Style: deathgaze, progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Fallujah, Rivers of Nihil, Devin Townsend, Ne Obliviscaris
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 25 April 2025

I’ve been a regular listener of Kardashev since discovering The Almanac back in 2018, when my taste for progressive death metal was still in its fetal stage. The band’s unique blend of deathcore-adjacent breakdowns and effervescent atmospherics that they dubbed “deathgaze” was something new to my ears, and in the time since that release I’ve yet to hear another group achieve a mixture quite so potent. Since that landmark EP, Kardashev has been busy, releasing The Baring of Shadows in 2020 and Liminal Rite in 2022—the latter of which, especially the track “Compost Grave-Song,” became a mainstay in my listening. Now, Kardashev returns with Alunea, a supposed sequel to The Almanac. Do the Arizonans deliver the goods, or is Alunea a deathgaze dud?

If there’s one thing you can always trust Kardashev to nail, it’s their atmosphere. Thanks to the band’s combination of cinematic riffage, heavy-handed production, and the seemingly endless array of guttural techniques at the disposal of vocalist Mark Garrett, each build-up feels like an event. From the symphonic-tinged intro of “A Precipice. A Door.” that begins the album to the reverb and delay-laden climaxes of tracks like “Reunion” and “Below Sun & Soil,” the album delivers frisson-inducing peak after peak. While this is standard fare for any Kardashev release, Alunea continues the trend that began on Liminal Rite and sees the band add even more  technical death metal elements to their already vast sonic territory. Tracks like “Truth to Form” and “We Could Fold the Stars” each have moments that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Fallujah record, and these moments go a long way in diversifying the album’s pacing.

Within the context of progressive death metal, and especially compared to its predecessor Liminal Rite, Alunea is a lean record. Clocking in at forty-two minutes, the album forgoes the genre-typical trappings of atmospheric track transitions and lengthy intro buildups, instead getting right to the meat of each track with next to no downtime. In fact, the only transitional element to be found occurs at the end of “Truth to Form,” but even that only serves to amplify the pounding intro of follow-up track “Edge of Forever.” This no-frills approach is a double-edged sword for Alunea, as I find myself engaging with each new track but struggling to engage with the album’s concept or get invested in the album’s flow. For any normal metal release, this would scarcely be criticism, but I can’t help but want a little more concept in a sequel to a conceptual progressive death metal EP from a band as consistent as Kardashev.

Unfortunately, like many of the inter-track transitions, many of the transitions found within individual tracks on this album are too jarring for me to reconcile as a listener, even after multiple listens. While the reasons for my distaste are undoubtedly multitudinous, I can’t help but see one primary culprit: Mark Garrett’s vocals are too varied. That may seem ridiculous, but before you call bullshit, listen to any track off this album and count how many distinct guttural and clean vocal timbres hit your ears; you’ll need two hands at least. This is almost certainly due to a combination of Kardashev‘s beginnings as a pure deathcore act and the recent push from -core adjacent bands towards what has come to be known as “vocal olympics.” (Thank you, Lorna Shore!) The end result is the same as if the guitarists were dancing on their pedalboard for the entire track, constantly switching distortion sounds in what seems to be the middle of a riff. It’s that kind of thing that once you hear it, cannot be unheard.

If you are already a fan of Kardashev, you will like Alunea; I know I do. But I don’t see this album converting too many new fans. Where Kardashev’s previous releases were just as heavy and atmospheric as Alunea, they also had a much more coherent vibe. I understand that some may have called those previous releases bloated, but Alunea is an overcorrection in my eyes. In trimming the fat, Kardashev may have lost a bit of their soul. Here’s to hoping that this is just a blip in their discography and that the Arizonans once again find their footing on the next release.

Recommended tracks: Reunion, Seed of the Night
You may also like: An Abstract Illusion, Slice the Cake, Iotunn, Caelestra
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Metal Blade Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Kardashev is:
– Nico Mirolla (guitars)
– Mark Garrett (vocals)
– Alex Rieth (bass)
– Sean Lang (drums)
With guests:
– Erin Dawson (vocals)
– Pawel JJ Przybysz (duduk)

The post Review: Kardashev – Alunea appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: dissonant death metal, black metal, electronica (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ulcerate, Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Gojira
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 28 February 2025

In my mind, the main feature (other than quality) that separates one dissonant death metal release from another is headiness. Some bands like Replicant are content to stay low to the earth, punishing any who come near with raw brutality, while others leave their earthly constraints and instead push dissodeath towards the cerebral; see Pyrrhon and Scarcity. In the middle, you get bands like Ulcerate and Convulsing that infuse elements from across the spectrum into their sound to create music equally confounding as it is crushing, and this alluring middle ground is where Light Dweller’s The Subjugate falls.

Stylistically, Light Dweller employs a shade of dissonant death metal on The Subjugate most similar to that of Convulsing’s masterful Perdurance from last year. Uniquely contrapuntal riffs weave in and upon themselves as the interminable drumming blasts away atop a bed of cacophonous atmospherics, but—like all the dissodeath I love—the album maintains a devotion to the mighty riff. From the harmonious guitar work of the opening track that sounds as though entirely different songs are playing from the left and right channels, to the tasteful ebb and flow of the breakdowns on songs like “Cessation of Time” and the Tool-like percussive riffage on tracks like “Fracturing Light” and “Passing Through the Veil,” there’s no shortage of unique and creative riffs on The Subjugate. In general, the riffs here feel more groove oriented, as if Morbid Angel’s sound never stopped evolving, and when Alex Haddad (Dessiderium, Arkaik) lends the album his tasteful lead work, the songs take on an even more technical edge. Even as the tracks venture into the realms of electronica with synthesized drum beats, haunting flute, and brainy synths, there’s always a killer riff waiting in the wings to bring it all back home to a familiar death metal base.

The balance between The Subjugate’s degenerate and cerebral qualities is what allows the album to truly shine. In fact, The Subjugate achieves an emulsification of metal subgenres here more successfully than any death metal act in recent memory, and I find my attention only broken by the unfortunately common additions of electronic drumming. There are certainly gaps in my electronic knowledge that keep me from fully contextualizing the ideas the album puts forth, but the manner in which the electronic drums never seemed to settle into a steady beat made each moment they appeared feel somewhat meandering, as if lacking a goal to push towards. There are a few moments like the spliced buildup of the intro of “Fracturing Light” that push the album towards a more cogent fusion of death metal and electronica, but these moments don’t outshine my distaste for the electronic drums as a whole.

Blessedly, the somewhat poor integration of the electronic elements into The Subjugate’s sound allows me to look past them and simply enjoy the dissodeath that the album has on offer, and it is really stellar stuff. I constantly find myself headbanging to every track, and by the time this rather lean album finishes up, I instantly feel the urge to spin it again, chasing those giddy glimpses into the album’s unfathomable riffage. As a fellow acolyte of the mighty riff, it truly warms my heart to see a band taking the riff heritage of bands like MorbidAngel—or Gojira for a more modern reference—and pushing it into the future. One inverted power chord and pick scrape at a time, Light Dweller, along with bands like Convulsing, Replicant, and Wormhole, are pushing metal riffing into the future, and there’s no telling where they may end up. Thankfully, we have The Subjugate as a stepping stone to help us along the way.

Recommended tracks: Adrift the Expanding Nothingness, Fracturing Light, Cessation of Time
You may also like: Convulsing, Warforged, Replicant, Sacrificial Vein, Luminous Vault, Artificial Brain
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Unorthodox Emanations of Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook

Light Dweller is:
– Cameron Boesch (everything)

The post Review: Light Dweller – The Subjugate appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Adam Burke

Style: Progressive death metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium, Disillusion, Kardashev, Wintersun, Wilderun
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 14 March 2025

“Hope is a stupid concept” – Andy, 2025

Dune, by Frank Herbert, is in my humble opinion, the greatest book ever written. A story of a young boy turned chosen one messiah is played so painfully realistic that Herbert then had to write a whole sequel book for those who missed the arguably blatant point. Hope is dangerous, and do not put blind faith in those who sell it to you. It’s what makes Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation all the more perfect, complete with people who, again, clearly missed the point. In an age of unparalleled growth for all forms of media, the art of catharsis has been lost in the doldrums of “content”. Dune puts characters through the wringer, and by the end, Paul Atreides is not the character you started with, having lost all that made him human in the pursuit of revenge. Paul, like the audience, wants catharsis.

Dune is not a happy story, and like all good science fiction, serves as a warning. It should make you upset, despite an incredibly satisfying endpoint. Dessiderium—and by extension, its one-man member Alex Haddad—is no stranger to the concept of catharsis, being as familiar as he is with literary devices. The one man project, despite the usual symphonic/prog-death flair, has become an outlet for Haddad to write music set to poetry and poetry set to huge riffs. Sounding as pretentious as I am, Dessiderium tends to be a lot more literary than other bands of the same nature. This material is a reflection of Haddad’s ten-year journey, with a lot of it written far prior to masterpieces Shadow Burn and Aria. Hence why I’m going to be treating Keys to the Palace as a third part in his (possibly unintentional) thematic trilogy.

The aforementioned two, the latter of which became my AOTY in 2021, are bleak albums. The former is conceptually about flirting with suicide and seemingly unimaginable despair, while Aria is the story of a man who retreats into his dreams to escape the real world. While Aria ends on the protagonist’s self-reflection of all he has become, his implied mental state seems to be less than functional. Haddad has been candid that these albums were inspired by life events, and Keys to the Palace is now a reflection of how he sees the world in his current state. I think this context, and listening to the past two albums, not only enhances the experience of listening to Keys but is essential to grasping the full concept.

The word I’d use to describe this album is frolic, which is just as odd as it sounds for an album in the prog-death subgenre. Aria was incredibly unique with its use of the major scale riffing to conceptually convey fleeting happiness, but almost all of Keys is in major. From the first chugging notes of ‘In the Midst of May’, and even between Haddad’s vicious growls, there’s a conceptual optimism to the record that hasn’t been found on Dessiderium prior. Speaking of Haddad’s vocals, his cleans are much more forward this time around, having been purposefully drenched in reverb and murk on the last albums. He projects his triumphant cleans with the album’s first bit of explosive, sing-songy nature after its first blast beat. I’ll be completely honest and say some of the changes outright baffled me upon first listen. The black metal sections that made Shadow Burn and Aria special are all but eschewed, as well as the distinctly Opethian songwriting. Instead, Keys sounds distinctly like Yes as much as it does Wintersun in the way it flourishes, with every song firing at all cylinders and never stopping to take a breather.

This makes Keys an overwhelming first, second, and thirteenth listen. The atmospheric tricks and undeniably perfect pacing of Aria are what made the album special to me, but little did I know Keys is very intentional with its nature. The album, at its core, is about childhood whimsy. Alex Haddad, now a big adult with big adult responsibilities, reminisces on the times when the world seemed a little less scary. He—in this case, the narrator—meets his adult self, who shows him a vision of the future. The very last line of the album, “What have you done to me?”, is the child narrator responding in abject horror at the world he’s been shown. Keys to the Palace is not as overly joyous and frolicking as it first appears—it’s still a Dessiderium album, after all. However, Alex Haddad has had a cathartic moment, scattering dissonance within major scale riffing, symbolizing his union of fond childhood memories with facing his future head-on. Even the very first notes of the album are a dissonant cacophony of MIDI instruments, hinting of the messaging to come.

‘Pollen for the Bees’, quite possibly my favorite Dessiderium song to date, is an exemplary showing of Haddad’s sprawling songwriting. Instrumentally, it’s the heaviest and most grandiose on Keys, while also showcasing the perfect blending of black metal a la blog favorite, Hands of Despair. ‘Pollen for the Bees’ is a perfect midpoint following two songs that showcase Haddad at some of his most complex and challenging riffing, and a great example of dissonance in the major scale that’s all over the album. After practically breaking through the sound barrier with relentless drumming and riffs, ‘A Dream That Wants Me Dead’ is a welcome slower piece, as the narrative begins to reach its thematic climax. It and ‘Magenta’ serve as a calm before the storm, with the narrator desperately trying desperately to keep his childhood innocence intact. The latter only begins to ramp up towards the end, with an infectious lyrical refrain and trem-picked riff sending out the song in style. 

The sixteen minute epic title track is where this album should collapse under its own weight. Beginning with a slow, ascending and descending guitar backed by MIDI strings, the song evokes a similar feel to Aria’s ‘White Morning in a World She Knows’, appearing to start and stop at a moment’s notice, expertly building atmosphere over the lyricless first four minutes. The sing-song section nine minutes in should seem silly, yet it’s executed incredibly. Alex Haddad knows ending on an epic is a gamble, especially after such a long album, and ensures that each section is as memorable as it is unique. The shredding guitar solo that comes two minutes after should seem over-indulgent, but it’s done with grace and never overstays its welcome. The section that dominates the last three minutes sounds like an overly happy ‘One-Winged Angel’ homage, and I couldn’t think of anything better to end on, especially with regard to the final bit of juxtaposing lyricism. 

Keys to the Palace serves as a warning not to get lost in thoughts of hope and better times. It is the story of a boy shown the future and trying his very hardest to fight against what is to come, only to eventually succumb to the perils of adulthood, as we all do. While the narrator does not end up becoming a genocidal emperor, nor a man who is too far gone in his own dream world, we can only conclude that the experience will have a permanent effect on him. He’s forced to experience his own cathartic moment, realizing that he will grow up one day and become an imperfect adult. Haddad doesn’t ask the listener to stay in their own world, but to experience their own catharsis through discomfort. This is a different beast than Aria, and despite the same creator, they set out to do very different things and succeed. Keys to the Palace has cemented Haddad not just as someone who knows the Opeth formula, but as someone who has created his own. He looked back in time, to material written nearly ten years ago, and finally found the place for an overdue emotional release. His mind didn’t stay put, and he was confident enough that one day, this would find its place within his own expression. If the Key to his catharsis was looking backwards in time, and warning against such things in the album itself, then I hope he keeps looking to the horizon. 

Recommended tracks: Dover Hendrix, Pollen for the Bees, Keys to the Palace, Magenta
You may also like: An Abstract Illusion, Orgone, Hands of Despair, Epiphanie, Cormorant
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Dessiderium is:
– Alex Haddad (Guitar, bass, vocals, strings, MIDI)
– Brody Smith (drum programming)

The post Review: Dessiderium – Keys to the Palace appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

It’s worth noting that this was more conversational than the interviews we’ve done in the past. As such, I will do my very best to translate our conversation into questions and answers. If anything gets lost in translation, Alex has my email to send hate mail to.

Hey Alex! Keys to the Palace comes out next week. How are you feeling on the record’s release?

Good, man! It’s kinda trippy, like the music is quite old. I wrote this stuff when I first moved to Arizona, which was ten years ago. So, the fact that it’s coming out now is kinda relieving, I’d say.

I’m sure it is. How’d you know what to keep rolling with these past ten years?

With these songs specifically? I would say it’s the first material where it feels like I’m offering something unique. Everything before this album, when I was writing in high school, was much more…just any band I was in love with at the time. The stuff I write would sound like them. With Keys to the Palace, I felt like I was stumbling upon something original sounding. I never doubted that it was going to come out one day. Initially, I’d planned for it to come out before Aria, before Shadow Burn was even a thing. You know? Life just happens and things change. When I finished Aria I said, “OK, time to finally record this album.” I’m always writing music all the time. So, if I love something, I always plan on releasing it. There are songs that are just as old that I want to put on an album one day. Not so much cutting stuff, just preserving it and waiting until the time is right.

I’ve had Keys to the Palace for a few months now, the day ‘Dover Hendrix’ came out, and I was taken aback at how different it sounded. It had a completely different sound to Aria and Shadow Burn, and a lot cheerier. I remember you saying something about “summertime metal” or something like that—

Summertime soul metal.

Yeah! Why the sudden change?

It’s funny to talk about, with the music being older than both the last two releases. So, I just have to think about what I was listening to at the time. I was coming off a two-year binge of everything Devin Townsend. Strapping Young Lad and all of his solo stuff I was obsessed with. Really, the only other artist I’ve been like that with is Opeth, which is more in Aria. I never got too into the instrumental djent thing, but I remember being in love with a project called Chimp Spanner. I liked Cloudkicker at the time, Animals as Leaders, Joy of Motion came out and just blew my mind. It was a lot of the stuff that was a little bit brighter sounding stuff I was listening to. I was also channeling a lot of my older melodeath influences, Children of Bodom, Wintersun and Ensiferum. It’s kind of a mix of all that more triumphant sound.

The first thing I noticed was Keys is more maximalist than Aria and Shadow Burn, to the point where I was almost waiting for those slower sections to kick in. While the songs do have those, I feel that everything is firing off at all cylinders.

More explosive.

Way more explosive! I find the Strapping Young Lad comparisons interesting, because while this record is cheery, I find that it’s got a lot of your heaviest riffing.

Yeah! Groove wise and everything, it’s less of the last two albums, which was embracing my love of black metal, shoegaze and creating a schmear of sound. This one’s more riffy. More of a riff-fest, I think.

How’d you balance those heavy riffs and cheery atmosphere?

I guess that’s where Devin Townsned’s always been such a huge influence on me. His sense of harmony isn’t what you typically associate with death metal, at all. He always says he feels like Enya mixed with metal, and I’ve always been inspired by that. Ultimately, I don’t relate much to evil sounding metal harmony. I like some of it, but the first thing I loved about death metal, and hearing ‘Hammer Smashed Face’ for the first time was the rhythms. Just how heavy it is, the parts that make you want to windmill. I love that aspect of metal but when I’m talking harmony, I’m inspired by stuff that doesn’t have to do with metal at all. It’s just marrying the two together.

What about non-metal influences on Dessiderium?

Video game soundtracks. I could never say that enough, always a huge influence. Legend of Zelda soundtrack, Final Fantasy, Xenogears, all this stuff.

I hear a lot of Nobuo Uematsu.

Yeah, I love a lot of his soundtracks, all of it’s huge. I love a lot of soul and R&B type music; I’m not like a collector of albums but all the Spotify playlists I listen to are all that stuff. I’m very into rich harmonies that come from that whole world. More romantic sounding stuff, really.

Shadow Burn and Aria are very much channeling that evil sound. I guess that style of songwriting lends itself to a build-up and release approach, but there’s not much of that on Keys to the Palace. There’s a whole lot of “go”. Did those soul and R&B rhythm influences bleed into the riff-writing process?

I’d say more so that style influences the sense of harmonies and chord progressions that I build. The vocal harmonies, and that kind of thing. There’s way more clean singing on this album, and it comes from the fact that I love singing along to that kind of music in my car, and I wanted to do more of that. I felt like this music called for more singing in general, because it’s not as sinister sounding. I like harsh vocals, but there’s a lot more room to be creative with singing for this album.

One of the big things I noticed was that your clean vocals seem to be projected a lot more on this album, as opposed to those last two where they sort of blend into the background. Even the production sounds less murky, hazy, black metal-y. Was that you sort of stumbling around trying to figure something new out?

That’s a good question! I’m not going to say the production was against my will, because that’s not the case. I’m kind of a noob when it comes to audio production. The guy who mixed and mastered it, Mendel, did the last two albums, and I’ve learned to trust his process and what he pictures for it. When he sent the first mix, though, it felt too “in my face” in a way. I’m used to having the singing more blended, but when I showed a bunch of friends they said the style of singing calls for it to be in front of the mix. That’s taken me a lot to get used to, because I’m not that confident of a singer. I sometimes think it could’ve been more blended at times, but overall I’m happy that it’s a different sound, rather than just repeating what we did with the last two.

You still used Brody Smith as a drum programmer. I’m not sure if you write the drums and send them to him, or if he writes and programs them for you.

I have ideas of how I want the drums to sound. So, I send him a rough track, and then he goes crazy with it, and I tell him what I want to keep or what he can go farther with.

So, why programmed drums?

The project is such a “bedroom project”, I haven’t had many opportunities to take it on the road. There’s not a lot of return financially for it, so I value the fact that we can do something budget-friendly. Honestly, I hate giving this as an excuse, but a lot of bands will just resample their drums, even when they do perform them live in the studio. So, to have that option to work with someone like Brody who can make it sound as if—he confuses a lot of people, a lot of people don’t even think they’re programmed.

I didn’t know. I had no idea initially.

That’s a luxury of today’s tech that I take advantage of. For the next album, we’re talking about him playing live drums. Because there’s something special about that too, of course. It’s just been convenience, really.

Despite you saying that it’s a bedroom project, you now have a live band. How was that whole process of figuring out these humongous songs live?

I had to find people who I knew could play them! Everything we’ve done has been with a different drummer. Jay, who plays bass, was going to fill in for Arkaik, but that never happened. I knew he was an amazing bass player, so I remembered him. I discovered his brother, Ben, from Instagram. I was like, “Dude, is that your brother? He shreds really hard!” The guy who I share harsh vocals with, his name is Cameron, and him and I have been doing a project for ten years now called Nullingroots, and he’s had a project called Light Dweller. He’s really showcasing how crazy of a vocalist he is.

You’ve got Nullingroots, Arkaik, and a ton of other projects. Did any of those outside influences bleed into the album in a way?

No, just because I’ve been doing Dessiderium for so much longer. That’s my heart and soul, and with Arkaik and Nullingroots it’s been joining a band and trying to fit my way into that sound. I’m playing in Atheist now, too, so that’s got a whole legacy behind it that I’m trying to fit into. But Dessiderium is me in my most musical, pure form.

You’ve been talking about re-releasing your debut album, Life was a Blur for a while now. Tell me about that.

Yeah, I hate how that album sounds. It’s a constant reminder that I didn’t know what I was doing back then, but I still like the music. It’s not music I’d write anymore, but I have a lot of nostalgia with those songs. I just want them to exist where people can actually enjoy listening to them, because the music’s pretty cool. I started that back when COVID hit and quarantine was happening, and I thought it’d be a nice little project, but then I started writing Shadow Burn and that took all my energy. It’s almost done! I just need to redo vocals for it, maybe have Brody redo the drums. There’s just so much other stuff happening that it’s easy to put on the backburner. I do plan on releasing it one day.

Not sure if you know them, Lykathea Aflame?

Yeah!

They’re one of the only death metal bands I’ve heard that use major scale riffing, and one of the things I noted in my review of Aria was there was a lot of major scale stuff in that album. There’s even more in Keys. Can you talk a little bit about going against the conventional metal riff-writing vein and how that fits into writing death metal songs?

Keys to the Palace is almost entirely in major key, the entire time. I think that major key has a stereotype of sounding happy, and I think that’s an insult because harmony’s way more complex than that! To me, writing emotional stuff in a major key creates that bittersweet feeling, which is my favorite feeling to capture in music. You can do that in minor, of course, but I feel that harmony in major key is really beautiful. Especially practicing some dissonance in that too. It’s that weird distortion of happy feelings that I’m attracted to.

There’s a lot of dissonance on Keys, and I really don’t understand how you make major key sound so heavy, but I guess that’s just the magic of it.

It’s not something I’ve thought too much about. I have my metal influences, and they can come through rhythmically and groove-wise, and dissonance wise even. But you apply that to a major key and it’s got a foreign feel for metal music.

You’ve been very outspoken about Opeth, and how much you love them. There’s a lot of Opeth influence on the older music, but there’s basically none on the new album. It seems that you, more or less, took the reins and went in blind. A lot of the prog-death stuff takes Opeth as the holy grail for a reason, but aside from the song lengths, I didn’t find Keys to sound like Opeth at all. What changed in the formula to make it sound a little less Opeth?

I have to remember, I’m writing a lot of this stuff back in 2014. Wintersun, one of my favorite bands, had just put out Time I. I think it came out in 2012? Hearing the three songs on that album, these massive epic songs. Especially track two, ‘Suns of Winter and Stars’, just like an epic multi-movement song. Still riffs super hard, without being in the Opeth way of repeating a chord progression for a while—which I love—but that inspired me and compounded with my love for old prog rock. That can be very riffy as well, but hearing those power metal riffs in the context of these almost fifteen minute songs…I think I’d be lying if I said that album wasn’t a part of my DNA when writing Keys.

It’s been fifteen years since you started Dessiderium. What has changed as far as going from that first demo tape you released—that I had to scour the internet for—

Is it there somewhere?

It’s on Youtube, if you wanna go find it.

No thanks.

How has the music evolved since that first demo and full-length to now?

When that demo came out, I actually had a live lineup at the time. I was obsessed with the idea of making a band out of it, touring, doing all the band things. It never really panned out the way I wanted it to. Also, a huge thing is I finally finished the first album, and I saw a few people commenting on it, even people who like it said I needed to find a mixing engineer. Suddenly, I went “Oh my god, I’m hearing it with their ears”, and I was disappointed by how it came out. It was right when I finished high school and I was going to university right after, so I stepped away from music for a little bit. I tuned in to other things in life. I was such a hermit with music in high school, and I missed a lot of experiences. So, I was trying to make up for that in college. But I ended up writing a shit-ton of music all throughout college. When I finished, I had to get back into it. Joining Arkaik also thrust me back into it, playing music, and learning from how those guys recorded, I applied it to my own music and made a good sounding album.

With the music evolving, there’s also been more symphonics added each album. There’s layers of MIDI instrumentals going on in the album, despite a real piano being used on ‘Dover Hendrix’ and ‘Pollen ForThe Bees’. Is this tapping into the video game OST influence, or is it merely for cost and time efficiency? 

Yeah, you nailed it. Both of those things are true. I would really like to get into making orchestrations, because you can make them sound real. Some of the future stuff I’m working on is going to dip into that. Doing four or five albums with the same kind of MIDI sounds is getting a little…I don’t want to say stale, but predictable. I’ve always leaned into the fact that it sounds more video game-like if I use the MIDI instruments, and if I don’t mess with them that much. I just let a fake synth sound like a fake synth, or the strings sound super not realistic. Not like Septicflesh where it sounds like a huge orchestra, kind of lean into that cheaper, fake sound.

What other video game composers can you say influenced you on the album?

I always have to shout out Stewart Copeland for his Spyro soundtrack. That’s so huge for me, specifically the level Lofty Castle. The music in that level is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. Just really whimsical piano melodies, where all the intervals are spread apart, and it’s one of those things that I think about all the time. Especially when I program piano parts.

Are you drawn to a lot of these composers because of the more maximalist approach of how the Japanese composers tend to write their music?

Yeah, yeah. As opposed to the dungeon synth-y stuff. JRPGs feel very inspired by old prog rock, with those beautiful, magical flute melodies over string movements. I’m addicted to the formula, and I think they’re unmatched in terms of how well they match the atmosphere of whatever part of the game you’re at. That whole relationship of music and listening to these soundtracks while I’m not playing the game, I feel like I’m part of the world, and that’s the beautiful, escapist part of music to me. Those composers do that the best for me.

You have a lot more of a poetic approach to lyrical writing. It seems like it’s less standard metal lyric writing, and it almost feels like something that you’ve written in stream of consciousness and you stick it in songs where you think it fits. What about literary influences?

I’m way more inspired by that than a lot of other bands. There’s been certain big books for me…Vladimir Nabokov is one of my favorite writers, so his style I feel like I straight up copied for a while. Very inspired by his writing. Even guys like David Foster Wallace, that brutally transparent kind of writing. Whatever I’m reading at the time that I’m touched by has found a way into my writing style. I’ve also always been into writing, I like journaling. I’m more into a transparent, vulnerable kind of writing style. To me, I can’t write like a sci-fi thing, because I don’t see the point of doing it. It’s typically when I’m down in the dumps that I write well, because momentarily I don’t care about people reading it and can just be real. It’s funny that you said stream of consciousness, because I have vocal patterns in mind that I get really attached to, so it’s like filling in the blanks. Oftentimes, I’ll keep cutting it down until I can fit the vocal patterns.

Do you ever find great ideas for a lyric while you’re journaling?

Uh, no, not really. If I’m like, in my feels and listening to a song I made, I’ll just get the urge to put pen to paper and see if something comes out that adequately represents what the song is making me feel.

You worked with Adam Burke for the past two albums now, and this was the first commissioned piece from him. Tell me about the process.

For Aria, he already had the piece done. I saw it, and I was just like, “That’s the front cover, that’s perfect”. I bought that one, but with this one, I wanted the art to resemble a park I grew up near called Dover Hendrix. It’s kind of like a big symbol for the album. I sent him a picture that I took and he recreated it. I wanted the sewage gate tunnel, instead of being a sewage gate, to be a portal into the future. A different world. It’s about the sunny area that’s completely based off that park.

Like Aria, this is a concept album, and you seem to be very explicit in mentioning Dover Hendrix. This seems to have a recurring theme of childhood and a more hopeful or uplifting message than Aria does. I’m not the greatest at analyzing lyrical concepts, so could you tell me a little about the concept?

Initially, when I was writing it, those ten years ago when I was new to Arizona, the first song I wrote was ‘Dover Hendrix’. That song just conjured up so many nostalgic feelings for me, and it was the first time I lived in a new place away from where I grew up. I was writing all the music as a tribute to all the happy memories I had during childhood. I had a very fortunate childhood, I almost view it as a heaven on earth thing, a time of serenity. But now that I’m finally doing the album closer to age thirty, it felt weird talking about childhood, I’m a little far removed from that. It became this concept where it’s like the child self and the adult self meet, and the adult self relearns the value of life from his child self, but also the child self gets to peer into the future and get that first sense of anxiety. Dark things to come. That tension between the two.

I feel that the album’s central message is along the lines of “it’s going to be a struggle, but it’ll all be ok in the end”.

Yeah, I’d say the album ends on a neutral note. The end of the last song gets pretty dark, and musically it’s pretty bright, but the last line is “What did you do to me?”, which is supposed to be the child self asking the adult self how things went wrong. There’s no clear victory, it’s just “OK that’s what we talked about for this album and now it’s done”. Just acceptance of everything.

Lighting round! Any favorite smaller bands that you want to shout out?

Oh, man. I’d have to think. A few of them aren’t even active anymore, I think. One of them is a band called Bal-Sagoth. They haven’t been active for a while, but I listen to them all the time! I discovered them back in 2018-2019. If you’re into fantasy metal, power metal, melodeath, check them out. Best use of keyboards I’ve ever heard. Another band called Lunar Aurora, another band I’ve spent so much time with that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I think they disbanded too. There’s gonna be a million others that I’m gonna remember and be upset I didn’t shout them out.

Favorite Final Fantasy game and character?

Favorite game is FF7, I know it’s a generic answer. It’s the first one I played, and I got into JRPGs kinda late. All those games were really overwhelming when I was six or seven, with all the reading. They’re huge! Towards the end of high school, I revisited my collection and that’s when I got into them. Favorite character? The knight from FF9, the big dude, Steiner. He just cracks me up. But also, Aerith from 7, powerful storyline.

If you could be transported into one fictional world, where would it be and why?

Oh, dude, damn. The obvious one would be Lofty Castle from Spyro 2. It’s responsible for the reason I love the color pink. The skies are all this beautiful pink. That whole world, Dreamweavers, from Spyro 1, that’s been a magical place for me for a long time. Any others would probably be from Zelda. Maybe Lake Hylia from Twilight Princess or the Fields of Hyrule.

What are some of the albums that have been on heavy rotation for you recently?

I’ve been slacking on music recently, if I’m being honest. I’ve listened to Time II a ton. I bought the whole package because I’m a die hard nerd for that band, and I’ve been listening to the battle album, I think that’s what it’s called? [Fantasy Metal Project by Jari Mäenpää] It feels like where Ensiferum left off. The new Opeth album, I’ve been listening to that. I’m not in love with it, but it’s some of the best stuff I’ve heard from them in years. Classical, post-romantic stuff. Arnold Schoenberg. Not a whole lot of albums.

My thanks to Alex for his time and taking part in this interview. Keys to the Palace drops March 14th on Willowtip Records, and you can go read the review now! I, and everyone else at the Subway, wish him a very happy release day and thank him for the amazing music he’s put out!

Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | | Metal-Archives Page

The post Interview: Alex Haddad (Dessiderium) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos

Style: Avant-Garde Black Metal (Harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Imperial Triumphant, Oranssi Pazuzu
Country: United States-AZ
Release date: 28 February 2025

Babe wake up, the new project from Cerulean mastermind Stephen Knapp just dropped! Er well, rather, it might be better not to let this one anywhere near your sleep schedule. The self-titled debut from Sleep Paralysis is a terrifying gripper of an album that is simultaneously bombastically thrilling and deeply insidious. Aptly named, Sleep Paralysis is a concept album designed to explore the themes of sleep paralysis and anxiety and does a damn good job of inducing anxiety of its own. Swirling, cacophonous guitar playing pushes forward at a frenzied pace, leaving the listener scarcely a moment to catch their breath. Strange perversions of familiar songwriting tropes from a multitude of styles inflicts a reeling confusion. 

The opener “Last Drop of Sunlight” sounds like what listening to a Chopin etude in the Backrooms might feel like, setting the tone by immediately introducing one of the mainstays of this record: programmed piano. Programmed instruments are always a gamble on whether they end up working or not, but there is a manic attention to detail that sets this particular use case apart. The music here sounds feasibly playable by a real person, the dynamics are believable, but the most impressive aspect is the artificial use of a sostenuto pedal. The way the bass notes continue to slightly ring underneath the rest of the performance is convincingly authentic, though it may just be a happy coincidence of certain production choices. At times during later tracks, subtlety is thrown to the wind and the piano is just another tool adding to the hysteria, but this just reinforces the notion that these details are intentional. “Last Drop of Sunlight” ends with some Debussy-esque arpeggios that lead into “Sleep Paralysis”, introducing a second programmed instrument: the drums. These are handled with much less subtlety, but end up working in Sleep Paralysis’ favor, adding to the frantic surrealism.

As Sleep Paralysis continues playing out its runtime it only ramps up this feeling of phantasmagoria as if—get this—you were experiencing sleep paralysis. The bold experimentation on this album pays off practically every time; the songs throw curveball after curveball, and that Sleep Paralysis never becomes grating or fatiguing is a testament to the quality of the songwriting, especially considering how maximalist the experience is. Lead single “Helplessness” sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse took too much acid, started playing a song, and then just kind of forgot what they were doing and started vamping on the intro idea. I love how this piece makes you lose track of the time feel through the constantly rising melodic pattern, making a sort of DIY shepard tone for the vocals to swirl within. 

“Sleep Paralysis” wears its influences with pride: gross (in a good way) Imperial Triumphant-esque quarter note guitar chords punch under the main riff idea, exploding with a jarring energy that feels like a rabid animal scratching against a wall. “You Can Never Run Fast Enough” has a weirdly jaunty intro that turns into a swing feel, eventually leading to a skittering piano solo with the drums just fucking blasting behind it; “Stress” is like a fucked up Joplin ragtime; and “Fever Dream II – Paranoia” sounds like the soundtrack to a cursed Nintendo game cartridge taken straight out of a bad creepypasta. The familiarity littered through all of these tracks is mangled and twisted into an alien amalgamation of what we expect these things to sound like, as if you were listening to them in an alternative mirrored world. 

Also helping along the violated feeling of familiarity is Knapp’s vocal performance, utilizing black metal vocal techniques, guttural yells, gasps and plenty of ominous whispering. Lyrics like the “HRAHHH” ten seconds into “Sleep Paralysis” or “they’re coming for you” in “Fever Dream II – Paranoia” are incredibly effective, but in general the lyrics are a bit on the nose. Subtle swelling choirs permeate the background now and again, adding a cinematic touch in the vein of a horror movie soundtrack. There is a general dreamy (read: nightmare-y) atmosphere that envelops the entire experience; notes that are held out for too long begin dripping, and are those whispers in the background or am I just hearing things? Even the interludes and more chill parts keep up a certain pace or use other compositional techniques to accelerate your heartbeat. The magic here is that all of these delicate textural choices are at war with a frantic pace and searing intensity, a dialectical force tearing open a rift out of which a delirious fever haze pours. 

Sleep Paralysis even weaves a sense of humor throughout the record—like the cartoonish glissando about a minute into “Sleep Paralysis”—but the humor does not detract from the derangement, instead feeling more like the reaction of a broken psyche trying to cope with sleep deprived hallucinations. A couple of particularly egregious sound clips on the last track threaten to push the sense of humor into the realm of eye-rolling campiness, but they’re right at the end of the record so they don’t do much to hinder the albums flow or replayability. 

“Nostalgia” works well as a climax to Sleep Paralysis, being the longest song on the record and dipping into nearly every oddity that has been on display during the previous forty minutes. Really, there are a lot of climaxes on this album, but none of them are cathartic; they just continue to build up the anxiety through smart songwriting decisions rather than relieve any of it. Sleep Paralysis leaves the listener a crumpled, sweating ball of uneasiness, shoving back the bubbling thoughts of Stockholm Syndrome as you hit play on the first track once again.

Recommended tracks: Sleep Paralysis, Fever Dream, Helplessness
You may also like: Fleshvessel, Inhumankind, Maybe That’s Why Humans Drink the Darkness That is Coffee?
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp

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

Sleep Paralysis is:
– Stephen Knapp (All Instruments, Piano and Drum Programming)
With Guest:
– Lorenzo Kemp (Solo on “Nostalgia”)

The post Review: Sleep Paralysis – Sleep Paralysis appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Mastodon, Death
Country: United States-AZ
Release date: 17 January 2025

I’ve gotta start this review with a big disclaimer: the mastermind Cooper Meyers of one-man project Serein is the very same Cooper that writes for the Prog Subway. It is impossible to be unbiased, but this EP is worth covering on its own merits, and my review will be as honest and objective as I can make it under the circumstances.¹ 

The first thing to notice is the overall package; Meyers has an obsessive attention to detail, each facet of the overall aesthetic painstakingly woven together. The band name Serein—a meteorological term referring to rain falling from a cloudless sky—and album title Rivers of Living Water tie in thematically with Thomas Cole’s gorgeously beclouded cover art and the flowing, cumulustic band logo; all the water theming is poetically tethered to the concept of a mother trying to bring her child back to life by the lyrics, in which she takes her dead child to the… river of living water. With the conscientious concept and aesthetic, Serein is propped up for a mightily ambitious debut, so how does Cooper’s music stand up to his eye for detail?

He’s an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, pulling off the complete prog death experience all on his own²—classically Opethian, alternating between somber acoustic sections and the more punishingly heavy sections, Meyers’ Chuck Schuldiner-esque weeping guitar tone bridging the gap. The strongest aspect of Rivers of Living Water is the delightful array of riffs, channeling the full prog death spectrum from the fluttery Dessiderium runs of 4:30 in “In the Arms of Autumn” to the Opeth-ass swing of 1:30 into “Crossing the Plain of Fear” (which appropriately turns into the most splendid acoustic section on the album and could be right out of Blackwater Park). That plaintive acoustic ditty transitions into the stankiest bass tone heard on this side of Warforged’s magnum opus I: Voice—and really, the whole riff from the section would fit right at home on the nightmarish “Cellar”—before becoming a wild Opeth/Warforged hybrid. The bass and guitar tones all throughout Rivers of Living Water paint a canvas of the astral and the abyss so resplendent and vulgar [complimentary] they are, respectively. 

From a production standpoint, Rivers of Living Water is also ridiculous for an artist whose mother just dropped him out of the nest for the first time, praying. I have quibbles—the drums are a tad too loud, the vocals too compressed, especially Robin Tittelbaugh’s backing cleans on the title track—but in an exclusive conversation with the artist, Cooper told me he intentionally exclusively used software that was completely free—the album was completely $0, produced only with instruments and time. The guitars and bass sound vibrant and robust, and even without the small adjustments I’d want in a perfect world, nothing sounds muddy which beats a lot of bands with a thousand times the budget of Serein. Heck, you’d hardly notice the drums were programmed if Meyers hadn’t credited himself with drum programming on Bandcamp; they’re precise and timely but not distracting.

To deliver his heart wrenching story, Meyers alternates between harsh vocals, including hearty rasps and gruff lows and clean vocals: those cleans are the largest misstep on Rivers of Living Water. Let’s just say Cooper sounds like he could be one of the Mastodon singers… but quite constipated; maybe next time, record after some MiraLax or veggies. The only other qualm I have with Rivers of Living Water is that occasionally the influences are worn too clearly on Serein’s sleeves since I can pinpoint when we switch from one goated prog death band to the next in Meyers’ riffage, but Serein never stays on the style of one artist long enough to feel like worship, just admiration of the genre’s greats. 

This review was certainly unusual to write because I know the mind of the artist so much more intimately than normal, but Serein has the potential to really make a name for young Meyers. Chock full of the meaty riffs that death metal fans love, the sleek guitar tones and solos for the tech crowd, and the mammoth song-structures for the prog lover with two hefty 8+ minute tracks, with a bit more artistic growth and perhaps growing into his own form like a butterfly after a month as goo inside of a cocoon, I think a full-length LP could be a heavy hitter not just on our blog, but in the entire prog world. Look out world, our very own Cooper is coming for you.

Recommended tracks: Crossing the Plain of Fear, In the Arms of Autumn
You may also like: Warforged, Stone Healer, Dessiderium, Piah Mater
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: independent

Serein is:
– Cooper Meyers (everything)

1. I did ask Cooper for permission if he wanted me to review Rivers of Living Water under the understanding I would be critical as I would for a normal review. ︎
2. Ok, not all on his own. He cheats by having his girlfriend do backing vocals at one point. Why didn’t you go all out and get HRT or do the silly falsetto backing of Mike Portnoy, Cooper? ︎

The post Review: Serein – Rivers of Living Water appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive/Technical Symphonic Death/Black metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Zach
Country: AZ-US
Release date: 10 December 2021

You know what’s so funny about death metal? How insanely diverse the genre has become. Wormhole and Dessiderium are both considered death metal, and sound nothing alike aside from growls and blast beats. If you were to go back in time and show Chuck Almighty what the genre he pioneered has become, I think he’d be proud. 

But we all know that one person. “Metal is just screaming and banging on drums!”. Granted, a person who says that has probably only been treated to one Corpse song when they saw Ace Ventura. And you could throw on the beginning of Aria and they’d probably think it’s nice until the growling starts. They’d probably turn it off when they saw the first song is fifteen minutes long, though. Maybe not the best intro to death metal. Have you tried Cryptopsy, instead?

So, why am I getting so bloody serious over death metal? Because Dessiderium’s previous endeavor, Shadow Burn, is so beautifully composed. Sure, you could call it technical black metal, but let’s not get too hung up on genres here. There’s something about that album that evokes a feeling of reaching out into the abyss and hoping to come out unscathed. An album that perfectly conjures the image of a protagonist longing for compassion in a lonely world. Alex Haddad, the man with three brains who runs Dessiderium, is such a master of creating these dreamlike worlds with very grounded ideas for his listeners to latch on to.

Initially, with Aria’s announcement, I assumed it would be an EP. And I worried it would be too short for Haddad to get his ideas across. But, because Haddad is a complete madman, Aria is a five-song album totaling an hour in length. And I daresay it’s even more sprawling and grandiose than Shadow Burn is.

Aria just throws you into the thick of it with a fifteen-minute journey of a song. ‘White Morning in a World She Knows’ pulls you right into the dreamlike journey that is Aria, with a beautiful clean section driving the first 4 minutes of the song, before launching into a big, Ne Obliviscaris reminiscent symphonic section. The black metal releases after each clean buildup in this track is nothing short of outstanding, and it gives the track some room to breathe instead of being a 15-minute riff onslaught.

Something that became immediately apparent upon first listen was how the symphonies contrast with the black metal riffing. This is less Dimmu Borgir and more Native Construct in that the symphonies have their own place in the songs and aren’t just there for show. And how weirdly upbeat they sound. This album is not quite as tonally dark as Shadow Burn, much to my shock, as indicated by the symphonies, clean guitars, and major scale leads.

But, just like Shadow Burn, Haddad’s lyrics are once again a shining focus of the album. I’d encourage everyone to read along with them on your second or third listen, because they elevate the album to new heights. Most people probably don’t care about the lyrics of a death metal song because…well, it’s all screaming anyway. But Aria’s aren’t the abstract ramblings one would find in many a progressive metal song. They once again touch on Haddad’s obvious fascination with isolation, and his imagery almost makes me believe that this album continues where Shadow Burn left off thematically.

If I had a single nitpick with the album, it would be that ‘Moon Lust Delirium’ didn’t grab me as immediately as the other songs . It feels like the only song on the album that meanders slightly, despite it being the shortest. However, with each replay, it grows on me a bit more, even if it feels a bit more “typical” black metal than the rest of the album has to offer.

Aria was an album I needed right now. As much as I love my broody, melancholic prog-death, every now and then, I need something hopeful. Despite this album being a nice slab of melancholy, there’s also a clear ray of optimism with the instrumentation. Almost like Haddad is trying to balance his ups and downs in life, so too it shows in his music. Sometimes, we need a bit of that in this gloomy genre. I sure as hell did.

Recommended tracks: Pale, Aria, The Persecution Complex
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Native Construct, Wilderun
You may also like: Hands of Despair, Epiphanie, Cormorant, Aquilius, Enfold Darkness
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: The Artisan Era – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

<band in question> is:
– Alex Haddad (Everything)
– Brody Smith (Drum Programming)

The post Review: Dessiderium – Aria appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Melodic Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Review by: Callum
Country: US-AZ
Release date: 23 April, 2021

There is nothing inherently bad about Dead World Reclamation or their latest release, Aura of Iniquity. This record is a more than appreciable blend of melodic and technical death metal with the added incorporation of orchestral and choral elements that sum up to a solid, polished piece of work. If you think of it as a birthday cake, all the ingredients are in there at precisely the right measurements, nothing added, nothing missing. It’s definitely a birthday cake. There are no sprinkles, no surprise salted caramel filling, no sparklers. It’s just a perfectly fine vanilla cake. Is my cake metaphor pushing too many boundaries for you? Nothing wrong with a vanilla cake with plain white frosting you say? Then this album might work for you. Sweets aside, this band is clearly able to write a decent song, and the technical skill of each player is unquestionable. I fear that a lack of innovation, specifically in song structure and atmosphere building, will leave a lot of modern melodeath bands behind like a birthday gift played with once and then left, forgotten, collecting dust at the bottom of the toybox. Thought I was done with birthday references? Just wait.

Aura of Iniquity is also fairly long at nearly 50 minutes for each song to be roughly structured the same and averaging almost exactly 5 minutes each. I won’t say they could have trimmed the fat in places as there aren’t exactly a lot of rough edges to trim. Each track is well contained and not bookended by much filler, interludes or extended intros or outros to speak of. Furthermore, none of the tracks are of a lesser standard than the rest, however none stand head and shoulders above the rest either. The distinguishing features between each track comes down to the lyrical content. The album is practically an anthology of short Lovecraftian stories, each track revolving around one ‘greatest hit’ of the genre. “Ripped from the Grave”, for example, concerns the protagonist being cursed to an endless undeath by a necromancer to be used in his army of the undead. In “Embrace the Hive”, the character’s nervous system is arrested as they breathe in spores that connect them to a singular consciousness. There is a secret vampiric cabal running the government, media and economy behind the scenes in “Pantheon of Shadows”, and a kingdom of flesh eating spiders in “Arachnocratic Assemblage”. Despite the music itself not moving me quite so much, I found myself excited to find out what kind of eldritch horror would feature in the next track. The lyrics spinning these yarns are mostly well written, with chestnuts like “each jugular, plucked like the string of a harp.” They become slightly too on-the-nose in other places; “Your heads of finance, CEOs / Vampiric leaders, your heroes” lacks the poetry and nuance present in most other tracks.

There are a few too many allusions to a certain melodeath behemoth to be purely coincidence. Words like ‘unhallowed’, ‘deflorate’, ‘miasma’, ‘evergloom’ that feature in the lyrics are surely subtle tributes to The Black Dahlia Murder, upon whom Dead World Reclamation could well be modeling their brand of horror-movie-death-metal. The vocal style of Conner Posz also seems to emulate Trevor Strnad’s unique ability to switch from raspy screeches to deep, guttural growls on a dime. Posz’s variety of styles and tones and the skill he has for delivering them are what save this album from being totally forgettable. They’re what keep this cake moist and fluffy from the first bite to the last (told you). His mastery of bread and butter growls and shrieks is apparent from the outset of the first track, but, as the album progresses, brand new vocal tones gradually emerge. There’s a notable shift in vocal pitch when the protagonist from the aforementioned “Embrace the Hive” finally succumbs to the control of the hivemind. A dry, yet deep and remarkably clear growl materialises in “The Everlasting Hunt” in each short verse. His spoken word sample at the end of “Arachnocratic Assemblage” actually sounds similar to Mikee Goodman of SikTh. Tempo changes between the verse and chorus during “Whispers of the Evergloom” play with the dynamics of the song effectively where the vocals are quieter and more restrained but still dramatic in the long and wordy verses and each syllable is perfectly placed. Finally, in “Those Born Of Suffering”, the voice that addresses the spectre that takes children born of incest that would normally be thrown to the wolves under its wing is almost bitonal, in the vein of Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation.

While the vocals are the clear saving grace of Aura of Iniquity, the instrumentation isn’t technically poor. However, nothing particularly stands out other than a few well placed and enjoyable, but predictable, guitar solos. Stylistically, Dead World Reclamation are an exciting band, but they would need to innovate further to stand out among their contemporaries. Playing more on atmosphere and challenging the common song structures they seem to be stuck on would be a start. The anthology of short and intriguing stories is a great way of showcasing their lyrical talents, but if they repeat this approach in the future it may lose its flavour.

Recommended tracks: Arachnocratic Assemblage, Embrace the Hive, Heralds of the Formless One
Recommended for fans of: The Black Dahlia Murder, Job for a Cowboy, Within the Ruins
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Independent

Dead World Reclamation is:
Conner Posz (vocals)
Dakota Fidler (guitar)
Mark Gray (drums)
Alexander Beltz (bass)
Andre Lothian (guitar, orchestration)

The post Review: Dead World Reclamation – Aura of Iniquity appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: deathcore, progressive metal, shoegaze (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Holy Fawn, Fallujah (for the atmospheric heaviness), Deafheaven (for the -gaze)
Review by: Chris
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 15 May 2020

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the May 2020 Part 1 issue of The Progressive Subway.]

It’s not often that an album feels exactly like what a band tells you it is supposed to be about. It’s even rarer still that you get that feeling without having read or been told what to expect. The Baring of Shadows by Kardashev is one of those rare true expressions of a feeling, in this case pain, and it is a wonderful expansion of that feeling. To be completely candid, Kardashev’s last release The Almanac is in my top 10 all time played albums. As such I was greatly anticipating this release.

For those who may have already been a bit familiar with this band, The Baring of Shadows definitely leans even more into the -gaze elements that began permeating a lot in The Almanac. “A Frame. A Light” opens the album with a very soft reverb-laden guitar part with a very spaced out drum beat, before dropping you into the heaviness backed by higher tremolo guitars. Moments later their vocalist Mark Garrett finally lets loose his absolutely angelic voice married with his own dark growls in accompaniment. His voice stays as a true highlight of this EP and this band, and he has continued to back my personal claim that he is one of the most versatile vocalists in the genre right now with his range of low deathcore growls to absolutely beautiful cleans. Moments after this first vocal eruption, we are led back down toa laid-back slow pace. This EP very much lives on a cyclical feeling of returning to a place of rest in this way throughout. Personally I found this to be partly due to a particular drum beat I noticed crops up multiple times in the more laid-back parts. 

The addition of the bassist from Holy Fawn into the mix the slight influence creep definitely shows up in a few of the slower heavy moments and really helps lend more to the deathgaze pattern of the EP. However, soon into the second track “Snow-Sleep” you are reminded of their progressive deathcore roots with a couple passages that probably could have felt decently at home on Exoplanet by The Contortionist. The key though to this EP is the cycle, the ups and downs between the posty lows and heavy death-tinged highs. “Snow-Sleep” really takes this to heart and consistently guides you between the two. Though even in the heaviness there is a distinct atmosphere continuing to permeate, and in the atmospheric light parts there is always a sense of heaviness either lurking on the horizon or begging to be let out from underneath. While admittedly a sucker for the heavy atmosphere parts, in this release I most enjoyed the more laidback moments where the drums and vocals seemed to be the real guiding voices instead of the guitars and bass. A good example of this is 2 minutes or so into “Torchpassing” where the drums are just blasting away over completely washed post-rock guitars and a soft warm vocal line. 

My only real critiques of this release are the heavy tone still being a bit grating to my ears sometimes (at this point I would accept it’s a personal taste choice that just isn’t always my favorite) and that there are moments that felt like more highs were being teased or needed to resolve tensions and none came. These are small critiques though and Kardashev have really provided something nice and unique here and I can’t wait for the next one.

Recommended tracks: Listen to the whole thing you nerd
You may also like: Hands of Despair, Dead to a Dying World, Warforged
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Metal Blade Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Kardashev is:
– Mark Garrett (vocals)
– Nico Mirolla (guitars)
– Alexander Adin Rieth (bass)
– Sean Lang (drums)

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Style: post-metal, shoegaze (mixed vocals)
Review by: Jonah
Country: US-AZ
Release date: 14-09-2018

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the 2018 missed albums issue of The Progressive Subway.]

Every once in a while I stumble upon something seriously beautiful when I’m reviewing albums. I wade through the mediocre and the repetitive albums that I’m bombarded with, and I find a real diamond amongst all the rubbish. This time, that diamond is Holy Fawn’s latest, and what a diamond it is.

I have absolutely never heard anything quite like Holy Fawn. They’ve taken Shoegaze, fused it with atmospheric post-metal, and made something just extraordinary. The fusion of aural textures that suddenly and dramatically shift from quiet to loud to lovely to discordant, it’s just mind-blowing. The vocals shift back and forth between a float-y, airy tenor to some of the harshest high-shrieks I’ve heard in quite a while, and it’s beautiful. Everything about this album is beautiful, I cannot stress that enough.

I’m not always the biggest Post fan, often because I find that the songs take a tad too long to really get anywhere. Holy Fawn never has that problem. Every single moment of every song is enormously engaging, whether due to the gorgeous atmosphere or the absolute sonic assault. I struggle to even applaud any particular part of this album’s composition or performance because it all just feels so divine and perfectly put together. If I had any complaint, it’s that maybe, just maybe the album is a tad too long, but that’s trivial when the music is this gorgeous.

I cannot recommend Death Spells enough, regardless of whether you’re a fan of Post-Metal, or anything really, please listen to this album. It’s innovative, it’s beautiful, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what else Holy Fawn has in store for us.

Recommended tracks: Dark Stone, Drag Me into the Woods, Take Me With You
Recommended for fans of: Good music (????????)
Final verdict: 9/10

EDITOR’S NOTE: By now, Holy Fawn has massively outgrown this blog’s listener criteria, having 50k monthly listeners on spotify as of December 2020. However, Death Spells was reviewed during an era where they met our <10k listener criteria, therefore the review has been archived for continuity purposes (also because we predicted a stellar band before they got huge )

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page

Label: Independent

Holy Fawn is:
– Ryan Osterman (vocals, guitars)
– Evan Phelps (guitars)
– Austin Reinholz (drums)
– Alexander Rieth (bass)

The post Review: Holy Fawn – Death Spells appeared first on The Progressive Subway.