Style: progressive metal, djent (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Artificial Language, Animals as Leaders, I Built the Sky, Intervals, Polyphia
Country: California, United States
Release date: 30 May 2025

Trends come and go, such is the way of life. For the electric guitar virtuoso, the popular style of the time has shifted in several distinct eras over the past sixty years. Emulating the human voice with expressive phrasing, bends, and vibrato like the blues greats (Hendrick, Beck, Clapton) turned into shred (Van Halen into Becker, Malmsteen, Friedman). These days, the rage is Polyphia-inspired “internet shred” in which the modern virtuoso shoves every complicated guitar technique they can into each “riff” (Henson, Nito, Abasi). Just as we collectively roll our eyes at Yngwie-style shred today, the current style has grown cliche—style above substance.

That’s why Syncatto’s—solo project of Artificial Language’s guitarist Charlie Robbins—2021 record A Place to Breathe was a revelation. Robbins certainly used his fair share of flamboyant technical wankery, but each technique served the song as Robbins contorted earworm melodies in uniquely brilliant ways, particularly with his Latin influences and the incredible guest contributions. A Place to Breathe is easily one of the top instrumental progressive metal albums ever. Since that record, Syncatto has released an EP and an LP, both rock solid releases continuing in the general direction of A Place to Breathe, although neither quite recapturing the brilliance. Does Memento continue Robbins’ streak of breaking ground in the modern virtuoso scene?

Firstly, Syncatto largely drops the Latin influences in favor of a Middle Eastern flair on Memento. The Phrygian riffs Robbins plays, like on “Hollow” and “Mother of God,” are genuinely inspired, particularly when he goes Middle Eastern djent. The highlight of the album is on the latter half of “Change of Wind”; the track randomly transitions to a new age flute, but what seems like a misguided attempt at quirkiness quickly turns into the coolest djent passage I’ve heard in years, mixing Animals as Leaders’ thumping and Syncatto’s melodic touch to create a heavy contrast for the flute. Each time Robbins drops the bottom out of a track, I’m stunned that he’s able to innovate the stale djent sound—“Codex,” specifically, reverts to Robbins’ Latin mode, and he performs a breakdown using palm-muted acoustic guitar. He’s still got moments of innovative, flashy brilliance.

On the other hand, at least half of the tracks are little more than boring, wanky Polyphia rip-offs. Syncatto excessively slides, taps, and alternate picks in dwiddly, contorted “riffs” which, while still using his superb sense of melody, grow extremely tiresome as they don’t build good songs. Each nugget is made for the YouTube short or Instagram reel or TikTok tiktok, but they don’t string together with any sense of cohesion. None of the eleven short songs on Memento feel fully fleshed out, and rather sound more like a collection of fun djenty breakdowns and noodly, brain-melting guitar parts. The worst offender is “Ritual”: the track has what sounds quite literally like an NF beat and your basic Polyphia-inspired guitar parts on top of it, but I guess that’s what the kids consider “hip” these days. 

On Memento, Robbins continues his trajectory toward instru-stardom. The LP has objectively stunning virtuoso musicianship, his signature handle on crafting succulent, catchy melodies, and even a masterful approach to djent involving more melodic craziness in the palm-muted riffs than purely rhythmic. Yet the trendy style of onanism preferred by Gen-Z right now has ensnared another fantastic guitarist, and Memento—for its many strengths—also has several of Robbins’ weakest tracks ever. Lay off the Reels, my friends.

Recommended tracks: Change of Wind, Hollow, Codex
You may also like: Widek, Pomegranate Tiger, Lux Terminus, Sam Mooradian
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: independent

Syncatto is:
– Charlie Robbins (everything)

The post Review: Syncatto – Memento appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by Chris Williams

Style: Thall, Djent, Progressive Metal (mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Meshuggah, Frontierer, Humanity’s Last Breath, Car Bomb
Country: Sweden
Release date: 30 May 2025

Metal suffers from an unfortunate theme where genre pioneers eventually fall prey to the very scenes they helped create, buckling under the weight of their own stagnating influence. Look no further than Morbid Angel’s Illud Divinum Insanus, Dream Theater’s The Astonishing, or Metallica’s Lulu or St. Anger. Metal seems to carry with it a curse of longevity for such foundational acts; surviving long enough nearly ensures an artist will produce one of their pioneered genre’s worst releases to go along with whatever classics they may have created in the past. 

Vildhjarta are one such foundational act, single-handedly pioneering the sound of thall, an offshoot style of djent. Even today, there are arguments about whether or not thall should be classified as a genre proper, but whatever side of the argument one falls on, there is an undeniable and clearly defined difference between the two sounds. Thall started as an in-joke between Vildhjarta members in 2009—a mispronunciation of “Thrall” (a World of Warcraft character)—following the viral success of their Omnislash demo within the then burgeoning djent scene, using it as a descriptor for their music but keeping silent about the term’s meaning. Other groups picked up on the new terminology, using it to describe their own sound as well, even if that sound was nowhere near Vildhjarta’s particular style. Thall was essentially memed into existence, coming to a head in 2011 with Uneven Structure featuring a thall sticker on one of their guitars in the music video for “Awaken”; Vildhjarta would also release their debut LP Måsstaden, clearly defining the sound for the first time, officially partitioning it off from djent. 

Since then, thall has grown into its own scene, with bands such as Frostbitt, Mirar, Indistinct, FRACTALIZE, and Allt exploring the sound’s limits and applications. Vildhjarta themselves would once again further thall’s horizons in 2013 with the release of their Thousands of Evils EP. At this point, thall had achieved a clear distinction from djent: gratuitous bends, pitch-shifted leads, wide interval jumps, a post-metal-inspired focus on ambience, an even more stilted rhythmic conceit, and a slowly evolving tonal language all its own. Vildhjarta would fall silent for eight more years before releasing their 2021 follow-up to Måsstaden—Måsstaden Under Vatten—signaling thall’s largest evolution in sound since 2013. Now in 2025, we are subject to + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, raising the question: Was Måsstaden Under Vatten a portent of continuing inspired evolution, or will Vildhjarta fall prey to metal’s ever-looming curse of longevity?

+ Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + is, in some ways, a continuation of the sound explored on Måsstaden Under Vatten, which saw Vildhjarta take a step back from their more traditionally structured phrases and riff patterns, replacing their dense riff focus with a sparse, somber, and patient approach to songwriting. The songs were noticeably slower, with a reaffirmed focus on building a darker atmosphere and tension through synth textures and background guitar harmonies. + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + continues the focus on atmosphere, utilizing the same techniques as before, but ramping the riff density back up past even Måsstaden’s levels while maintaining the somber, meandering songwriting approach.

The marriage of labyrinthine riff passages and patient atmosphere feels like Vildhjarta’s most complete sound yet, but the more I listen to + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, the more I realize that this sound has also been forcibly repurposed as a contextual backdrop for them to fervently explore a budding new tonal language. Short staccato rhythmic bursts, off-kilter legato scale runs, and huge nauseating interval jumps remain Vildhjarta’s primary riffing style, though with a realigned focus on evolving their—and therefore thall’s—unique melodic sensibilities. The long legato lines halfway through “+ Sargasso +” are where the cracks in the tonal foundation first start to show, with odd, seemingly “wrong” note choices slipping their way into the melody. Right afterward, “+ Ylva +” blows the sound wide open, with the back half especially braving previously unexplored tonal territory within thall. The riff starting around two and a half minutes in is less of a riff and more of a schizophrenic inner dialogue, the cadence of which feels not quite call and response, but vaguely conversational. A hazy backing guitar harmony wraps itself around the entire second half of the track, adding to the feverishness, the entire section marking the first true declaration of significant evolution within the genre in years. 

While before, Vildhjarta’s sense of melody seemed to emerge from a rhythmic foundation, this time around it feels like the rhythms are blooming from a tonal center, acting primarily as a jagged vessel for the off-kilter melody to nestle within. The ramped-up syncopation feels intrinsic and primordial, necessitated by nascent tonality instead of the deliberate desideratum of a style. Vildhjarta have successfully shifted their core direction from a post-Meshuggah rhythmic ideology to a fully realized evolution of the somber, brooding melancholy that was germinating onMåsstaden Under Vatten. Guitarist Calle Thomer has crafted a unique melodic language all his own, mixing expansive open intervals with dense pulsing chromaticism that often has seemingly little to nothing to do with the accompanying atmospheric harmony. Riffs not only completely ignore the tonic, but drag it down into the bubbling tar pit from which they seemingly emerged. Backing guitar and synth provide what context they can, but the lead guitar will often be on another planet entirely, having a conversation with itself, compartmentalizing whatever grotesqueries it had beheld while stargazing from its cosmic perch. 

There has always been a fragmentation between Vildhjarta’s riff-craft and their surrounding performances, but it’s taken to further extremes on + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, leading even to pockets of polyphony within some of the busier phrases. Take the opening riff of “+ röda läppar, söta äpplen +”, which sounds as if one had just woken up and was hearing a muffled conversation from the other side of a door. The interstitial melody that weaves between the traditional djent chugs mimics the tonality and cadence of hushed discord, as if there were secrets lurking just beneath the auditory surface. Cascading approximations of a broken arpeggio follow shortly after, straying even further from any sense of diatonic comfort. 

Thomer’s guitar-wizardry is certainly the centerpiece of + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, but this doesn’t mean the other performances are anything to sneer at. Frontman Vilhelm Bladin’s ever-improving vocal performance continues to provide texture, acting as an anchor point for the cacophonous instrumentals. His clean singing in particular is more emotive than ever (“Där mossan möter havet,” “Kristallfågel,” “Viktlös & evig”), adding yet another layer of melodicism for the riffs to sink their consonance-decaying claws into. Drummer Buster Odeholm’s performance is phenomenal; he has a striking ability to toe the line between insidious groove and near-arbitrary syncopation, unifying the two extremes in distinct manner. My favorite example of Odeholm’s particular style begins about a minute and a half into “+Sargasso +”: A constant eighth note hi-hat keeps tempo while shifting crash cymbals swell alongside the kick drum, which follows the guitar’s intense syncopation. As the phrase continues, it threatens to fall apart completely as the pattern becomes more and more intricate with Odeholm adding his own ornamentation on top of it all, before finally collapsing into a breathing, pulsing synth break as the song passes the two-minute mark.

Vildhjarta slowly and consistently poke and prod at the corners of thall’s melodic language over the runtime of + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, culminating in closing track “+ den spanska känslan +”, which climaxes around two-thirds of the way through with a phrase that fully lifts the veil off the previously gestural polyphony, opting to embrace it outright. A patiently funereal harmonized acoustic guitar line is introduced, only to be unceremoniously interrupted by a massive truck of a riff that completely ignores any mournful pretenses set up just moments beforehand. The acoustic line trudges on behind the mammoth tone of Thomer’s distortion, the most undiluted proclamation of Vildhjarta’s marriage between somber ambience, surreal tonality, and idiosyncratic rhythmic ideology to date. Moments like the above are eminently memorable but, as a whole, + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + is less about the big standout moments than previous releases. The main focus this time around is on creating an alienating atmosphere through vague tonality, an atmosphere that ends up being antagonistic to genre newbies and veterans alike, perhaps not intentionally but as a result of its sheer otherness. 

+ Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + is—much like its cover art—rigorously technical and feverishly psychedelic, traits that are caught in a war of attrition, proliferating each other through constant battle-metamorphosis. These traits, along with every other trait mentioned thus far, form a howling constellation of stars that are connected through Vildhjarta’s paradoxical stylistic throughline of tonality by way of consistent dis-melodicism. Stare long enough into the night sky, and this constellation spirals into a whorling vortex, spilling forth hallucinatory aural terror from an eerie unknown. Indeed, Vildhjarta have convincingly eluded metal’s persistent curse of longevity, once again taking a leaping stride of innovation, dragging the entirety of thall behind them.

Recommended tracks: + Två vackra svanar +, + Sargasso +, + Den spanska känslan +
You may also like: Frostbitt, Mirar, Reflections, Uneven Structure
Final verdict: 10/10

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

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

Vildhjarta is:
– Vilhelm Bladin (vocals)
– Calle Thomer (guitars, bass)
– Buster Odeholm (drums, bass)

The post Review: Vildhjarta – + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album art by Alex Tillbrook

Style: Alternative metal, alt-pop, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: bruh it’s Sleep Token; VOLA meets Hozier plus, er, like, Imagine Dragons?
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 9 May 2025

Today, in a special double review, Ian and Christopher take on the latest release by the biggest and perhaps most controversial band in the genre. Even in Arcadia, there are people arguing about Sleep Token!

Review by: Ian

I believe it was Sir Isaac Newton who said that “every sudden wave of hype produces an equal and opposite backlash”, and perhaps no other band today exemplifies that definitely real adage quite like Sleep Token. It’s strange to look back on the days of their initial rise, how this weird djent/R&B band from London with a Ghost-esque masking gimmick and an unusually skilled drummer exploded out of seemingly nowhere in early 2023 with a set of increasingly buzzed-about singles, culminating in the release of their blockbuster third album, Take Me Back To Eden. The countervailing surge of hatred was equally sudden, though in hindsight, not surprising. Heralded (though by no means solely initiated) by Anthony Fantano’s withering 2/10 panning of the album, they rapidly became the very definition of “uncool”¹, with many eagerly seizing upon Sleep Token‘s often unapologetically poppy songwriting and straightforward djent riffs as evidence of them being “not metal”²—a fake, pop band that you’d have to be some terminal poseur / Imagine Dragons fan / big dumb mouthbreathing coworker NPC to enjoy. 

And look, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you those criticisms were entirely baseless. TMBTE‘s attempts at straightforward pop music were indeed plasticky and unconvincing, burying Vessel’s otherwise interesting vocal timbre under suffocating layers of Autotune. And sure, much of the guitarwork felt far too basic to be sitting alongside II’s intricate, fluid drumming. But somehow… I still really liked it, dammit! For all its flaws, the album was a genuine evolution of the Sleep Token sound, an ambitious, widescreen expansion into more adventurous song structuring and genre switches with some seriously powerful, emotionally resonant melodic hooks. It’s not exactly topping my Album of the Year list, but there are people who act like this band is soulless nothing slop with zero redeeming qualities, and… I feel like we didn’t hear the same album.

But where does this leave us now? Well, Sleep Token sure as hell aren’t upstarts anymore. They’re one of the biggest bands in modern rock, possibly the biggest to come up this decade, with a massive, frighteningly devoted legion of fans and a nearly-as-vocal coalition of detractors. Thus, it was inevitable that their follow-up album, Even In Arcadia, would have massive expectations set upon it, for good and ill alike. And in terms of meeting those expectations, seven-plus minute opener “Look to Windward” is one hell of an initial salvo. Starting off with a slow burn of atmospheric, almost chiptune-esque synths beneath Vessel’s trademark croon before a barrage of pummeling guitars abruptly takes over, it comes across as a full-on showcase of every established part of the band’s sound. It’s got intricate drumming, simple yet gargantuan-sounding riffs, rattling trap percussion, and a vocal performance that ranges from smooth, cocky R&B verses to delicate, harmonized falsettos to withering, blackened screams—as if to say “We’re still Sleep Token and we can still do Sleep Token things, and do them damn well.” While it’s unlikely to convert any skeptics, it’s one of the best executions of their usual sound yet, and a reassuring reminder that their core competencies are still very much in place.

With the formula firmly re-established in the space of a single song, it’s time to sprinkle in some surprises, and that’s where subsequent song (and lead single) “Emergence” comes in. Its verses are some of the most rhythmically interesting stuff they’ve put out possibly ever, with II’s percussion sinuously twisting around some already rather syncopated vocal lines in a deliciously off-kilter clash, constantly teasing at downbeats that don’t quite arrive until the beautifully melodic choruses show up to dissipate the tension. Combine that with the gorgeous, delightfully surprising saxophone coda³ provided by Bilmuri‘s Gabi Rose, and you have yet more evidence that Sleep Token are still a decidedly progressive band despite their mainstream appeal. They’re prog in the same way that bands like Bent Knee are prog, not by having the wackiest time signatures or the weedliest solos, but by blending pop stylings with pieces of disparate genres to create a bold, adventurous sound full of stylistic and compositional left turns that defies easy categorization or comparison.

And it’s a damn good thing we’ve got that evidence, too, since unfortunately, Even In Arcadia‘s midsection gives plenty of signs that the prog gatekeepers may kinda have a point. While it’s all very competent, with some dutifully pleasant melodies and titanic, IMAX-ready chugs as per usual, much of tracks 3-8 feels like Sleep Token by the numbers, with precious few of the surprises that made previous songs like “The Summoning” so special. Tracks like “Dangerous” and “Provider” capably ratchet up the musical intensity from synthy atmosphere to elastic trap beats to stadium-filling guitar, but do little else with their musical structure, coming off a tad forgettable. The title track tries its best to be the type of achingly vulnerable piano ballad that they’ve done so well in the past, but is sabotaged by suffocating layers of movie-trailer overproduction, with only Vessel’s desperate, gritty final line managing enough emotional heft to strike a genuine chord through all the sludge. Most egregious is “Past Self”, a decent-yet-straightforward R&B snoozefest whose only surprise is that there are no surprises—no riffs, no genre mixing, just a synth arpeggio that could be coming out of a kid’s toy replica of a Legend of Zelda fairy fountain. Sure, there are bright spots—”Caramel” is a lyrically wrenching look at what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a ravenously parasocial fanbase, elevated by II’s drumming at its absolute crispest—but even that is undercut by “Provider” being a blatant wink and nudge toward the most fanatical, BookTok-horny elements of said parasocial fanbase just two songs later.

Thankfully, the last two tracks do a fair deal to right the ship. “Gethsemane” easily ranks up there with Sleep Token‘s absolute best tracks, spinning its soft, emotionally resonant falsetto intro into a shockingly intricate, mathy Midwest emo guitar riff, a long-awaited step up in complexity to stand side by side with the band’s drumming. Add in a chorus that reprises “Euclid”, quite possibly the most powerful, indelible chorus the band have ever written, and you’ve got me wondering where the hell this energy was for the past few tracks. Maybe it’s my inner sappy theater kid, but these melodramatic hooks still hit me straight in the heart no matter how overblown others may find them, and closer “Infinite Baths” keeps that streak going with aplomb. Its deliciously weepy, harmonized slow build into its gargantuan chorus is the sort of shit I eat right up, and the Pink Floyd reference in its atmospheric bridge was a fun touch. I’m a bit more mixed on its heavy closing section; though a final dose of aggression is certainly welcome in an album that is, on the whole, softer than its predecessor, it also feels like it’s spinning its wheels a tad, fading out without giving a proper conclusion.

“I know these chords are boring, but I can’t always be killing the game,” sings Vessel in “Damocles”, an apropos quote from a wildly inconsistent album in which, more than ever, the band’s aura of cult-like mysticism comes off as a thinly veiled metaphor for one decidedly mortal man’s insecurities and broken relationships. Sleep Token feel increasingly caught between contradictory impulses—the drive to innovate and push their sound forward versus the pressure to push out more of the same stuff that made them popular in the first place, the need to appease their suddenly massive fanbase versus the fear of said fans getting a little too into their music, the divine and spiritual versus the human body’s base desires… the acid versus the alkaline, one might say. The public, too, has been utterly polarized; as before, the fans of this band are going to hear an entirely different album than the haters. Yet, this time, I can hear both albums in equal measure, the innovative, heartfelt brilliance heard by the faithful existing alongside the dull, focus-grouped glurge that reaches the ears of the apostates. Perhaps this is a tightrope that Vessel and co. can continue to walk well enough, but as someone who was largely on the believers’ side beforehand, this represents a troubling shift. If it all looks like heaven but feels like hell… maybe you’re just in purgatory.

Ian’s final verdict: 6.5/10

Review by: Christopher

Metal has always suffered from a streak of elitism, bearded gatekeepers daring to pronounce upon what’s metal and what’s not, and the genre has always picked out enemies to pile upon. Avenged Sevenfold were roundly mocked for their hard rock sensibilities and emo aesthetic, virtually all of nu-metal was the subject of derision both deserved and unwarranted, and if you trust the people at Metal-Archives.com—and you shouldn’t—even prog stalwarts Between the Buried and Me are apparently not metal. The latest band to be stood in the corner and made to face the wall for their vnkvlt ways are Sleep Token, the bemasked UK group fronted by the anonymous Vessel, who claims to be the Earthly representative for an ancient deity called Sleep. The band’s amalgamation of djenting riffs, Hozier-grade sadboi pop, and libidinous RnB gloss has been met with cult-like fervour and impassioned denunciation in equal measure. Whether Sleep Token are or aren’t a) metal, b) progressive or c) good is—just like their deranged lore and Instagram posts that always begin with “Hark!” “Behold”—a matter of debate to be resolved by people who don’t wash. The band’s actual function within the musical ecosystem is a simple and time-tested one: plausible deniability for the alternative kids to claim they don’t like mainstream music while listening to something clearly deeply inspired by mainstream music and so popular in and of itself that it is, in fact, mainstream. 

Now, the blend of djent, mournful pop and hip-hop that Sleep Token peddle has, admittedly, never quite worked for me—I’m the dissenting voice in this double review, after all⁴—but on fourth album Even in Arcadia, the band have clearly lost their lustre. This Place Will Become Your Tomb was a solid work of alternative metal with a pop sheen, and the marriage of the two styles was fully consummated, carried with a poise similar to that of Denmark’s VOLA. Arcadia’s relationship with metal, however, is that of a checked-out divorced father visiting his kids every other weekend: he turns up, eventually, smelling strongly of whisky and he’s really phoning it in on this whole fatherhood thing. An unfortunately large percentage of Arcadia is Vessel’s self-pitying croons over generic RnB beats and enigmatically banal synths. When the band remember they have to include riffs in order to keep the charade alive, they’re dreadfully shoehorned. 

After a pretty successful opening number, “Emergence” settles into the banality which will come to plague Arcadia—even in Arcadia they have banality! Ancient deity Sleep has caught up with the noughties hip-hop scene, and he’s decided that his human conduit on Earth should communicate thusly. “Emergence” still has some Riffs and is a bit more compositionally finessed than the real duds in the latter half, but the, ahem, emergence of phat beats and Vessel’s generic RnB flow telegraph Arcadia’s imminent problems. Oh, and there’s a saxophone solo which appears with all the grace of a guest contribution that makes you go “oh, and there’s a saxophone solo”, possessed of a rather thin, midi-ish tone which did make me wonder if a saxophonist actually played on the record—it’s Gabi Rose and she does, and does so well, it’s the way that sax solo is mixed which I find strange to the ear (the violin solo on the title track, however, has no such credit and, therefore, may be synthesised). “Past Self” and “Caramel” lean into the type of quintessentially white hip-hop that’s plagued pop from the Backstreet Boys through Justin Timberlake all the way to post-Post Malone. The greater sin of “Caramel” is that it veers, without justification, into a heavier section with backing screams that seem completely out of place. And this happens over and over on Arcadia: Sleep Token are happy to practically stop a song so they can wedge in a requisite metal section. The riffs are no longer executed with the enthusiasm of the previous records, and there’s little energy expended to ensure the heavier and lighter elements blend smoothly. 

The more pop-centric tracks on older records still had heft: “Mine” built post-rock fashion from its jaunty synth motif into a thickly-riffed climax; the chant of “The Love You Want” was eventually accompanied in its final chorus by Car Bomb-esque wonky djent; and “Granite” allowed a thrumming eight string low-end to counter its otherwise typical poppiness. Frequently, the “heavy parts” on Arcadia’s offerings tend toward the strumming of thicc but generic bass lines in the chorus—at least on “Damocles”, Vessel has the self-awareness to admit “I know these chords are boring.” On “Gethsemane”, Sleep Token remember they were meant to record guitar parts, leading to Intervals-esque noodling that is at least engaging but feels a touch out of place. Still, this track tries out some ideas beyond the usual formula, be it Vessel’s frequent and rather refreshing utilisation of falsetto, or a bit of rhythmic start-stop in the choruses, and some better integrated djenting—even if all that is for naught when he ends up going back to the dull ol’ mid-tempo RnB. The problem is that while it wouldn’t be prudent or relevant to speculate as to Vessel’s race, his hip-hop credentials are akin to the average white middle manager’s. His flow, such as it is, barely varies, watering down every song it touches to one uninteresting idea. 

Refrains, meanwhile, are hammered home with desperate repetition, as if the band know that there are no true hooks here. How many times can you listen to a man repeat “So go ahead and wrap your arms around me, arms around me, arms around me” before you stick a butter knife in an electrical socket? Ignore my frazzled, smoking hair. Vessel’s rhyme scheme is steeped in a hip-hop flow but delivered like a sad giant workshopping his first ever diss track. Also, I don’t understand (and certainly don’t care to dig into) the lyrical themes. Supposedly, the band is centred around this eldritch terror called Sleep and is speaking His gospel, but most of Sleep Token’s lyrics are universal-yet-neutered paeans to a litany of situationships. Either Sleep Token is a failed sex cult run by a man lacking the raw sexual charisma of the late L. Ron Hubbard or Vessel is writing fanfic for his own “I’m being topped by an eldritch god”⁵ stories. Neither prospect is appealing.  

Now, those of you rooting for the prosecution in this double review will be baying for blood. But I can’t deny that Even in Arcadia has a handful of compelling moments: the tense build into the metal drop on opening number “Look to Windward” is skilfully done, even if the middle third of the track turns into a fifth-rate OneRepublic⁶ mimic. “Emergence” might not be inspired but it feels more like “classic” Sleep Token and has a sense of composition lacking elsewhere. Closing track “Infinite Baths”, despite the silly title, is the clear standout—indeed, Sleep Token have form for bookending their albums strongly. The build around halfway through the track sees string swells leading into a succession of actually thought-through djent riffs which are, again, compelling in a way that so much of Arcadia isn’t. Sleep Token understand tension and release. It’s one of their great strengths, and yet this album is almost devoid of it. 

With a little metal for the sake of keeping up appearances, Even in Arcadia leans harder into a sort of noughties hip-hop vibe that’s as purposeless as it is irritating. Vessel sings another round of curiously sexless erotic laments that are sure to keep his fans doxxing him, but the shtick is getting tired, and Sleep Token sound spent. The group’s cult-like fandom won’t notice the misstep, but this is a curiously uninspired outing for a band who, whether you consider them metal or not, are undeniably the biggest artist in the modern scene. Are Sleep Token metal? Who cares. The question you should be asking is “Am I getting old?” and you’re not gonna like the answer. 

Christopher’s final verdict: 4/10

Recommended tracks: Look to Windward, Emergence, Gethsemane, Infinite Baths
You may also like: Sermon, Rendezvous Point, Intrascendence

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

Label: RCA Records – Facebook | Official Website

Sleep Token is:
– Vessel (vocals, keyboards, guitars)
– II (drums)
With guests:
– Gabi Rose (saxophone on “Emergence”)

1. This very site is no exception, as is readily evidenced by the review accompanying mine. Enjoying these guys’ music is, shall we say, a… minority opinion around here. ︎
2. As someone who strongly views genre as something artists do rather than something they are, this whole debate perplexes me. I will simply say that Sleep Token are unambiguously a band that does metal, sometimes, and whether they spend a sufficiently large percentage of their runtime doing it to “be” metal will be left as an exercise for the people who actually give a shit. ︎
3. My fellow writer Andy called this part “cliche”, a take I would expect from someone who listens to car alarms and shrimp noises in his free time. ︎
4. Oh, you thought Ian’s 6.5 was mean? Just you wait. ︎
5.  Vessel might top or they might take it in turns. Let it never be said that this blog isn’t sex positive. ︎
6.  Remember OneRepublic? They released that one album, Dreaming Out Loud, in 2007. The most successful single was “Apologize” which Timbaland remixed. “Stop and Stare” was good, too. Then they disappeared and never made music again, or so I assumed until researching for this review which led me to the baffling discovery that they have 53 million Spotify monthly listeners and released their sixth album last year. Who the fuck is listening to OneRepublic in 2025?! ︎

The post Double Review: Sleep Token – Even in Arcadia appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Metal, Djent (Clean Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tesseract, Monuments, later The Contortionist, Skyharbor
Country: Chile
Release date: 7 April 2025

I completely missed out on djent’s initial wave. I was but a child when Meshuggah was first bringing the genre to life on albums like Destroy Erase Improve (1995) and Chaosphere (1998), while the early 00s explorations of groups like Sikth, Tesseract, Veil of Maya, et al would go completely unnoticed, ensconced as I was in the realms of groove, nu, and power metal. Not until the 2010s would I get my first taste of djent’s polymetric grooving and eight-string abuse. I was certainly a fan of much of it, though I’d be hard-pressed to recall specific albums save a few (Skyharbor’s Guiding Lights and Meshuggah’s The Violent Sleep of Reason come to mind). Djent had quickly become filled with bands who, while perhaps boasting technically proficient players, lacked any sort of sonic identity beyond repeating the crunchy, bouncy glitch-metal and waxing introspection popularized by Tesseract and ilk.

With legions of sound-alikes, the genre’s reach as a sub-arm of progressive metal began to feel atrophied and almost like a joke. After all, how “progressive” can a genre be when it sounds like it’s crafted in an echo chamber? Stagnation begets degradation. Suffocation begets death—or at least, death within the critical noosphere. And as the 2020s has seen the domination of “modern metal” (as amorphous a moniker as any) through artists as Bad Omens, Sleep Token, and Spiritbox, not to mention the long-in-the-making ascension of Bring Me The Horizon, djent as a whole-cloth genre has felt less and less valued in the metalsphere.

But nothing stays dead forever, and there will always be artists finding ways to add spice to tired recipes. Which brings us to Chilean outfit Intrascendence and their eponymous debut. On the whole, the band blends atmosphere with grooving rhythms replete with downtuned chugs, and lyrics centered on introspection and themes of, well… transcendence. And if that sounds a lot like, say, Tesseract or Skyharbor or Veil of Maya or Monuments, then I thought so, too. As I fired up Intrascendence’s first cut, the bouncy and breathy “Believing to See,” I was struck by familiarity as the band ba-genk-genk’ed their guitars across a chunky, electronica-dusted landscape capped with powerful vocals equally searching and soaring.

Then the funk-bass, dop-doom-da-dums, and cheeky tongue clicks kicked open the bridge, and suddenly I found myself wandering entirely different terrain. I’ve always found there to be an inherent fun to djent, whether the executors of it intended it or not; a herky-jerky jauntiness tailor-made for the kind of impromptu jank-dancing I court shamelessly. Suddenly, Intrascendence was speaking a language of love to my admittedly weather-beaten soul, delivered in myriad spats a’la the jittery guitar lines pecking away at the atmo-prog of “Ostracism,” the symphonic metal-bombast of “Ascend to Infinity,” or the buoyant and bouncy “Self-Blinded,” perhaps my favorite slice off the record. And while much of Intrascendence does feel like Tesseract-core, it’s this undeniable liveliness and willingness to expand within well-trod sounds that keeps aspects of the album afloat in my memory.

I wish more of Intrascendence incorporated this kind of off-center experimentation. Tracks like “Stones,” “Strength,” and “Sintergy” are perfectly fine, but without the little additions found in “Believing to See” or “Self Blinded,” they can’t help feeling generic by comparison. As a result, Intrascendence have cultivated a clutch of songs that are good in the moment, gone in the aftermath. Then again, there’s much to be said for too much of a good thing; I’d hate to see the band’s creative playfulness weaponized into some form of inorganic template, where expectation overrides artistic intention.

Speaking of expectation…

Djent has a tendency to sound robotic, so stiff and stilted in its systematic syncopation that one could be excused for assuming machines were responsible—somewhat amusing, considering the genre’s preoccupation with humanity and introspection. Intrascendence somehow sidestep this issue, despite carrying many of the sonic markers of their forebears. There’s a palpable energy running through the entirety of the record. Key to this are Omar Alvear and Rodrigo del Canto, who handle guitar and bass, respectively. I can almost imagine them swaying and bouncing along with their instruments as they ebb, flow, drop, and stutter across the forty-one minute runtime. Martin Alvarez’s drumming is tight, yet allows for the kind of organic flow which made Neil Peart (Rush) such a joy to listen to. Singer Felipe Reyes’ cleans, breathy and resonant, may echo Tesseract’s Daniel Tompkins, but there’s elements of Ra frontman Sahaj Ticotin in the way he vocalizes and holds certain notes, adding small but flavorful differences in support of Intrascendence’s uniqueness.

I approached Intrascendence with caution. At its worst, djent is not unlike the tulpa of progressive metal: a vessel filled to the brim with the ideas of depth, nuance, challenge, etc, yet unmistakably hollow and lacking vitality. Derivative of the thoughts which conjured it into reality. Though Intrascendence’s existence is clearly indebted to those who came before, that has not stopped these Chileans from pushing beyond the measures of their make to conjure a work awash in the liveliness of their own humanity.

Recommended tracks: Believing to See, Self Blinded, Ascend to Infinity
You may also like: Blinded By Silence, He Knows (formerly Form Subtract), Inner Cabala, A Notion of Silence, Perfect Shadows
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Intrascendence is:
– Felipe Reyes (vocals)
– Omar Alvear (guitar)
– Rodrigo del Canto (guitar, bass)
– Martin Alvarez (drums)
– Manuel Arriaza (keyboard)

The post Review: Intrascendence – Intrascendence appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album art by Roi Mercado

Style: Progressive Metal, Djent (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: TesseracT, Cloudkicker, The Helix Nebula
Country: United States, Ohio
Release date: 13 May 2025

Djent is a genre (or is it?) that has infiltrated its way into a myriad of neighboring styles within the progressive metal scene, slowly seeping through the cracks in its foundation. What essentially started as Meshuggah worship has undergone a slow and somewhat painful metamorphosis, transcending beyond a simple palm muted, syncopated guitar technique into an expansive musical language all its own. The journey to this point has been rife with failed experimentation, alchemical genre-mixing, and a steadily evolving intervallic language that seems to have come to its logical conclusion in the form of “thall”—another style about which to argue genre legitimacy. The bulk of djent’s growth took place from around 2006 through the mid 2010’s, with bands like Textures, SikTh, TesseracT, Periphery, Uneven Structure, and Vildhjarta all putting their own spin on the core techniques that constitute its sound and superimposing said techniques onto a variety of unique soundscapes, showcasing the style’s versatility, and solidifying its genre status proper.

There were many a branching path that djent explored during its adolescence, some more niche than others, and some seemingly forgotten to the annals of syncopated time. The Bulb demos are perhaps the best representative of a particular niche of one of the genre’s earliest investigative forays: atmosphere-focused instrumental djent. Bulb’s demos are somewhat paradoxical in the sense that, at the time, they were massively popular, single-handedly inspiring a swathe of bedroom guitarists toward their instrumental explorations; at the same time, they were nearly instantly rendered redundant by these same newly empowered musicians as they realized that what they were playing was basically just Meshuggah with more tonality. The end result was a shockingly frantic evolution of sound. Widek, Nemertines, Returning We Hear the Larks, Walking Across Jupiter, Polarization, Cloudkicker, Their Dogs Were Astronauts, Cold Night for Alligators, Sithu Aye, and many other projects like these have been all but forgotten, mere grains of sand in a desert of chugs, yet their influence on djent’s trajectory cannot be denied.

Antediluvian Projekt, solo project of John Heckathorn, nestles within this assemblage of atmosphere-driven instrumental djent, and if I had been told that Atlan Blue was some obscure demo from 2011, I wouldn’t have given it much of a second thought. Atlan Blue shares the inquisitive, probing nature of adolescent djent, haphazardly smashing djent guitar techniques into a bedrock of jazz fusion and drenching atmosphere, and utilizing a jazz noir-esque trumpet as its main gimmick. Antediluvian Projekt, like so many of its genre peers past, brews its influences together to wildly varying degrees of success; there are moments of inspired, meaningful realization, yet so much of Atlan Blue leaves me scratching my head in confusion at its choices. 

After a meandering intro track, “Atlan Blue” starts strong with a bass and piano groove that constantly oscillates between a bar of 5/4 and a bar of 9/8, a roiling sea for the djent guitars to swim within. Clean guitar solos weave between the bass, piano, and distorted guitar groove; trumpet is ever present in the background; and electronic elements further add to the melting pot of texture, resulting in an interestingly varied sonic landscape. “What Does Truth Fear” follows, and is similarly effective in its textural language, switching between a beefy low-tuned guitar rhythm reminiscent of recent Vildhjarta, and a more understated groove that could have been lifted straight from any TesseracT album. Again, trumpet and electronic production elements add depth to the sound, and the revolving structure of the songwriting manages to maintain the listener’s attention while keeping in step with the focus on atmosphere. 

Unfortunately, the remainder of Atlan Blue does not live up to its decent first impressions. “P0W3R” recycles the exact same riffs from “What Does Truth Fear”, slightly changing the trumpet lines and adding an electronic drum beat as an intro that I’m pretty sure is the exact same rhythm as one of the riffs, just played significantly faster. The result is an odd interlude track that could have just been tacked onto the previous song as a climax, but is instead a forced detour into unnecessary bloat. Instead of regaining his footing after the stumble, Heckathorn doubles down with “T3MP0R4L 0SCILLAT0R”, the longest track on the album, and also the one where the least happens. The listener is treated to over seven minutes of meandering shoegaze—still with the ever-present trumpet—and any semblance of momentum that Atlan Blue may have had up to this point is unceremoniously squandered. 

The remaining few tracks are further explorations of the sound initially presented on “Atlan Blue” and “What Does Truth Fear,” though I am hard pressed to even care enough to reach this point of Atlan Blue after a few listens. On the occasions that I do, I am rewarded not so much with an interesting textural melting pot, but more with a clouded beaker of unfocused distillation. Heckathorn’s trumpet playing is competent, and he has the chops to pull off the gimmick of trumpet djent, but the melodies played often have seemingly nothing to do with the rest of the music, and this problem is especially exacerbated on the back half of Atlan Blue. The trumpet is simultaneously the main selling point and seemingly an afterthought in the songwriting, leading to a bizarre feeling of fundamental discontinuity. What remaining actual guitar riffs there are become shadows of their former selves, falling prey to the insidious curse of hackneyed djent stereotypes. The slightly above average drum performance is perhaps Atlan Blue’s biggest saving grace, though it is not nearly enough to fortify the whole structure from falling in on itself by the album’s end. 

Antediluvian Projekt does indeed fit snugly within the old order of atmospheric instrumental djent: quirks, inspirations, and shortcomings all. Atlan Blue reads as a billet-doux to a long-lost lover, one whose familiar memory still lingers in everyday modern scenery, providing comfort and pain in equal measure. Through rose colored glasses, Atlan Blue can be a temporary succor for those plagued by the nostalgic longing for the perceived golden age of djent. With slightly more focus, though, the illusion shatters, and we are left with a stinging reminder of why, perhaps, so many bands become forgotten in the polyrhythmic ebb and flow of time.

Recommended tracks: Atlan Blue, What Does Truth Fear?, BR3AKAWAY
You may also like: Returning We Hear the Larks, Walking Across Jupiter, Bulb, Mouse on the Keys
Final verdict: 5.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Antediluvian Projekt is:
– John Heckathorn (Everything)

The post Review: Antediluvian Projekt – Atlan Blue appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-metal, progressive metal, djent (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Cloudkicker, Scale the Summit, Pelican
Country: Utah, United States
Release date: 20 April 2025

A question for my fellow instrumental music lovers out there: how infuriating is it when someone dismisses a track just because it doesn’t have vocals? You know the type. “I need lyrics to connect to a song,” or “How am I supposed to know what it’s about with no singer?” My personal favorite: “It’s not a song without vocals.” Depending on which expert you ask, they might be technically correct¹—but let’s be honest, we’re talking about the unwashed masses here, and what they’re really saying is “I don’t know how to engage with music unless someone spells it out for me.” Don’t you just want to smack them upside the head with something that really connects with you? The emotive melodies of Cloudkicker are that for me. Whack. How can you not feel this?

I came across Saranhedra thanks to my fellow reviewer Doug, who described it as “a fusion of post-metal with more melodic/traditional instrumental metal.” That alone piqued my interest, but then I noticed that Carian—the one-man project of Randy Cordner—is based out of Provo, Utah, where I went to college. Provo isn’t exactly a hotbed for my kind of music, so I was really rooting for this to be good. When I hit play and “Sunstone” began, I thought I was in for a bit of a slog. The slow, repetitive guitar line and eerie atmosphere—combined with the monolithic cover art—felt like it was setting up a vaguely doom metal funeral dirge. But then “Katalepsis” kicked in, and suddenly I was back in my college apartment, listening to Cloudkicker’s The Map Is Not the Territory for the first time. Saranhedra has a similar layered, melodic djent sound with punchy rhythm and emotional lift—except this time, it’s new. And it’s coming from Provo? Fucking Fetching wild. But is similarity to one of my favorite artists enough to come back time and again?

The heart of Saranhedra lies in its rhythmically engaging, melodious progressions. It belongs to that rare class of instrumental music where repetition isn’t a crutch—it’s a transformation. You might still be humming along to a similar motif by the end of a piece, but the aural landscape around it has been altered to varying degrees depending on the track, thus you’re rarely finishing in the same place that you started. Providing a heft of color to the soundscape is the lead guitar: soaring phrases (“Crissaegrim,” “Saranhedra”), happy tappy cadences (“Legion,” “Magog”), and even a bit of shred here and there (“Orphanim and a Flaming Sword”) all add a Scale the Summit vibe to this LP.

Unlike a lot of djent that gets stuck in a loop of polyrhythmic chugging and ambient filler, Carian writes songs. You feel each track is going somewhere and that the songs aren’t just texture and tone, but full-on compositions. Instrumental metal has a volume problem—not just in decibels, but in saturation. There’s so much of it, made with relative ease in a home office or basement, that standout work is increasingly difficult to find. Last month, I browsed the djent bazaar and picked up a random LP. Total dud. This time, I got lucky. Saranhedra isn’t reinventing anything, to be clear, but it brings melody, momentum, and a spirit that connects with me to a style that often forgets those things.

Speaking of volume problems, let’s talk about the drums on this release—I can’t fucking fetching hear them half the time. There are so many layers of beautiful guitar melodies that absolutely bury everything else, and the drums are what suffer most because of that. Which cymbal is being smacked right now? I repeatedly ask myself. It’s complete guesswork to my relatively fine-tuned ear for those things. While simultaneously, some lively, complex, and energetic fills are completely wasted under the guitar deluge. It’s frustrating because the percussive elements themselves feel like they have something to say, but the mix refuses to let them speak. This flaw doesn’t ruin the album, but spending more time getting the mix just right could have elevated Saranhedra from good to great.

Mixing and production issues aside, the heavy Cloudkicker influence on Saranhedra is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, I can’t get enough of it. On the other, I can’t dole out high marks for moving the genre forward. But all the same, I can’t recommend this album enough, and if you’re an instru-metal fan, you owe it to yourself to give the stirring melodies of Saranhedra a shot, because—as you are well aware—a lack of vocals does not mean a lack of voice.

Recommended tracks: Crissaegrim, Orphanim and a Flaming Sword, Sardis, Magog
You may also like: The Arbitrary, Scaphoid, Hecla
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Independent release

Carian is:
– Randy Cordner (everything)

1. Which, as we all know, is the best kind of correct. ︎

The post Review: Carian – Saranhedra appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Djent, metalcore (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Vildhjarta, Monuments, Northlane, Periphery
Country: France
Release date: 10 April 2025

In chromatically sparse but rhythmically dense genres like djent, repetition and evolution is the simplest key to success—artists like Meshuggah and VOLA thrive on taking a single idea and letting their imaginations mash and contort its crooked rhythms to their heart’s desire. While it’s undoubtedly possible to tastefully execute a more stream-of-consciousness approach, the end result often comes closer to Aaru than Between the Buried and Me in the wrong hands. So where does that leave French multi-instrumentalist Ares on his seventh full-length record, Human Algorithm…? Will he stay on the tried-and-true path of constant marginal change or eschew the Djent Algorithm for more adventurous pieces?

Well, one track in and the listener can glean all there is to know about Human Algorithm…: moaning lead guitars underlie chunky 01110—10-10 grooves, repeated ad nauseam until Ares has decided the dueling guitars have suffered for long enough. Variations so subtle that they push the definition of ‘variation’ do occur, but the overall soundscape never changes—every track boasts a singular idea, a singular mood, and a singular groove that haphazardly dances around nebulous lead guitar work. To claim that either of these elements take the spotlight would be a misrepresentation: the experience is closer to having your attention drift between the two as you get bored of whatever you happen to be focusing on. Occasionally, the monotony is broken up by spoken-word sections that are either clichéd into oblivion and distastefully used (“Going Mad”) or performed by the dorkiest men you can imagine (“Edicius”).

The guitar leads on Human Algorithm… are by far the more grating of the two key elements. As expected of the name, you’d think they’d play some role in musical progression, but in an ironic twist of fate, very little is actually led by these guitars. For the vast majority of Human Algorithm…, they are conscribed to repeat featureless melodic fills until the guitar’s B and E strings break. Glimpses of melody and catchiness emerge on some of the repeated ideas on “Surpressure”, but the rest of the time, the timbre of the leads is like a shrill whine, conspiring with the dearth of melody to create an unintentional wall of tinnitus. The rhythm guitars are much more palatable than the album’s leads, but to call them ‘good’ would be an overstatement. While never grating, the underlying chugs tend to aimlessly lumber along, adding little more to the compositions than a respite when the lead guitars become too piercing to pay attention to. The voice-overs do little to help the music, either—the topics covered are quite serious, including societal critique and suicide, but it’s hard to meet clips like the one on “Edicius” at their level when they’re delivered by a guy who sounds like an Orson Welles impersonator that teaches accounting at a community college.

In its final hours, an aural hail-mary is delivered: a semblance of compositional variation comes in to yank the listener out of instrumental waterboarding. I am not exaggerating my jarred surprise at “Schizophrenia’s” singular tempo change near its end or the acoustic guitar breakdown of “Human Algorithm”, as by the time they surface, I had completely given up hope for tracks with multiple sections. What’s more, the title track manages to take advantage of the chunky rhythm work, laying down a fun stop-start groove to lead its center section. In absolutely no way do these pieces make up for the mind-numbing deluge that precedes them, but when you’re desperately clawing for variation after thirty minutes of stagnant djenty metalcore, it’s like a breath of fresh air.

Repetition is the bread and butter of djent, but everything should be taken in moderation, even moderation. Human Algorithm… is much too content in its musical ideas, ruminating on them for far longer than is enjoyable or even tolerable in some cases. When Ares does break the mold and tries for more quote-unquote ‘adventurous’ songwriting styles, the result is decent but hardly enough to save a record fraught with dorky voice-overs, featureless grooves, and equally featureless and endlessly grating lead guitars.

Recommended tracks: Human Algorithm, Schizophrenia
You may also like: Aaru, Uneven Structure, Auras, Ever Forthright
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook

Label: Independent

Ares is:
– Ares (everything)

The post Review: Ares – Human Algorithm… appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal (instrumental) 
Recommended for fans of: Plini, Arch Echo, David Maxim Micic
Country: Ohio, USA
Release date: 18 April 2025

“What happened with Legos? They used to be simple. Oh come on, I know you know what I’m talking about. Legos were simple. Something happened out here while I was inside. Harry Potter Legos, Star Wars Legos, complicated kits, tiny little blocks. I mean, I’m not saying it’s bad, I just wanna know what happened.” – Professor Marshall Kane in Community. 

The words of the brooding Michael K. Williams character above may resonate with older readers who remember the days before Lego fascism. The Lego experience used to be one of freedom, of having a box bursting at the seams with mismatched blocks and letting one’s mind run wild to build monstrosities whose awful angularities and obvious structural issues were patched over using the naivety of childhood imagination. In the modern era, Lego is a rigidly enforced building experience complete with instruction manuals that should never be deviated from. One can think of music the same way, with genre tropes, certain instruments, and even effects and tones as a similar set of building blocks that can be utilised to create wondrous new imaginings, or the same thing you’ve heard a thousand times before. 

Lux Terminus’ debut was hailed as something of a gem in the instrumental scene. With piano as the main event, the Ohian trio separate themselves from the bulk of instrudjental acts by reining in the wankery, centring piano and synth and using a much softer production style. Vikram Shankar’s keyboarding is the main driving force, and he’s backed by Brian Craft’s thrumming basscraft, and Matthew Kerschner’s mix of electronic and acoustic drumwork. Sophomore Cinder is opened by the “Jupiter” triptych which sees Lux Terminus accompanied by the melismatic la-ing and ah-ing of backing vocal trio Espera (Paige Phillips, Mathilda Riley, Lynsey Ward). A recurring motif of grand synth textures is interwoven between an irreverent staccato rhythm, spoken word, and some ambient atmospheres. A bog-standard djent rhythm closes out “Jupiter II: To Bend a Comet” in dirging fashion. The third part throws it back to Espera, who boldly diverge from la’s and ah’s, adding some oh-ing to their repertoire with swelling symphonics to really hammer home the grandeur. And… that’s it. We’re twelve minutes into Cinder and all we’ve heard is a two-minute album intro idea grotesquely swollen to a medically concerning length. It’s an inauspicious opening to say the least.

Unfortunately, Cinder continues just as unpromisingly. Across the album, Lux Terminus are plagued by a puzzling adherence to a banal formula which fails to serve the talents of the band members. Drawing from a handful of compositional building blocks—synthwave textures, djent rhythms, a piano or synth solo, restrained atmosphere-led sections—and proceeding in Lego-like fashion to build songs. “Mosaic Mind” offers some intricate piano work in the verses, some eighties synthwave textures and flows through a range of soundscapes until a glorious key change. “Neon Rain” centres the djent, performed both on piano and bass, returning to its main motif ad nauseam. “P.L.O.N.K.” sounds like a Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack on half speed, utilising relatively simple chords for its epic main melody and with the synth lead and piano rhythm playing in counterpoint. The ideas are there but they’re repeated and reiterated in slightly different forms across Cinder; the same few Lego bricks in slightly different configurations. Even a few tracks in, the instruction manual Lux Terminus are cribbing from is readily apparent to all. 

The proof of this comes when people with more imagination join in. Guests Ross Jennings (Haken), Jon Pyres (Threads of Fate), and itinerant sax virtuoso Jørgen Munkeby (Shining) put in an appearance on “Catalyst”, which is the album highlight. Munkeby’s ubiquitous sax provides an engaging hook; Jennings naturally bestows an Affinity-era Haken sensibility to the track; and Pyres is an intriguing melodic foil for him. “Catalyst” is no more interestingly composed than any of the other tracks on Cinder, it just happens to benefit from a saxophonist and two singers playing over the top. And this is Lux Terminus’ problem in a nutshell: rather than composing compelling instrumental music in its own right, Cinder feels like it was composed for a vocalist or other players who never turned up to the recording studio. These are instrumental beds, foundations, the groundwork for something more impressive. But solos come sparingly, rhythms are repeated as though something else, some much-needed focal point, is meant to be happening atop them but was forgotten, meaning the tracks invariably seem rather lacking as a result. Cinder cries out for more guests, talented musicians with their own Lego bricks to creatively complete the constructions.

Almost everything about Cinder is far too reined in. When “P.L.O.N.K.” changes into a calmer gear, it feels completely unearned as the band haven’t done anything to deserve a break. “The Devil’s Eyes” offers some frenetic piano work, but one nevertheless gets the sense Shankar is holding back on us. When solos come along, it’s almost as though they’re merely filling an obligation, and the solo that closes out “Natsukashii” is so buried in the mix as to be disappointing for how ill-tended-for it is. Lux Terminus’ brief sojourns into djent (“Neon Rain”, “Mosaic Mind”, “The Devil’s Eyes”) are invariably their least inspired moments, doling out the most trudging and simplistic of rhythms with little going on over the top to distract the listener. The fact that “Natsukashii” is every bit as dull as the rest of the tracks but decides to be a bit crazy and mix things up with—checks notes—an indistinct shout in the outro, should tell you everything you need to know. Even the production on Kerschner’s drums is so restrained that it does a complete disservice to his talents. While the pads work well in the calmer sections, in heavier moments like those on “Apparent Horizon” he slowly becomes all but washed out. 

In a scene chock full of onanistic guitar performances that all sound the same, the guarantee of more compositionally focused performers, softer production, and an emphasis on piano and synths should be a slam dunk. And yet Lux Terminus do shockingly little with those tools, restraining their clear skill and creativity to the point of banality. Nothing about Cinder is unpleasant to listen to—it would take a genuine creative swing to do that—but it’s also never any better than merely nice. Indeed, it’s the sort of album for which nebulous adjectives like “nice” and “pretty” were devised. Like looking at a friend’s £734.99 Millennium Falcon Lego set, Lux Terminus sound flashy and incredibly well put together, but you’re left wondering, “where’s the imagination?” And then you see the box behind the set that reads: Basic Djent Instrumental, for ages 8+.

Recommended tracks: Catalyst, The Devil’s Eyes
You may also like: The Resonance Project, Etrange, Vipassi
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: Independent

Lux Terminus is:
– Vikram A. Shankar (keyboards)
– Matthew Kerschner (drums)
– Brian Craft (bass guitars)

With:
– Paige Phillips, Mathilda Riley, Lynsey Ward (Espera) (backing vocals on “Jupiter”)
– Ross Jennings and Jon Pyres (vocals on “Catalyst”)
– Jørgen Munkeby (saxophone on “Catalyst”)

The post Review: Lux Terminus – Cinder appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: big band jazz, progressive metal, jazz fusion, djent (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Snarky Puppy, Meshuggah, Thank You Scientist, Animals as Leaders
Country: New Zealand
Release date: 24 March 2025

Prog is a kleptomaniac genre. It borrows from a range of influences from across the sonic firmament and prog fans will have heard a variety of weird and wonderful infusions into their rock and metal, from rap to klezmer to samba. But the two big genres that are most indelibly influential to progressive music are classical and jazz. Think Renaissance, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Wilderun; Imperial Triumphant, Thank You Scientist, Cynic. We usually know what to expect from bands that infuse classical and jazz influences into their style, but our expectations here at The Subway were rather blown away in 2023 by Haralabos Stafylakis’ Calibrating Friction. Stayflakis, a guitarist and classical composer, produced an album with a small orchestra plus drummer and guitars to create compositions grounded in the compositional trappings of classical music but utilising progressive metal tropes and textures; rather than making prog metal with a bit of orchestral influence, it was an orchestra with a bit of prog metal influence. Countless bands have tackled jazz fusion prog, but can anyone turn our jazz metal expectations on their head? 

Enter Chris Beernink, a bassist, guitarist, composer and audio engineer who has made the distinctly unprofitable decision to release a big band jazz metal album¹. In practice, this means guitars, bass and drums working on the rhythmic metal textures, with twelve sax and horn players providing the big band. The resulting concoction is less Ornette Coleman, more djent Snarky Puppy. Fans of the late Sound Struggle, as well as djent mainstays like Meshuggah or Animals as Leaders will find familiar metal flavours to enjoy, while fans of jazz instruments in prog will suffocate on an abundance of riches. 

Apocalyptic horns and gnarled metal rhythms make up the lion’s share of The Chimera Suite, so the moments playing against this tendency stand out. “II. Aergia” feels like something out of an Imperial Triumphant record, opening with eerie piano chords, restrained drumming, judicious guitar notes and some spooky horn work while slowly building inexorably towards a thundering, doomy heaviness. “I. Regenesis” takes a break for a noodling jazz guitar solo with quieter instrumentation behind. Though Beernink gives the requisite time for light and heavy to play out against one another, what’s lacking is respite from a generalised blunt force. “II. Aergia” is a softer track but it’s still somewhat dirging in its rhythms. The smoothness of that noodly guitar solo on “I. Regenesis” is the rarity, conveying a sense of delicacy much needed to balance out the heaviness. For most of its runtime, The Chimera Suite sounds like an angry swarm of bees in the best possible way, but it does threaten to wear the listener down.

The heavier metal ventures such as the doomy outro on “II. Aergia” are often the least interesting sonic elements, struggling to carve out their own identity when jettisoning the jazz. Beernink does like to throw in a thudding dirge riff every now and then—sometimes to better effect (e.g. as a rhythm for the horns and piano to work around as on “III. Event Horizon”) and sometimes just as heaviness for heaviness’s sake (“II. Aergia”). His bass and guitar playing is rooted firmly in the djent scene; anyone expecting the virtuosity of jazz fusion artists like Jaco Pastorius or Thundercat will be disappointed.

Opening track “I. Regenesis” feels almost like a jazz horn composition sitting on a metal rhythm section which was worked out after the fact, the two elements working complementarily whilst also threatening to tear one another apart. This contrapuntal polyrhythmic wonkery stays throughout, like a horny, over-saxed Meshuggah. “III. Event Horizon” opens with the madcap energy of the soundtrack from a chase scene in a 50s noir but, y’know, metal and chaotic, and it keeps that energy up for most of its nine-minute runtime, the horns reeling in their death throes at the song’s close.

In the middle of “V. Kleos”, the song goes quieter, allowing the horns to cavort and caper while Beernink’s bass chunters in the background. This builds to perhaps the most Snarky Puppy-esque section on The Chimera Suite as the horns rhapsodise in the space left by the main band exacting restraint. As the track reaches its finale, the saxes engage in a call and response refrain which becomes a rhythmic motif for the big band to bellow over before everything turns dissonant and Beernink starts hitting some low notes so heavy that one has to assume everyone in the studio had to change their underwear after recording.

However, as the track most connected to traditional jazz fusion, “IV. Fury Spawn” feels like the clear stand out of the record. The horns and woodwinds are less inclined to blast as hard as possible, the metal is less in-your-face—at least until the monstrous djent outro which suddenly explodes Car Bomb style. With the trumpet solo, the light piano work in the middle, and the far more deft drumwork, it could sit quite comfortably on a Snarky Puppy record up until that closing minute, and the lighter touch throughout the rest of the track works in favour of the crushingly heavy outro. Maybe I just prefer my jazz fusion lighter.  

Beernink can join Stafylakis as a composer pushing metal into brave new realms, his fusion of jazz and metal being rather unique for a blend that’s already been attempted a thousand times before. The Chimera Suite’s big band dreams are mostly fulfilling, and though it can fall a little into djenting chasms, these tend to be exceptions on a record that proves thrilling throughout. So come on down to the modern metal jazz club: smoking’s banned, there are no tables, and they serve pints in a plastic cup. It’s better than it sounds, I promise.

Recommended tracks: I. Regenesis, IV. Fury Spawn, V. Kleos
You may also like: Haralabos Stafylakis, Sound Struggle, Seven Impale, The Resonance Project, Sarmat
Final verdict: 7.5/10

1.  The Chimera Suite was created with funding from Creative New Zealand. A world in which douche-weasels like Elon Musk can gut government funding initiatives is one where we get fewer creative swings like this. ︎

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: Independent

Chris Beernink is:
– Shaun Anderson (drums)
– Chris Beernink (bass, guitars)
– Dan Hayles (piano, organ, synth)

– Jake Baxendale, Tyaan Singh (alto saxophones)
– Louisa Williamson, Blair Latham (tenor saxophones)
– Frank Talbot (baritone saxophone, contrabass saxophone)
– Jack Harré, Ben Hunt, James Guildford-Smith (trumpets)
– Kaito Walley, Matt Allison, Julian Kirgan-Baez, Patrick Di Somma (trombones)

The post Review: Chris Beernink – The Chimera Suite appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive metal, mathcore, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tesseract, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Contortionist, Rolo Tomassi, Protest the Hero, The Mars Volta, Ions
Country: Italy
Release date: 11 March, 2025

Contrary to the wisdom of everyone’s favourite mad shredder, Yngwie Malmsteen, more isn’t more; less is more. Take the 1993 classic film, Jurassic Park, a landmark in special effects and everyone’s favourite dinosaur-laden romp. You’re probably picturing the T-Rex breaking out of the paddock, the majestic reveal of the brachiosaurus, or any number of iconic raptor scenes. You might be surprised, then, to hear that over the course of the film’s 127-minute runtime¹, dinosaurs grace the screen for a mere 15 minutes—or roughly 12% of the film. Everything you remember about that iconic piece of cinema you remember for its brevity, and the same is true of music; sometimes your sound can be defined by the thing you do sparingly.

Such an approach was certainly the aim on the debut of Italian prog metallers Benthos, but the confusingly-titled II struggled to break free of the shadow of their main influence, The Contortionist. Reinvigorated some four years on, their sophomore emphasises the nascent elements in their debut and brings them to the fore: mathy moments redolent of The Dillinger Escape Plan or Rolo Tomassi vie with djenting grooves and softer atmospheres, occasionally even segueing into The Mars Volta-esque trippy interludes. Some tracks flow rather gracefully (“From Nothing”), others are stitched together monstrosities (“Perpetual Drone Monkeys”), abrasive metal rubbing up against strange ambiences, alternately exploding and collapsing. 

Fittingly, “Fossil” may best demonstrate that Jurassic Park style less-is-more approach: abrasive, discordant math metal passages perforate the song’s facade at many junctures, but, despite being the defining feature of the music, they’re not the most common element. Across From Nothing, Gabriele Landillo’s soft, Dan Tompkins-esque cleans are utilised far more often than his harshes, and the composition remains legibly melodic for the most part, veering into total pandemonium for emphasis, rather than as a crutch. Comparisons to the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan, then, should be taken with a pinch of salt. There are moments that sing from the hymn sheet of mathcore’s greatest group, but for the most part, Benthos stick to a more mellow register, recalling groups like Ions and The Safety Fire. 

Take “Let Me Plunge”, for example. At around the two minute mark, a heretofore measured riff suddenly mutates into discordant chaos. It takes all of about six seconds, but that sudden abrasiveness keeps the listener on their toes. Like getting a glimpse of a raptor’s claw in the opening of Spielberg’s iconic blockbuster², Benthos’ interjections of cacophony may not last long, but they’re a warning to the listener. And the listener is rewarded with their 12%: “As a Cordyceps” erupts repeatedly into hardcore-inspired vocals and blunt dissonant chords, “Fossil” opens in truly madcap Dillinger fashion and explodes into a chaotic crescendo before some much-needed respite, and “Perpetual Drone Monkeys” might be the most relentless track on the album; energetic and jarring as it whiplashes from djent to hardcore to math and back again with abandon. Nevertheless, this trio of tracks contains the vast bulk of the heavier and chaotic work on From Nothing.

Much of the rest of the time, From Nothing is defined by a jangling chorus effect on the chords and slightly off-kilter vocal harmonies, sitting somewhere between The Contortionist and Ions. “The Giant Child” is straightforward structurally and is arguably the record’s softest track, the band almost relaxed, Alessandro Tagliani’s intricate percussion notwithstanding. “Pure” follows with a mathier Tesseract vibe, but nevertheless eschewing heaviness until an explosive finale. The only exception to the light/heavy contrast running through the album is “Athletic Worms” which is simply insane. Robotic vocals play over zany instrumentation that sounds more like Igorrr. It’s an oddity on an otherwise more serious record, and likely to be the one that polarises listeners, but it nevertheless showcases the band’s creativity. And if that ain’t chaos theory then what is?

The most unexpected influence on Benthos is The Mars Volta. There’s a chaotic jazzy psychedelia undergirding many of From Nothing’s sonic decisions. When “Fossil” isn’t doing Dillinger-style mathcore, it’s exploring rapid jazz chord play and watery chorus effects. There’s also frenetic jazzy riffing juxtaposed with psychedelic, almost shoegaze moments in “To Everything”. Meanwhile, Landillo’s highest notes even have a touch of Bixler-Zavala to them, most notably in the opening to “Perpetual Drone Monkeys” which sounds like it just escaped from the comatorium. This facet of Benthos’ sound is what truly sets them apart from their contemporaries, injecting something slightly deranged into a more familiar facade. 

Less is more, Jurassic Park is a masterpiece, and From Nothing is a consistently intense, tightly composed paragon of modern progressive metal. With the agility of a pack of raptors, Benthos have cemented their own style and then some on a distinguished sophomore guaranteed to pull them into the scene’s limelight. They might not render their peers and predecessors extinct, but they’re certainly clever boys.

Recommended tracks: Let Me Plunge, As A Cordyceps, Perpetual Drone Monkeys, To Everything
You may also like: Without Waves, Exotic Animal Petting Zoo, The Hirsch Effekt
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: InsideOut Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Benthos is:
– Gabriele Landillo (vocals)
– Gabriele Papagni (guitars)
– Enrico Tripodi (guitars)
– Alberto Fiorani (bass)
– Alessandro Tagliani (drums)

1.  This includes credits. Assuming that without credits the runtime is closer to 120 minutes, the percentage creeps up to 12.5%. ︎
2.  “Shoooot heeeeerrrr!” ︎

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