Style: Progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Haken, Threshold, Circus Maximus
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 July 2025

Progressive metal is no stranger to classic literature. From Mastodon’s retelling of Moby Dick on Leviathan (one of my all-time favorite albums) to Symphony X’s The Odyssey based on, well, The Odyssey, prog metal fans could probably ace a high school literature class just by referencing their record collections. The two media may as well be siblings—sharing complex and expanding structures, lofty ideas and existential themes, and a tendency to prioritize the journey over any particular moment or destination. Both demand patience while rewarding immersion, and you’re going to need a lot of the former with Tiny Miracles, the second full-length from international prog-metalers Sad Serenity. From well-known works like Thoreau’s Walden to relatively obscure science fiction short stories such as An Empty House with Many Doors by Michael Swanwick, each of the six tracks on Tiny Miracles takes some influence from the literary realm, blending music and narrative in true prog fashion.

Sad Serenity’s 2023 debut, The Grand Enigma, revealed a band that pulls from the traddiest of trad-prog: high vocals hover atop liquid smooth distorted guitars, various and sundry tickled ivories, and some flashy drum-work—all wrapped in a flair for technical proficiency, a taste for intricate songwriting, and an eye toward grand, cinematic ideas both lyrical and musical. Their music prays to Dream Theater while lighting candles at Haken’s altar. Tiny Miracles is no different in this regard. With improved production, refined riffage, and a clear concept, the LP marks an upward trajectory for Sad Serenity.

However, one element of their debut still looms large: excess. Now, I’ll happily listen to a twenty-minute prog epic. I’m an endurance listener, not a sprinter. But long songs still need movement, contrast, and development to earn their keep. Here, little if any tonal variation within or between the songs helps to establish their identities. Rather than unfolding, the songs often feel stretched to their absolute limits. “Tiny” miracles, these are not. “The Elemental Dance,” Tiny Miracles’ lengthiest showcase at nearly twenty-three minutes, illustrates this issue. Opening with a skip hopping guitar riff accompanied by some attention catching synths and keyboards, it journeys through several movements spliced by quasi-interludes that provide only a little dynamic contrast. These movements—mostly made up of identically-toned guitar riffs and impressive, sweepy solos—aren’t distinguishable enough from each other to recall much beyond the intriguing intro.

I’m tempted to say that you could superimpose that problem on Tiny Miracles as a whole, but a few standout songs and ideas prevent me from doing so completely. I particularly enjoy “Alter Ego”—based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The song’s monstrous opening riff, soft and catchy vocals in the verse, and contrasting melodies are appropriately thematic to the classic story that speaks to the light and dark inside of us all. “A Cabin in the Woods,” Sad Serenity’s version of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, is lofty and grandiose, exploring melodies ranging from appropriately woodsy to insane and delirious with cabin fever. The end result is far removed from the simple and meditative ideals of Thoreau’s experiment.

Though several songs are elongated past their own good, I continue to be drawn in by Tiny Miracles’ literary inspiration and lyrics. The aforementioned “Alter Ego” does a fantastic job of setting the stage of its tale: “Fog’s slow creeping / Gas lantern’s glimmering / Town life’s procession still rolling in.” The lyrics also capture the emotional core of Stevenson’s story with lines like: “Caught in between incongruous natures / Paradoxal through and through / Daydreams of their separation / A Man’s not truly one, but two.” The affective pull of the lyrics is made all the more powerful by vocalist George Margaritopoulos’ delivery. Though not presenting a lot of tonal variety, Margaritopoulos shows some impressive upper range (“Torn,” “Tell the Moon”).

The other musical components of Tiny Miracles follow the path laid by the vocals: exceptional musicianship undermined by a lack of variety, which leads to a kind of outstanding sameness that makes the album hard to distinguish from moment to moment. The album has some genuine highlights, but they’re often interwoven into extended stretches that blur together. Like the literature that inspired it, this record demands full engagement from the listener. But unlike those works, it struggles to consistently reward the listener for that attention. Sometimes tangled in its own sprawl, the album will both awe and test your endurance, leaving you equal parts impressed and adrift.

Recommended tracks: Alter Ego, Cabin in the Woods, Tiny Miracles
You may also like: Headspace, Vanden Plas, Virtual Symmetry
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent release

Sad Serenity is:
– Marcell Kaemmerer (guitars, keyboards, bass)
– George Margaritopoulos (vocals)
– Vinny Silva (drums)
With guests:
– Andrew Huskey (vocals)
– Lathika Vithanage (violin)
– Ellen Mross (accordion)
– Aranka Stimec (transverse flute)

1. The promo copy I received had a sticker covering most of the artist’s name, and I’m unable to otherwise determine the artist. ︎

The post Review: Sad Serenity – Tiny Miracles appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive metal, jazz fusion (instrumental, mostly instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Jacob Collier, Liquid Tension Experiment, Animals as Leaders, Car Bomb, Meshuggah
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 April 2025

Why cover a song? Be it artistic appreciation, a business decision to gain exposure, or out of obligation to the tradition, the cover track is a mainstay for many artists, yet one often relegated to being an album’s bonus track. Bringing cover tracks to the forefront of an album, however, is risky; that comes with the pressure of living up to several of your musical and creative idols. Panzerballett try it—do they match the originals? 

German jazz fusion/prog metal group Panzerballett cover plenty of legendary songs from progressive metal and classical music alike on Übercode Œuvre, putting their signature twist (a whole lot of rhythmic and melodic absurdity) on classics like Meshuggah’s “Bleed,” Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Planet X’s “Alien Hip Hop,” and Vivaldi’s “Summer.” That is to say, the songs—some of which are already extremely difficult pieces—become unfathomably complicated to the non-music theorizer. I’m sure the guys in Panzerballett would talk about their music in the same way Jacob Collier talks about his, but in a German accent instead of Collier’s whimsical British one—twattishly pretentious while blissfully unaware that theoretical mastery doesn’t translate to being good.

As I see it, there is one main way to critically assess a cover: how does this add to the song’s canon? Panzerballett’s takes on the classics are certainly novel (barring the Planet X one), but they screw up what makes the original songs successful and are, accordingly, entirely terrible. No metal artist needs to cover Vivaldi, it’s been done ad nauseam (sorry, Angel, that includes you, too). One cannot possibly pull off two covers of “Ode to Joy” because they will always be a waste of time; why on God’s green earth would I listen to a prog metal version of one of the most celebrated pieces of music of all time that defeats its elegant simplicity by making it polyphonic, polyrhythmic masturbation? Other choices, such as the “Alien Hip Hop” cover, are even more baffling. Panzerballett take what is undeniably one of the most rhythmically and harmonically complicated progressive metal songs ever and try to make it more challenging to play. At what point does art become an exercise in onanism? That moment is long gone in Panzerballett’s rearview mirror. And I’m afraid the Planet X cover is the clear highlight of Übercode Œuvre because the original song was already good and they don’t change it all that much—a pointless recreation but not bad.

The covers of “Bleed” and “Ode to Joy” (both versions) are among the worst progressive metal tracks I’ve ever heard from capable musicians, a pair of blazing guitar solos from Rafael Trujillo (ex-Obscura, Obsidious) in “Bleed” aside. The Meshuggah cover utilizes annoying horns to create a melody that simply wasn’t in the original song, while the rhythm section plays something in a time signature I couldn’t dream of figuring out—the result sounds as if it were recorded drunkenly despite the instrumental wizardry. Moreover, Panzerballett add atmospheric guitar parts in dissonant chords, ringing out like out of tune bells above the din, heralding the end of good music. Again, I’m sure the harmonic polyphony is genius technically, but it’s more masturabatory than even Jordan Ruddess at his worst.

“What could adding in the motif from William Tell’s ‘Overture’ possibly add to ‘Bleed’?” one might ask. And they’d be justified because it’s eclecticism for eclecticism’s sake. “Ode to Joy (Vocal)” starts promisingly with a warped vision for the track, Andromeda Anarchia’s (Folterkammer, La Suspendida) vocals operatic and eerie, but the track almost instantly devolves into Guantanamo Bay-level torture. While assuredly not actually out of tune and out of time, it sure sounds like it. Between the added phone hold-music jazz, drum solos, and “poorly harmonized,” warbling sopranos, I cannot think of a worse way to sodomize one of the most celebrated pieces of music in history—and that’s before Panzerballett start djenting all over the place.

The original compositions on Übercode Œuvre (yes, it’s not completely a cover album) are ok, fairly run of the mill for this style of fusion prog metal. “Seven Steps to Hell” and “Andromeda” are easily identified strong moments on the album: convoluted and with irritating saxophone and djent parts, but stronger than their surroundings nonetheless. The Ballett are a better ensemble as jazz composers than metal ones (despite the obvious metal pedigree). Their style doesn’t translate to djent and distortion well.
We all like some wank in the prog metal world. I can throw down to freaky microtonality, and I think cover tracks can be fun. But I cannot think of a worse attempt at any of those three things at once than Übercode Œuvre, an offensively terrible listening experience so far up its own ass Jacob Collier might blush.

Recommended tracks: Seven Steps To Hell, Alien Hip Hop, Andromeda
You may also like: La Suspendida, Sarmat, Ckraft, Planet X, Exivious
Final verdict: 2/10

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

Label: independent

Panzerballett is:
Jan Zehrfeld: guitars, vocals
With:
Virgil Donati: drums
Marco Minnemann: drums
Morgan Ågren: drums
Anika Nilles: drums
Florian Fennes: sax
Anton Davidyants: bass
Jen Majura: guitars
Andromeda Anarchia: vocals
Rafael Trujillo: guitars
Sebastian Lanser: drums
Joe Doblhofer: guitar
Chris Clark: vocals
Conny Kreitmeier: vocals
(taken from ProgArchives, I cannot find an official declaration of lineup)

The post Review: Panzerballett – Übercode Œuvre appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Aaron Pinto

Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Devin Townsend, Morbid Angel, Yes
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 April, 2025

When Yes released Tales From Topographic Oceans in 1973, it proved that progressive rock could progress no further. With an even more difficult recording process than Close to the Edge, Tales saw Yes try to make lightning strike twice, and became tangled within Anderson and Howe’s grand vision of an entire album full of epics. Problem was, everyone could only hear a four-minute Hammond organ solo so many times before it got stale. The genre had been swallowed up by its own ambition, ever gluttonous to add more runtime and weird instruments to their songs. Once the kings of prog rock fell, it wasn’t long before everyone got with the times and became more accessible, or died off. Tales is ambitious to say the least, and ambition can be a double-edged sword. Without proper balancing, or some central idea to keep things grounded, concepts can very easily spiral out of control. 

Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger is responsible for Obscura’s most ambitious effort. The fifteen-minute ‘Weltseele’ sees the band at by far their most experimental, adding in Eastern influences and a string quintet, closing out the album Akroasis in classic prog style. Now, he makes his triumphant return to the scene almost ten years later with Changeling. The band’s self-titled debut promises all the shredding solos, double-stopped riffs, and batshit insane virtuosity Fountainhead is known for. Realistically, I knew a musician as prolific as he would have no trouble navigating such a massive project (just look at the Bandcamp credits!), but part of me did wonder about an hour-long tech-death album becoming cursed by its own sprawl and ambition. What I didn’t know was that Fountainhead had a secret weapon up his sleeve, one I never thought the fretless guitar shredder would be so keen to exercise on his path to success: restraint.

Allow me to detour for just a moment to let you in on a little secret. Archspire, the band known for writing songs at 400 BPM, exercise excessive restraint. Rhythmically, they write simple riffs and play them inhumanly fast eighty percent of the time, which then allows them to blast off and legato-tap all around the fretboard when the need arises, making it all the more impactful. Conceptually similar, Changeling employs another kind of restraint: letting sections repeat, progress, and evolve patiently, until a track feels epic and monumental. Complexity comes through evolution rather than the incessant sweep-picking and shredding one might expect from such a strong tech-death cast. 

Like an ever-changing alien species, Changeling’s song structure always begins at a larval phase. The simple, four-note guitar riff that starts ‘Instant Results’ is brought back as screams from a woman’s choir during the song’s climactic drop. One highlight of my many listens, ‘World? What World?’ is almost entirely based around the acoustic riff that starts it off. It evolves throughout the song’s runtime, bridging distorted guitars and becoming part of the undergird horn section right before each chorus. Similarly, the masterful, pant-shittingly heavy chorus of ‘Abyss’ follows much of the same structure, adding a higher harmony the second time around, and letting vocalist Morean produce the lowest note of his career on the last. It’s the subtle changes in repeating motifs and ideas that set Changeling apart from its peers. Not only is it great to catch a repeated line upon first listen, but subsequent listens reveal those larval forms each song has grown from. Even ‘Anathema’, in all its seventeen-minute glory, is composed of a mere few sections that are repurposed throughout. As Morean’s shouts of “Forever!” close the track with an increasingly heavy breakdown, I can’t believe the song is as long as it is. The track never plods in one place, and like everything else on the album, it finds a way to make reprisals work and flow without sounding like Fountainhead was running out of ideas.

Despite the massive amount of guest credits on this album, I’d be hard pressed to call it “symphonic”. The orchestral elements are ever-present, but provide more of a textural padding until the last two songs. Instead of being shoved in my face à la Wilderun, they’re low-key and usually underneath the many layers each song holds. This showing of restraint makes the moments the orchestral elements appear all the more special, like when ‘Abdication’ begins more like a Joe Hisashi piece than it does a death metal song. Even the fretless guitar, Fountainhead’s signature, doesn’t take center stage for most of the album. As a composer, he realizes there can be too much of a good thing, and having a wanky, fretless guitar solo on every song would cheapen the effect; the same is true of using symphonic elements with too heavy of a hand. The metal parts themselves can stand just fine without an orchestral backing to make them interesting, with sections like the tribal break in ‘Changeling’ feeling naturally interwoven for the song’s benefit, having been reprised from the song’s choral lines.

Likewise, the songs don’t feel fluffy. At one hour, Changeling is practically devoid of filler, with even the interludes being interesting segues into their following pieces. The four core members alone seemingly provide endless layers to uncover in each track. Arran McSporran (Virvum) is a well-known monster on the fart bass, and even he knows when to stop shredding and follow the rhythms beset by kit-master Mike Heller (ex-Fear Factory, Malignancy). The two execute rhythmic precision in tandem, with Heller backing many of the orchestral sections with jazz-infused beats and McSporran allowing these moments to shine just before yet another tasteful bass solo. The ending of ‘Abyss’ sees the two almost completely drop out, with the drums playing a simple two-note beat as distorted, doom metal guitars take hold and devour. Special mention goes to Morean, with his harshes being the most intelligible I’ve heard since Mikael Åkerfeldt in his prime. I came away from my first listen with so many of his vocal lines stuck firmly in my head, and I was shocked by how many I remembered upon the second. The chorus on ‘Anathema’ has been practically drilled into my brain, only helped by the short reprisal about five minutes in with a backing horn ensemble. This is all wrapped up tightly in Fountainhead’s fantastic production job, with every instrument remaining audible even when the entire band is blasting off at 300 BPM. The distorted guitars cut like a dagger, and McSporran’s bass sits comfortably between them along with Heller’s thunderous, jackhammer drums. 

The one small nitpick I can give is that some of the transitions feel a little strange. ‘Instant Results’ ends on a fadeout just as guest guitarist Jason Goebel (ex-Cynic) is getting jazzy, and the intro to ‘Changeling’ is almost intentionally jarring coming from ‘Metanoia Interlude’. These are, of course, rather small in the grand scheme of how the album plays out. There isn’t a major complaint I can make about Changeling other than the fact that it ends.

Prog, despite everything, seems to still have places to go. Changeling is unlike any of its peers, skirting the obvious Alkaloid and Obscura comparisons by injecting clever, restrained songwriting into its DNA. The first minute of ‘Instant Results’ fools you into thinking this is run-of-the-mill, space-y tech death, and then proceeds to backhand you with forward-thinking compositions for the rest of its runtime. Every moment of Changeling left me wowed by its genuine creativity. Akin to Orgone’s Pleroma, my AOTY of 2024, this feels like an album that took years of blood, sweat, and tears to create. The compositions, like the tendrils of some unknowable Outer God, snake their way through section after section, all while keeping the listeners grounded with grand choruses and reprisals that feel earned. Changeling have avoided the trappings of prog stereotypes every step of the way and come out victorious, paragons of what the genre in its purest form was meant to be. A testament to human innovation and skill, Changeling is the merging of multiple musical worlds to see one unified vision.

Recommended tracks: Instant Results, World? What World?, Falling in Circles, Abyss, Changeling, Anathema, Abdication
You may also like: Obsidious, Afterbirth, Horrendous, Tómárum, Dessiderium, An Abstract Illusion
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Seasons of Mist: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Changeling is:
– Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger (guitars, oud, keyboard)
– Mike Heller (Drums)
– Arran McSporran (Fretless bass)

– Morean (Vocals)

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

Style: technical death metal, brutal death metal, deathcore (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Origin, Archspire, Benighted, Analepsy, Rings of Saturn
Country: Germany
Release date: 11 April 2025

For a week when I was younger, I thought Brain Drill’s Apocalyptic Feasting was the sickest thing ever; how on earth could anything be that technical? I quickly realized it’s the absolute worst form of tech death, the lads sacrificing any semblance of songwriting in favor of chaotic scale exercises. Cytotoxin are Germany’s answer to Brain Drill, but despite their unhinged technicality and brutality, the quintet don’t forget what songwriting is for the most part. Just like their four previous albums, Biographyte riffs, solos, and breakdowns through some of the most intense forty-seven minutes of metal you’ll hear all year.  

Opening in similar fashion to Viraemia’s legendary 2009 EP (that is, with an absolutely STUPID string run up and down a scale), Biographyte wastes no time to show what Cytotoxin are all about: being a radioactive force of destruction like an atomic bomb. Soon after the wickedly technical opening, a skittery, rhythmic riff propels the song forward, creating a serious risk of dislocating your neck at Mach-1. Guitarists Fonzo and Jason utilize the same recognizable style they’ve had since 2010 of mixing the grooviness of Soreption, the pulverizing brutality of Analepsy, and the technicality of Archspire. Their style is, in a word, br00tal. However, the riffs on Biographyte are leagues ahead of the leads. Each time Fonzo and Jason decide to really let loose their wank, it comes across about as mature as Brain Drill or Rings of Saturn, particularly because the guitar tones when they do it are frail and treble heavy in isolation. When Cytotoxin stick to the arpeggiated, staccato attack of tracks like “Biographyte” and “Transition of the Staring Dead,” the band are firing at their absolute best.

The immaturity of the noodly parts is in stark contrast to the lyrical themes which describe in a series of vignettes what happened to the abandoned city of Pripiyat after the Chernobyl disaster—a weighty topic the music isn’t quite serious enough to do justice. But ignoring lyrical content (as I so often do), Cytotoxin lean so far into excess it’s impossible not to be impressed. Some of the solos, while not always composed amazingly, are actually so insanely technical it’s hard not to be stunned (see “Transition of the Staring Dead” and “Eventless Horizon”). Moreover, the breakdowns throughout Biographyte are also so goddamn heavy I’d certainly be afraid for my life in a Cytotoxin moshpit. The band saves the heaviest, and surprisingly most melodic, track for last, “From Bitter Rivers,” and it’s a damn good closer, synthesizing every successful aspect of Biographyte into one six minute banger. 

Cytotoxin are fun and br00tal, but that’s all there is to them, and at forty-seven minutes, the schtick is played out—notice that the absolute masters of the unreally technical style, Archspire, never exceed thirty-five minutes on an album. That phenomenon is for a reason, and by the end of Biographyte, I’m needing some variety—the two interlude tracks are a breather but more annoying than anything. Despite the quality never noticeably waning—besides when the tracks lean too far into the obnoxiously technical leads like on chunks of “Bulloverdozed” and “The Everslave.” If Biographyte didn’t end with its strongest track, this length issue would be an even bigger problem, though.

I’ve been listening to Cytotoxin for a long time, and my reactions to each subsequent release sadly show how my music taste has matured; no longer do I think absurd technicality or heaviness are the pinnacle of music. But for a style I’ve largely moved away from, Cytotoxin are certainly one of the premier acts, and it brings me great satisfaction to say that Biographyte is still a good album despite its obvious flaws. And when I’m old and wizened, done with all the pretentious nonsense that tickles my fancy right now, I know I’ll be listening to Biographyte enjoying the simple pleasures of a good riff, solo, and breakdown.

Recommended tracks: Biographyte, Behind Armored Doors, Transition of the Staring Dead, From Bitter Rivers
You may also like: Brain Drill, Viraemia, Retromorphosis, Soreption, Spawn of Possession, NYN
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: independent

Cytotoxin is:
– V. T. (bass)
– Fonzo (guitars)
– Grimo (vocals)
– Jason (guitars)
– Maximilian Panzer (drums)

The post Review: Cytotoxin – Biographyte appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album art by unknown

Style: Post-metal, hardcore, progressive metal, alternative metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, Cult of Luna, A Perfect Circle
Country: Germany
Release date: 24 January, 2025

I’m about to admit a cardinal sin that will strip me of all metal cred: I really fucking love alternative metal, especially when it’s good. Any day of the week, I can get down with A Perfect Circle, Tool, and System of a Down more than most of my reviewer compatriots can. I make fun of our glorious leader Sam for listening to Breaking Benjamin, but it’s because I too wished to find my place in ‘The Diary of Jane’ once upon a time. However, when I take a risk on alt metal, I end up with trash ninety-nine percent of the time. That one percent nets me something like Chevelle’s NIRATIAS, but that’s few and far between—especially when we’re dealing with the underground.

But why do I like the horrendous subgenre known as alternative metal? Despite being the de-facto tech/prog-death guy of the Subway, simplicity gets me sometimes. A catchy, anthemic chorus against a backdrop of screamed verses gets the neurons firing more than I care to confess, and that’s exactly what ‘Idol’, the opener of Causes did for me. The sudden shift from screams to a chorus that sounds just like A Perfect Circle driven by guest female vocalist Hannah Zieziula was enough to sell me on the album, but was it enough to net it within that one percent of, dare I say, good alt metal?

Like practically the entire subgenre, Causes is junk food metal, and while that could sound like an insult, they’re leagues ahead of their contemporaries Sleep Token and Jinjer. Unfortunately, Causes plays it incredibly safe. There aren’t any “riffs” as much as there are chugging rhythms backed by simple lead lines. There isn’t any crazy rhythmic fuckery in the drums, and I’m not even sure the bassist showed up to the studio. The real star of the show is the vocalist, who like the rest of the band, isn’t credited anywhere on the internet. He shifts from growls reminiscent of a gravellier Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates) to the silky cleans I’d expect of a hardcore/alt metal act.

Causes never tries to reinvent the wheel, and Haven wouldn’t need to if the album wasn’t so plain. ‘Leash’ is about the furthest the band veers into the post-metal-tinged sound they’ve promoted for themselves, and I’d only say so because of the breakdown and buildup that follows. But even after listening to Causes multiple times now, I struggle to remember much of anything besides the choruses of the first two songs and much of the third. Everything after these first three relatively cohesive pieces falls apart under the weight of subsequent tracks.. There are only so many tricks that can keep my attention from waning, and Haven use them all up in the first 18 minutes of the album.

This isn’t to say Causes is bad, more that Haven is just having a bit of an identity crisis. Bands rarely fuse the pummeling, brisk nature of hardcore and prog to great success because the two styles are constantly at odds with each other, and it’s exemplified here. ‘Wesen’, coming hot off the heels of ‘Leash’, may as well have been left on the cutting floor, as should’ve interlude track ‘Theia’. The former only serves as a foray into electronica to give the album a tad bit of eclecticism, the latter simply a poor buildup into the closer. The last two real songs on the album have all but run out of steam, and in an attempt to drag along its runtime, end up feeling bloated and unnecessary. ‘Rue’ should build into a fist-bumping chorus a la A Perfect Circle’s ‘Pet’, but seems to lack any direction in its overlong seven-minute runtime. Its singular string chug of a main riff began to grate on me by minute three, and by the time its screamed refrain came once more, I found my attention elsewhere. Meanwhile, closer ‘Ankou’ nearly captures that energy the first half of the album had, but flows through too many glacial repeated sections to keep it up.

I’ve ragged a lot on Causes because I hear a band who’ve just nearly got it. It, in this case, being a cohesive and enjoyable sound. Haven are pulled between the post-metal leanings of Hippotraktor and alt metal stylings, and once they’ve figured this tug-of-war out, they can then focus on capturing that lighting in a bottle they had going in Causes’ first few songs. The aggression and skill at building to a chorus is there, but the songwriting suffers as a lack of identity rears its ugly head early on. I can only give a disappointing verdict, and a bunch of well wishes to Haven in the future.

Recommended tracks: Idol, Causes, Leash
You may also like: Hippotraktor, Seyr
Final verdict: 5.5/10

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

Label: Argonauta Records – Official Website

Haven is:
– I can’t find credits anywhere on the internet. Haven please DM us on Instagram so I can add them!

The post Review: Haven – Causes appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Prog Rock/Metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Rush, Kamelot, Genesis, Avantasia, 90s Savatage
Review by: Matt
Country: Germany
Release date: 28 February 2025

“Strike while the iron is hot,” they say. It’s with that phrase in mind that we approach Shells, the surprising successor to 2008’s North. These late comebacks tend to be letdowns, with an ineffable sense of inspiration lost along the way. Luckily, Everon have always existed in their own little pocket of time, so even though we were still using flip phones the last time we heard from them, Shells has lost none of the band’s old lustre.

It’s probably safe to assume that most of our readers are unfamiliar with Everon, so to summarize the band: they are the brainchild of Oliver Philipps (vocals, guitar, keyboard,) whose work you may have heard without even knowing it. He has produced a number of European symphonic bands such as Delain and Serenity, and is known in the industry as someone you turn to when you need orchestral parts done. It is no surprise, then, that Shells leans symphonic, with top-notch bombastic arrangements and prominent piano equal to the guitars. Everon have always been difficult to categorize; they’re heavier than prog rock, yet lacking the ego of metal; they’re not technical, but one suspects they could be if they felt like it; and their lyrics are unusually straightforward and disarming. One of their albums will usually contain several different kinds of songs, from metal or metal-adjacent tracks to ballads ranging from the sappy to the sublime. Like late Savatage or X Japan, listeners must accept that they have no particular interest in Rockin’, but whatever they attempt is usually of impeccable quality. Everon is a band devoid of image or artifice; the project is nothing more or less than whatever Philipps felt like writing, and the only common thread is that he knows damn well how to write a song.

That being said, Shells is overall the heaviest Everon album, with a slight tendency towards their gothic side. There are songs that sound like Rush, late Kamelot, Devin Townsend‘s pop era, and even one of their Billy Joel-esque songs that were always my least favorite (sorry.) Listeners will be dazzled by a smorgasbord of sounds, like the odd-meter chugging of “Guilty as Charged,” the poppy-yet-refined “Travels,” or the Celtic folk stylings of “Pinocchio’s Nose.” There is a depressing/joyous dichotomy at play throughout the album, though even the major-key stuff is wistful. Each song packs an emotional punch, from the heroic first notes of “No Embrace” to the unexpectedly upbeat “Until We Meet Again,” which is a tribute to drummer Christian Moos who died suddenly before Shells could be completed. The album may have been already musically written, but this was such a surprising and touching way to do a tribute song. I got choked up multiple times during the album, honestly. I’m sure nostalgia plays a role, but also the presence of greatness. Philipps has a way of making things real, while other bands are putting on an act.

Of special note is the remix/semi-rerecording of “Flesh,” the longest and most epic song in Everon‘s history. This is the closest they ever came to being an outright Symphony X or Dream Theater-style prog metal band, with long instrumental excursions and multiple movements that pay off in a glorious grand finale. Rarely did the band ever go this big or dramatic, but it’s one of their finest moments. I would place “Flesh” right alongside those other bands’ best works, and I was worried about how a remake would turn out, but this version does have its advantages. The VST orchestra is modernized; the mix is of course much more robust; and the lead guitars have been replaced entirely with better performances. The original song has certain details I’ve become attached to that didn’t make it into the new one, but I think listeners will be fine with either version as their first. As an experiment, listen to the 2002 song after this one, and let us know what you think.

While Shells is in some ways a time capsule, it doesn’t sound old-fashioned or dated. The mix is a big improvement, and they did hilariously take the seven-string pill in a couple of spots, claiming the hotly contested trophy for “least likely seven-string band.” Notably, though, none of it comes off as trying to sound different from before, nor trying to recapture the past… Someone simply turned the machine back on after a generation, and this is what came out. You can like the result or not, but what you’re hearing is the real deal. An honest, fantastic album.

Recommended tracks: No Embrace, Travels, Pinocchio’s Nose, Guilty as Charged
You may also like: Anubis Gate, Southern Empire, Acolyte, Hemina, Teramaze, Ostura
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Mascot Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Everon is:
– Oliver Philipps – Vocals, Guitar, Keyboard
– Ulli Hoever – Guitar
– Schymy – Bass
– Christian “Moschus” Moos – Drums
– Jason Gianni – Drums (tracks 8, 10, 11)

The post Review: Everon – Shells appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Technical death metal, melodic death metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Necrophagist, Beyond Creation, Cryptopsy, Decapitated
Country: Germany
Release date: 7 February 2025

The Ship of Theseus, while an endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking thought experiment, is done to death in the context of personnel changes in long-standing bands: is DGM really DGM without the titular Diego, Gianfranco, and Maurizio? And don’t even get started on Yes, who has a completely new lineup from the original and even has members that are younger than the band itself. Fear not, though, for tech death hall-of-famers Obscura are here to put a fresh (and much easier to answer) spin on this philosophical quandary with their latest release, A Sonication: what if the ship was unceremoniously replaced in one fell swoop by a captain who stole building materials after firing the shipwrights mid-project? Does the ship even sail? Would anyone even be interested in its goods? Let’s take a brief tour of this accursed vessel.

For those enmeshed in the world of technical death metal, Obscura need little introduction: they have been at the forefront of furious Necrophagist-style riffage since their 2006 debut, Retribution. Obscura‘s sound is centered around aggressive guitarwork punctuated by melodic stabs, high-range raspy harsh vocals, and a generous heaping of fretless bass, coalescing in a larger-than-life cosmic aura that simultaneously exudes unease and intrigue. A Sonication utilizes many of these same principles, single “Evenfall” beginning with an ethereal fretless bass solo leading into cinematic guitarwork. Their previous release, A Valediction, marked a strong shift in focus to melodic death metal, and A Sonication continues to wholeheartedly embrace this direction on tracks like “Beyond the Seventh Sun” and “The Sun Eater”.

However, much of that is of little interest in the case of A Sonication. Hopelessly mired in drama, the album stencils an outline of a band entrenched in rash lineup overhauls and accusations of plagiarism¹ directed at vocalist Steffen Kummerer. Internal band struggles can be inconsequential to the material produced (see: the entirety of Fleetwood Mac’s discography), but in this case, its effect is unignorable and makes the entire experience feel dirty. Most immediately, the mastering sounds muddy and shot to hell, despite having the exact same producer as A Valediction: passages from “Silver Linings” and the title track in particular are wont to fall into a buzzy, messy haze without reason or warning. To add insult to injury, the songwriting quality is the most inconsistent of Obscura’s career, any given track going from killer tech death to absolute nothing-burger riffage faster than you can say ‘Cosmogenesis’.²

Nowhere are A Sonication’s issues more apparent than on instrumental “Beyond the Seventh Sun”: its picked acoustic guitar and brooding fretless bass intro establishes a pensive atmosphere before launching headfirst into an unabashedly boilerplate arpeggiated melodeath riff, the recently-prominent bass carelessly relegated to the bottom of the mix. Radical jumps in quality continue as a gorgeous inverted-stress drum section creates interesting rhythmic contrast underneath a tasteful guitar solo, only to squander its momentum by insisting upon riffage that gracefully floats away from your consciousness like stellar dust as it’s heard. And this is how the entirety of “Beyond the Seventh Sun” plays out: introduce an excellent idea only to have it crash full-speed into aggressively unremarkable melodeath, then rinse and repeat.

Other tracks make it out even worse than “Beyond the Seventh Sun”, such as “The Prolonging”, which is graced with maybe two good ideas, both of them the same fretless bass line; the rest of the track is anonymous tech death guaranteed to bounce off your forehead like a series of lone photons from the nearest star. “The Sun Eater” suffers the most of all, rooted in groovy tech death sensibilities that should work in principle, but ultimately, the track features a single ear-catching groove lost in a cosmic sea of the most bland Decapitated worship you’ve ever heard. The closing title track is likely the most consistent in quality, faithfully adhering to classic Obscura tropes through energetic guitar pyrotechnics and impressive drumwork, a serviceable enough conclusion that manages listenability without too much fuss.

Most times when A Sonication ends, my music player naturally continues with a track from A Valediction; the leap in production and musical quality is shocking every time. A Sonication makes many bold statements about songwriting and band decorum, and very few of them are flattering. Through wildly inconsistent tech-death and a rushed sound, A Sonication is a lose-lose situation for everybody: Obscura‘s reputation as a tech-death mainstay is tarnished, the new band members are inexorably enmeshed in drama surrounding their frontman, and the listeners are condescended by the expectation of happily consuming a clearly incomplete product, but I guess this is what to expect from a band who fumbled Christian Münzner twice. Melodeath influences abound on A Sonication, but this is not how I expected to see Obscura’s ship go up In Flames.

Recommended tracks: Just listen to Alkaloid or Exist instead
You may also like: Stortregn, Hannes Grossmann, Exuvial, Rannoch, Omnivide
Final verdict: 4/10

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

Label: Nuclear Blast – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Obscura is:
– Steffen Kummerer (vocals, guitars)
– Robin Zielhorst (bass)
– James Stewart (drums)
– Kevin Olasz (guitars)

1. Former Obscura members Christian Münzner (Eternity’s End, ex-Alkaloid) and Alex Weber (Exist) have both come forth asserting one-to-one ripoffs of riffs, passages, and even song structures on A Sonication. While it’s not unheard of for bands to ape or homage ideas long after their creation (note the similarities in the first two lyrical lines and rhythms from Pagan’s Mind’s “The Prophecy of Pleiades” and Dream Theater’s “Learning to Live”), the evidence from Weber is particularly striking, outlining unreleased bass work that lines up identically to single “Evenfall”. ︎
2. I want to emphasize that none of this is the fault of the new band members, all of whom are highly respected and tenured instrumentalists. I frankly feel bad that they are caught up in this mess. ︎

The post Review: Obscura – A Sonication appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Technical death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Faceless, Arsis, Necrophagist, Gorod
Country: Germany
Release date: 15 January 2015

Prolonged hiatuses are par for the metal course. The numerous, famous examples need not be mentioned here: suffice it to say that we fans have been conditioned into a patient bunch. But how about a debut album born out of a lengthy hiatus—without a fanbase eagerly waiting, speculating about the band’s status? Abandoned, the band’s compositions silently Enter the Void, perhaps. Such is Synaptic’s story. In this case, fortunately, an album furiously reemerges fifteen years later with the force of a thousand suns. Well, not quite that many suns—let’s go with “an adequate amount of suns.” Simply put, Enter the Void is a solid, by-the-numbers technical death metal record. 

Most of Enter the Void’s material was written between 2008 and 2010, and then the band broke up. In 2020, the band reformed, reworked and completed its material, programmed some drums (which sound excellent), and recorded the rest. At the start of 2025, Enter the Void finally entered our dimension, unleashing a barrage of intricate riffs and fiery leads backed by a full-bodied, heavy production.

Rather than get straight to the point after its prolonged time in limbo, the album begins with a minute-long, instrumental track to ease the listener in, patiently building tension through guitar swells, glitchy distortion, and some subdued fretboard tapping. When the second track, “Malfunctional Minds,” hits, one thing quickly becomes clear: instrumentally, the band is tight. Synaptic fill their riffs with as many notes as possible, while agilely starting and stopping on a dime. This jagged, gas-brake style—even if slightly tiresome as the album goes on—works well when a band’s technical abilities are this strong. And, through contrast, the smoother, groovier parts really shine: the bouncy bridge in “Malfunctional Minds” and the hard-hitting riff following the first verse of “The Lost Continent,” where blasts are traded for a stripped-back, quarter-note beat, are especially effective.

Along with “tight,” “active” suitably describes the band’s sound. The guitarist throws virtuosic, often neoclassically influenced solos on top of already-complex riffs, and his shorter leads cover much of any ostensibly open space. Just listen to the final moments of both “Architects of the Night” and “City of Glass” for a masterclass in glorious guitar excess. The bassist not only keeps up with the guitar rather than relying on root-note repetition but also finds the stamina to let his fretless playing stand out, consistently wandering away from the guitar and even dropping a few of his own solos, most notably in the middle of “City of Glass.” Generally, rather than lean on a single riff or melody, Synaptic quickly move from one idea to the next. But that’s not to say the songs lack structure or effective repetition. Melodic refrains are well-utilized, and each song’s numerous pieces flow naturally. 

Zooming out, Enter the Void is a bit of a structural oddity. The album’s short runtime of thirty-four minutes is a strength given its intensity and the sheer number of ideas it holds. But those thirty-four minutes are split among eight tracks, and four of those include the intro, the short instrumental cut “Memories of a Forgotten Future,” a quick flamenco-inspired prologue to the album’s epic “City of Glass,” and the brief (and extremely catchy) epilogue that follows. “Memories of a Forgotten Future” is the oddest of the bunch. It feels as if one minute of riffing and soloing was removed from one of the core tracks and placed randomly in the album’s center without any context. And vocally, Enter the Void is bang-on average—harsh vocals fill most of the album and sound exactly as one would expect, with relatively uninspired clean vocals sprinkled in to add some welcome variety but not much else. The clean vocals at the end of the final track are delivered with a tone that sounds particularly out of place; and unfortunately, that’s the last we hear of the vocalist, ending his performance on a somewhat sour note. 

Nonetheless, Synaptic’s debut plays like a release from a mature band with an established presence in the genre. This is partly because the band retreads much of what’s already been done, sure, but their performance and songwriting are as good as many of tech death’s stalwarts. Enter the Void’s meaty production also makes it an auditory joy. Perhaps a product of its prolonged creation, the album fits into the ‘00s era (hints of Necrophagist, Spawn of Possession, Arsis, and The Faceless abound) while also sounding right at home in 2025. If the band can expand their style further and inject more unique ideas into their next release, we could be in for something special; and if not, we’ll likely get another fun, eminently listenable tech death offering. Either way, let’s hope the next album comes before 2040.

Recommended tracks: Architects of the Night, City of Glass
You may also like: Exuvial, First Fragment, Spawn of Possession
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Lifeless Chasm Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Synaptic is:
– Simon (guitars)
– Kai den Hertog (bass)
– Mario Hann (vocals)

The post Review: Synaptic – Enter the Void appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-Garde Metal, Dissonant Death Metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Deathspell Omega, Wormed, Warforged, demented Jazz Fusion
Country: Germany
Release date: 27 September 2024

Ingurgitating Oblivion is a band with a long, tumultuous history. Throughout the band’s course, they have changed their moniker once, altered their fundamental sound twice, and have gone through so many lineup changes that Florian Engelke is the only remaining original member of the band. It’s taken a long time for them to truly come into their own, with a good number of middling albums in their wake that didn’t quite touch greatness, but this album, with no fewer than six session musicians, can be aptly described as their greatest moment so far with Florian truly coming into his own.

Ontology of Naught presents you with long epics that divide pulverising, demented chaos with moments of dark, twisted serenity. The end product sounds quite a bit like a technical death metal take on Fas – Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum by Deathspell Omega, mixed with a bit of I: Voice by Warforged, and a healthy dose of the darker strains of jazz fusion with some occasional classical leanings. Dark Ambient aesthetics are also present, with a bit of spoken word elements sprinkled in. The style of harsh vocals Florian Engelke employs on the album is adjacent to that of Deathspell Omega’s, and it holds a candle up to their work.

Polarization defines Florian’s vision on Ontology of Naught. For instance, the guitar tone is an almost divisive choice; it’s as if the tone chosen was designed to sound as massive, incoherent, and noisy as possible. Ingurgitating Oblivion isn’t really going for a clear, distinct, and precise sound, but more of a jagged, abrasive wall-of-noise that completely overwhelms the listener. Beyond that, everything else feels mixed reasonably well: the drums feel well balanced and they don’t sit too far forward or behind things, and the same can be said for the vocals, which don’t overpower the riffs while still being powerful in their own right.

To make an album grappling with seriously unconventional forms and usages of dissonance, a variety of non-metal influences, and song lengths whose minimum starts at the ten minute mark is a deeply ambitious endeavor. However, what ultimately matters is whether or not what you are trying to do constitutes something that actually works—ambitions as lofty as these often fail at this step. The crux of what Florian is going for here is multifaceted, partly in how the chaos that is built into and granted reprieve from is justified, if the components of the chaos have enough of a diverse vocabulary in their insanity to not become monotonous or indistinct, and if they are balanced with more memorable motifs. Another important aspect is if the softer styles that contrast with the chaos are properly executed in a way that doesn’t feel cheap or amateur, and if the whole epic flows in a way that doesn’t feel completely incoherent or weak.

Florian takes a lot of risks in Ontology of Naught, and some of them do pay off. “Uncreation’s Whirring Loom You Ply With Crippled Fingers” is a great example, starting with an eerie ambience which introduces a simple motif that is expanded upon and returned to in the ensuing chaos. In “To Weave The Tapestry of Nought”, a great example of breakdown and buildup is shown at the midway point: A delirious gloom of vaguely jazzy harmonies swirl around a spoken word passage, which is followed by intricate rhythms below a choral accompaniment with a simple, soaring lead that serves as a bit of a motif. A solo builds before metal cacophony erupts and the solo explodes into almost atonal convulsions, after which the metal becomes much more brutal and rhythmic, like a machine gun being fired at your face.

Ontology of Naught is not without flaws and failed attempts, however. One of my biggest gripes with the album is its usage of spoken word elements, which while not inherently bad, are notoriously difficult to get right. Classic examples would be in death metal à la Carcass, who uses them to paint a gory scene, or Deathspell Omega, who employed them to great effect, staging them as if they were some kind of demonic, biblical sermon. On Ontology of Naught, however, the narration teeters on the precipice of pretension. Florian wants to evoke a sense of radical rebellion in these elements, as if you were listening to the ideologues that served as the vanguard of a revolution, but the effect isn’t quite as profound as he believes it to be.

In addition, there are questionable decisions in terms of flow at times. “The Blossoms of Your Tomorrow Shall Unfold in My Heart” is the biggest offender of this, with the track jumping into chaos that doesn’t really follow any intuitive sense, and then abruptly cuts to Florian’s take on jazz fusion. Following that is more chaos, which isn’t balanced by any motif nor coherently differentiated by other distinctions, as well as an attempt at choral intrigue followed by an ambient outro, none of which really work as a whole song.

Ontology of Naught is ultimately a noteworthy addition to the dissonant death metal genre. Questionable aesthetic and design choices do hold the album back to an extent, with a production job that is divisive, though not objectively bad. However, Florian manages to take on the difficult mantle of making unbridled bedlam into something memorable and distinct, and succeeds to a very commendable degree, with each epic balanced by their own unique aspects in both the extreme and the tranquil.

Recommended tracks: Uncreation’s Whirring Loom You Ply With Crippled Fingers, The Barren Earth Oozes Blood, and Shakes and Moans, to Drink Her Children’s Gore
You may also like: Ceremony of Silence, Mitochondrion, Acausal Intrusion, Defacement
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Willowtip – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Ingurgitating Oblivion is:
– Florian Engelke (guitars, vocals)
– Norbert Müller (guitars)
– Lille Gruber (session drums)
– Chris Zoukas (session bass)

The post Missed Album Review: Ingurgitating Oblivion – Ontology of Nought appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Black Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Enslaved, Windir, Borknagar
Country: Germany
Release date: 6 January 2025

[Editor’s note: since reviewing Bergthron, we have learned that the band may hold some extreme political views that are unacceptable to our members. We endeavour to avoid reviewing bands that might hold such views, and we consider it our responsibility to make note of this if these details come to light after reviewing.]

The long-awaited comeback of a band can be a decidedly hit-or-miss experience: it’s fairly difficult to predict with accuracy whether an artist’s return will show success or be considered a cynical and hollow reunion. Wintersun, comical as their situation was, made a fairly triumphant return with the highly anticipated release of Time II in the latter half of 2024. At the very least, Jari Mäenpää weathered the wait much better than bands like Pestilence, who continue to put out mediocre death metal while doubling down on shitty AI art takes—or the 80s doom metal band Black Hole, whose 2017 release Evil in the Dark is nothing short of a testament to ignominy. Bergthron‘s Neu Asen Land comes fifteen years after their last release, Expedition Autarktis: do Bergthron still have their mojo, or was fifteen years in the cold too many?

Bergthron have always shown an experimental streak in their black metal: while not quite reaching ‘progressive’ tendencies in the same way as genre contemporaries Enslaved and Borknagar, Bergthron indulge in amorphous song structures and idiosyncratic instrumental breaks to give their sound an air of eccentricity. Despite the fifteen-year gap, Bergthron have picked their sound up exactly where they left it on Expedition Autarktis. Melancholic guitars recall the gloomy atmospheres of Agalloch’s Pale Folklore (“Gefangene der Polarnacht – In Nacht und Eis,” “Sog”); pieces are replete with drum fills and double-bass kicks (“Aufbruch nach Neu Asen Land – Von Pol zu Pol”); and Mondfürst’s gruff vocal delivery adorns the frostbitten instrumentals with a toughened carapace (“Schiffbruch im Sonnengrab – Wrackmente”). Occasionally, Neu Asen Land’s breakdowns even betray a post-rock sensibility through spacious production and chilling Windir-style keyboards (“Horizont in Flammen – Sólfeuer’s Fall”).

Neu Asen Land decently executes high-energy black metal riffage on tracks like “Aufbruch nach Neu Asen Land” and “Skaldenruhm erstarrt in Zeit – Arktischer Sarkophag,” but Bergthron are at their best when conjuring feelings of wintry desolation. Tracks like “Sog” and “Horizont in Flammen – Sólfeuer’s Fall” use plaintive guitars to evoke imagery of a barren glacier, the latter track including a keyboard-led instrumental breakdown that evokes the wonder of gazing at an aurora in the Arctic. While the breakdown in “Horizont in Flammen” feels a bit non-sequitur, Bergthron get away with it by sticking the landing, even if the lead-up is less than exemplary.

Despite a propensity for effective atmospherics, Neu Asen Land is marred by a bevy of problems, rendering its relatively short runtime a burdensome slog. At the top of the list is the grating clean vocal performance: I enjoy unpolished vocals as much as (nay, significantly more than) the next guy, but many of Mondfürst’s clean vocal lines teeter on headache-inducing, as if he is straining his voice. Rough vocal patches wouldn’t be a problem if they were localized to any one song or moment, but this problem manifests virtually any time Mondfürst switches away from harshes. Although the gruff execution is in theory a welcome addition to Neu Asen Land—and I wouldn’t want to see a thoroughly polished and clean performance on the next Bergthron release—Mondfürst would greatly benefit from a touch of control in his execution.

Additionally, Neu Asen Land is plagued by instances of sloppy guitar work that wavers in and out of time. “Gegfangener der Polernacht – In Nacht und Eis” is a prime offender, beginning as a messy amalgamation of black metal riffage that later executes ideas totally out of time with the rest of the instrumentation. Guitar issues also crop up in “Horizont in Flammen – Sólfeuer’s Fall,” where the otherwise interesting keyboard breakdowns are led in by awkward and jarring riffage that detracts from Neu Asen Land’s atmosphere. Moreover, the production does not work in anyone’s favor, particularly on “Schiffbruch im Sonnengrab – Wrackmente” and “Skaldenruhm erstarrt in Zeit – Arktischer Sarkophag,” which sound absolutely brickwalled compared to the other tracks for no discernible reason. Neu Asen Land’s ideas aren’t fundamentally bad, but many good moments are diminished by frustrating execution and baffling changes in production.

While not the most offensive return I’ve ever heard, Neu Asen Land left me feeling cold, and not in the way that was likely intended. Bergthron are skilled at crafting beautiful keyboard-led passages that transport me to an aurora-tinged glacial vista, but these moments are unceremoniously interrupted by weird production choices, stumbling guitarwork, and grating vocals. Let’s hope that Neu Asen Land is just Bergthron shaking off the cobwebs after a long hibernation because if they can focus more on their strength as soundscape artists while polishing the surrounding black metal, then I’d be more than happy to make the trek back into their frozen soundscapes.

Recommended tracks: Horizont in Flammen – Sólfeuer’s Fall, Aufbruch nach Neu Asen Land – Von Pol zu Pol, Sog
You may also like: Havukruunu, Ungfell, Liljevars Brann, Saor
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: Trollzorn Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Bergthron is:
– Mondfürst (drums, vocals)
– Fürst der Finsternis (guitars, vocals)
– Sven Leonhardt (drums, keyboards, bass)

The post Review: Bergthron – Neu Asen Land appeared first on The Progressive Subway.