R’s relatively lacking singing abilities are also especially apparent when Kathrine Shepard (Sylvaine) comes in as a guest singer and completely outperforms him. Fortunately, he doesn’t sing a lot on the record, so it’s only a minor blight.

At the end of the day though, my critiques subtract very little from Old Ocean. Schammasch have once again shown why they are one of the most exciting projects in black metal around, as have they proven to be at the forefront of post-metal innovation, delivering a dark, hypnotic, intense, occult, ritualistic experience that is very easy to get lost in. I do slightly prefer Hermaphrodite still for its consistency, but Old Ocean is a very worthy addition to The Maldoror Chants series, and easily one of my favorite albums of the year.

Recommended tracks: Crystal Waves; I Hail You, Old Ocean
You may also like: Sermon, Antipope, Dark Fortress, Ultha
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: Prosthetic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Schammasch is:
– C.S.R (vocals, guitars, bass)
– B.A.W (drums)
– M.A (guitars)
– J.B (guitars)
– P.D (bass)

The post Review: Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal, alternative metal (mixed vocals, majority clean)
Recommended for fans of: Leprous, Kingcrow, Katatonia
Country: Greece
Release date: 4 October, 2024

How can you break out of the patterns and routines which lock you in place? How can you look at what’s happened before and learn the right lessons to change the outcome when you try again? In creative pursuits, as in the rest of one’s life, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut that leads you down the same mental paths time after time. Human nature drives us to follow habits, to embrace the status quo. It’s only by taking a step back and re-evaluating your goals and values that these patterns can be broken, otherwise the same failings and stagnation can only continue. Although this sentiment is much more timely now compared to when Magna Mater actually released last month, it feels fitting for the year 2024 as a whole that Mother of Millions has presented us with another release that largely follows in the footsteps—and particularly the shortcomings—of what came before it.

The guitars are deeper and heftier, and the vocals have matured to greater heights in their strength, but there is little to be found within Magna Mater that wasn’t already covered in 2017’s Sigma or done better in 2019’s Artifacts. The opening track “Inside” transitions quickly from its spacey beginning into the band’s meaty signature combo of guitar and synth. This is the blueprint for the majority of the album: each track’s mood is mostly defined by the vocals, with modulations in tone or timbre offering contrast between somber and energetic productions from one song to the next, but the constant undercurrent is the rhythm section, steadily plodding along in the background but offering little distinction to any track compared to the others. Because of this, the title track stands out as the most memorable (although not the best) of the early tracks due to Antonia Mavronikola’s unique guest vocals which offer ethereal, mysterious contrast to primary singer George Prokopiou’s edgier and more powerful performance. However, even this aesthetically unique song remains largely mired in the same indistinct instrumentals, with little unique appeal to pick out aside from the vocal performances.

Mother of Millions’s music has always felt incredibly emotional (in large part thanks to Prokopiou’s singing), even when the rest of the ensemble can’t quite keep pace with the impact of his fathomless voice. Magna Mater deepens the intensity of that primary performance, but the band’s expressive capabilities as a whole still lag behind their ambition. Although the backing rhythm parts of each track do an adequate job of supporting the emotion of the vocals, they rarely combine in unique or memorable ways that create a moment greater than the sum of the recorded musical notes; this is quite a letdown compared to their prior release, Artifacts, which showed much more variety in the instrumental parts and better used the harmony of vocal and instrumental parts to produce an array of different personalities and meanings for its songs. In many ways it seems Mother of Millions might benefit from a more post-rock-esque style to accompany Prokopiou’s performance; in moments like the first minute of “Irae,” where the instrumentals fade into a passive background of keyboard-led soundscapes, his singing—finally freed of petty distractions—comfortably outshines anything that the guitar, bass, or drums put forward in the preceding seven tracks.

Funnily enough, it’s the closing tracks which give the most substantial glimpse into Mother of Millions’s potential for revolution, waving goodbye with a cheeky wink and just a suggestion of the innovation the earlier songs could have achieved. The aforementioned first half of “Irae” builds its own unique atmosphere to support gentle vocals with equally gentle piano and drums, while the second half puts me in mind of Leprous (from the Pitfalls era and beyond) with its impressive, climactic buildup; perhaps Mother of Millions could learn some key lessons from their equally vocalist-focused peer. “Irae” puts Prokopiou through a set of exercises beyond anything else to be found in Magna Mater, beginning with his trademark soft rock sweetness but ending with hard-edged, almost hardcore-punk cries that leverage his surprisingly harsh tones combined with driving, unrelenting rhythms to produce the best and most emotional moments from the album by far. Afterwards, “Space” is appropriately one of the few songs to offer space for Prokopiou’s commanding vocals to take on the leading role they were meant for, still dominant despite the softer tone of this particular song, a reminder of the band’s core musical strength but also how underrepresented it has been throughout Magna Mater.

For all the great vocal work and emotional content which runs throughout the album, Magna Mater makes little effort to take steps forward or in any other direction. Content to settle into their well worn groove, Mother of Millions play to their core strength in George Prokopiou’s singing, but fail to advance their instrumental accompaniment in ways that could support him even better. While the closing tracks “Irae” and “Space” show a flash of inspiration and novelty, the rest don’t offer any great contrast with each other or with the band’s past works. May we all learn this lesson from Magna Mater’s shortcomings: the ability to move forward, to enact real change, starts with re-evaluating the choices and patterns that brought us to where we are now, and then taking bold steps to break out of habits and move in a new direction.

Recommended tracks: Inside, Feral, Irae, Space
You may also like: Haven of Echoes, Mantra, Riviẽre, In the Silence, Traverser
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: ViciSolum – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Mother of Millions is:
– George Prokopiou (vocals)
– Kostas Konstantinidis (guitars)
– Panos Priftis (bass)
– George Boukaouris (drums, keyboards)
With guest:
– Antonia Mavronikola (additional vocals, “Magna Mater”)

The post Review: Mother of Millions – Magna Mater appeared first on The Progressive Subway.