Style: Progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Black Crown Initiate, Textures, early The Contortionist
Country: Minnesota, USA
Release date: 6 June 2025

Retooling. If you’re the sort of person who assiduously watches sitcoms from their first season, you’ll be familiar with retooling. It’s the process by which a TV show is changed in order to alter a faulty premise into a more successful one, often by removing or adding a character, or changing the tone. Perhaps the most familiar example to my generation would be Parks and Recreation, which was retooled in its second season from a snarky The Office replica into a more heartwarming and slightly cartoonishly humoured show with the introduction of two new characters to incite tensions, both sexual and financial. Other famous examples include Star Trek (the entire cast of the initial pilot was replaced), Dallas (after killing off major character Bobby Ewing, the show suffered a catastrophic nose-dive in ratings and decided to reintroduce dead Bobby by revealing the entire season was a dream), and, of course, Family Matters. Starting out as a blue-collar take on The Cosby Show, Family Matters became completely restructured around the initial one-time character of Steve Urkell (‘did I do that?’) and subsequently turned, as Key and Peele put it, ‘into goddamn Quantum Leap.’¹

Minnesotan outfit Giant’s Knife are arguably the Parks and Recreation of prog metal, changing tone a little with the help of two new characters. Their 2021 debut Oracle was a fully instrumental work with a post-djent flavour; heavy riffs but with a melodic focus, with a strong emphasis on flow. On sophomore At the End of All Things, alongside the founding trio (Austin, Rylan, and Tony), the band have found their very own financial and sexual tension-makers in the form of Kyle and Will who both provide guitar work—while Kyle and Rylan unleash the clean and harsh vocals. Will audiences welcome the new cast or are they destined for cancellation after just two seasons, ala every single Netflix show post-2017?

Opening with a nod to their past, the five minute instrumental opener “Wayfarer” provides a throughline from Oracle, contextualising Giant’s Knife new shtick within the evolution of their sound. At the End of All Things truly begins with “Beyond the Reach of Comets” where the vocals finally get to walk on to cheers from the live-studio audience, showcasing the new range of metalcore barks, death growls, and soaring chorus cleans. It turns out that Giant’s Knife with vocals sound more like Textures, and, in the softer moments, like The Contortionist. With stronger production and those harshes guiding them, Giant’s Knife also sound newtons heavier, often veering into the djentrified progressive death stylings of Black Crown Initiate or even, to my ear, Whitechapel. 

Soft harmonies befitting the likes of The Contortionist or Tesseract perforate many of the tracks, such as the refrains of “Godfall” and “Beyond the Reach of Comets”; with the atmospheres of interlude “Loading…” and synthy outro palette cleanser “Null” occupying a similar sonic space to the aforementioned bands. “Where Souls Lie Still” almost verges on post-hardcore akin to The Safety Fire with its more anthemic sensibility. These moments are always done, just like the best sitcom comedies, with a powerful sense of tension and release.

Over time, however, we inevitably end up hitting on the usual plot beats and tropes that hold an otherwise promising cast back: the open low-string breakdowns that infect “Beyond the Reach of Comets”, a tendency to stick to a similar tempo for most songs, and the usual filler djent riffs that feel a little lazy, such as the one that plagues “Godfall”. For the most part, these issues are at least interwoven into compositions which tend to evolve over the course of songs, and rarely linger too long on a single idea; clearly part of the legacy of starting out instrumental and needing to keep the compositions moving. By the time the lumbering outro riff of “Molten Core” hits its nadir, you really do feel like you’ve hit the void. Meanwhile, “Destined Death” pushes the instrumental work in the ‘faces in the sky’ section to a delicious extreme, the vocal delivery providing a throughline while the kit is pulverised ever more intensely and the riffs become more frenetic. When Giant’s Knife hit upon an epic clean section or push the complexity of the instruments to further extremes they find their best pay-offs. At other times, like a sitcom where everything has to return to normal by the end, the audience leaves entertained but without memorable moments to hold in their mind. 

At a svelte thirty-nine minutes, At the End of All Things runs a tad longer than the average sitcom, but the retooling has put a good show on a new path, one guaranteed to find the Minnesotan five-piece a larger audience. With slightly stronger writing, a willing fanbase, and maybe a guest spot from Henry Winkler, Giant’s Knife’s promising fresh start could blossom into something truly brilliant. Let’s hope they get renewed for a third season. 

Recommended tracks: Beyond the Reach of Comets, Godfall, Where Souls Lie Still
You may also like: Rannoch, Subterranean Lava Dragon
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Independent

Giant’s Knife is:
– Austin (guitars, programming)
– Kyle (guitars, vocals)
– Will (guitars)
– Rylan (bass, vocals)
– Tony (drums)

1. “I’m a fuckin’ actor, Gene, I’ve done more cocaine than you weigh, motherfucker!” ︎

The post Review: Giant’s Knife – At the End of All Things appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style:  Progressive rock, folk rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Soen, The Dear Hunter, new Leprous, Hozier
Country: USA (Wisconsin)
Release date: 11 April 2025

I like going to the sphagnum bog near my house. Carved into the landscape by the inflow of the Champlain Sea some 12,000 years ago, this ecologically significant area is home to a rich array of flora and fauna in spite of its oligotrophic conditions. Once used for farming, it is now wrapped around by a scenic boardwalk peppered with signage detailing the bog’s history, plants and animals to look out for, and bafflingly, one rather editorialized sign depicting how mysterious bog creatures might come lurching out of the mist and kill you. A strange juxtaposition, to be sure, but perhaps not wholly incomparable to the experience of wandering through the murkier corners of progressive rock: the terrain may be uneven, there may be some unpredictable encounters along the way, but there’s always a promise of discovery.

Billed in the steam room of the Progressive Subway as a mix of Soen and The Dear Hunter, Samtar immediately caught my attention as a fan of those two bands. A one-man project with a prolific seven albums to his name in just five years, Samtar’s offerings are indeed deserving of both these comparisons and more, as he pairs a ringingly resonant baritone register giving touches of Soen’s Joel Ekelöf (“Desert Creature”) and Jim Grey of Caligula’s Horse (“Refuse”) with instrumental backing that ponderously navigates from dreamy and subtle to insistent and pulsing. In addition to the various heavier influences, Samtar also bears somewhat of a resemblance to Hozier (“All You Ever Wanted”) in his plaintive vocal delivery and blues-tinged folk instrumentals. The more those jazz and blues elements poke out of the mire, the better the effect, as the swingin’ guitar lines provide a smooth complement to Samtar in his relaxed baritone element.

All’s not well in the bog, however, and some of the trouble lies in the higher vocal range that Samtar seems intent on conquering. “Destiny is a Lie” illustrates this inconsistency perfectly, as the track sees him venture into a flimsy falsetto that adds nothing to the delivery. Belting, as in “All You Ever Wanted”, isn’t much better. It’s not that he can’t hit the high notes; more that doing so sometimes sounds like an uncomfortable strain.

This lack of vocal and lyrical subtlety sometimes makes for jarring juxtapositions of the album’s understated moments with the more bombastic ones. In “Fickle Fortune”, when Samtar cries out, “I fucking hate the fact we play these games”, I want to chastise him: sir, we’re in a bog! Don’t disturb the apparitions. Similarly in “Broken Sparrow”, which is the least heavy track on The Bog of Cosmic Delusions, Samtar’s climactic, passionate vocal release lacks the restraint and precision required for a successful execution, and the passion feels unearned. Also awkward at times is the way the lyrical and musical phrases are paired: emphasis often falls on the wrong syllable—this is particularly noticeable in “Distant Voices”, but recurs throughout the album.

While the vocals bubble most prominently up to the surface of The Bog of Cosmic Delusions, Samtar delivers capable and varied instrumental performances across the album. Also to his credit, Samtar’s writing boasts some genuinely catchy hooks: tracks like “Desert Creature” and “Fickle Fortune” are effortless to bop along to, and firmly lodged themselves in my head throughout my time in the mire. The weight given to the bass in the mix contributes to this infectious appeal, infusing a persistent groove under the action that reminds me of a walking bass line at times. “The Whispers” is probably the most instrumentally suggestive of The Dear Hunter; the intro sounds like it could be straight off Migrant. The glittering keys and jazz-adjacent guitar throughout are satisfying, though this track as well as a few others (“All You Ever Wanted”, “Vicarious Voodoo”) end rather abruptly.

Not unlike the boardwalk that winds through the bog near my home, The Bog of Cosmic Delusions is a journey replete with twists and turns, and a few unwelcome bogeymen along the way. Samtar’s strengths—his baritone voice, catchy riffs, and moody instrumental backdrops—offer stepping stones of real promise. But the trek is tripped up by unpolished vocal forays, lyrical clumsiness, and occasional lapses in nuance and finesse. With a finer touch and careful footing, Samtar’s next expedition might yield more solid ground.

Recommended tracks: Desert Creature, The Whispers, Vicarious Voodoo
You may also like: Thomas Giles, Birdmask, Mono Town
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Independent

Samtar is:
– Samtar (everything)

The post Review: Samtar – The Bog of Cosmic Delusions appeared first on The Progressive Subway.