Style: post-rock, modern classical, electronica (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Caspian, We Lost the Sea
Review by: Andy
Country: France
Release date: 25 April 2025

Before the end of my first listen of Bruit ≤’s debut album The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again, I knew it was to be my favorite post-rock album of all time. With remarkable orchestration helping to build rollicking, earth-shattering crescendos in each of its four tracks, The Machine Is Burning essentially solved post-rock’s “boring until the peak of the crescendo” problem. Bruit ≤ perfected the art of the crescendo as their greatest forebears had—Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor the obvious influences—but the plaintive moments before and after the buildups had the delicate strings, breakbeat influences, and even tasteful spoken word. The Machine Is Burning isn’t a flawless record, and neither is the followup The Age of Ephemerality—I dislike the spoken word snippets in “Data” and find the Orwell quote closing out the album to be a bit cliche… but that’s it. The Age of Ephemerality is two tiny spoken blemishes from being a perfect record.

For Bruit ≤, everything revolves around the crescendo. Tracks start slow—the string quartet of “Technoslavery / Vandalism,” the tape noises and strings of “Ephemeral,” the resplendent horns of “The Intoxication of Power”—and over the course of each track’s runtime, the songs build and build ever upwards like the Babylonians. Unlike the Tower of Babel, Bruit ≤ have succeeded at reaching God. Often the buildups start slow with the band adding layers to a motif they’ve begun. “Data” glides forward underneath Julien Aoufi’s breakbeat drumming performance—soon bubbling synths and strings become the focal point. Then spoken word and rolling guitars join the fray. Soon the simple breakbeat motif is an unstoppable sonic tidal wave.

In any Bruit ≤ track, the quartet reaches the climax with about three to five minutes left, a cathartic explosion of sound: pounding drumming, post-metal-y guitar riffs, wailing trem-picked lead guitar, strings and synths, and, new for The Age of Ephemerality, a full electric guitar ensemble that was recorded in the resonant space of Gesu’s Church. The peak is overwhelming, causing my chest to feel like it’s going to explode out of my body—I often forget to breathe during a Bruit ≤ track. Achieving a more extreme release is surely impossible, I think to myself each time Bruit ≤ reaches the apex of a crescendo, but while the wall of sound can hardly grow, they somehow maintain the roaring intensity for minutes at a time, an impossible display of sonic power and songwriting prowess. The Age of Ephemerality is rapturous, orgasmic, euphoric, and sublime.

The throughline of The Age of Ephemerality is an underlying tension between electronic and acoustic. Theophile Antolinos begins the album with his “tape soundscapes” which quickly give way to lush cello, viola, and violin. The soundscape the quartet creates is often abrasive and industrial, pummeling walls of sound accomplished through digital and electric means. Yet The Age of Ephemerality is an incredibly human record, the heavy parts marred by stellar orchestration and the softer parts heart-wrenching and honeyed (see the intro of “Technoslavery / Vandalism”). Bruit ≤ write music that captures intrinsically sublime human experiences: looking at a great work of art, experiencing isolation in grand natural vistas, the frisson of first listening to a Mahler symphony. My heart, body, soul, and mind are all nourished by The Age of Ephemerality as its unrestrained climaxes strike right between my ribs. 

Bookending the moments of extreme maximalism on The Age of Ephemerality, the moments of simple placidity could be easily overlooked, but that would be a grave error as they hold gravitas that even the Godly climaxes miss: they act as a reminder there is beauty in everyday simplicity, not just the sublime experiences that Bruit ≤ peddle. These moments are a spiritual understanding unveiled throughout the course of the album. At the end of “Technoslavery / Vandalism,” a men’s choir hums a pulchritudinous Gregorian melody; the horns which triumphantly open “The Intoxication of Power” are bold, yes, but the role they play is simple and elegant, a stately start to the album’s emotional and literal finale. Don’t forget the smooth melody that begins the track in favor of the reprised version underneath the pummeling drums and ensemble of guitars—they are equally valuable for Bruit ≤’s songwriting and message. 

The Age of Ephemerality is crystal clear, produced and performed beautifully, yet its an extremely raw album at its heart, an outpouring of emotion and rage. Every note is filled with intentionality, and the work’s unimaginably dramatic peaks and valleys not only match (or supplant) the best of post-rock but of music in general.

Recommended tracks: Progress / Regress, Technoslavery / Vandalism, The Intoxication of Power
You may also like: Galya Bisengalieva, Sunyata, Osvaldo Golijov
Final verdict: 9.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Theophile Antolinos: Guitars, banjo, tape soundscape.
Julien Aoufi: Drums.
Luc Blanchot: Cello, programming, synth
Clément Libes: Bass, Baritone guitars, Bass VI, violin, viola, organ, piano, modular synth, programming
With:
Trumpet by Guillaume Horgue
French Horn by Benoît Hui
Trombonne by Igor Ławrynowicz
Bass trombone by Erwan Maureau

The post Review: Bruit ≤ – The Age of Ephemerality 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: Neo-pagan folk, dark folk, neofolk (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sowulo, Heilung, Forndom, Nytt Land
Country: Norway
Release date: 24 January 2025

The bear is among the most fearsome and mystical members of the animal kingdom, its intrigue reaching as deep as spoken language and as high as the cosmos. The word for ‘bear’ in many Indo-European languages is forever lost to time due to its tabooistic nature: Iron Age peoples opted instead to refer to it using epithets such as ‘the brown one’ in Germanic cultures or ‘honey-eater’ in Slavic regions out of fear of summoning the creature by uttering its name. Moreover, the bear commanded much respect in antiquity thanks to its imposing stature. Not one, but two constellations are named in homage to the creature, with origins likely dating back to a prehistoric notion of a she-bear taking part in a cosmic procession known as ‘the great hunt’. Needless to say, humans and bears have a complex relationship whose ties are etched deep into our cultures and consciousness. On their latest album, Birna, renowned folk outfit Wardruna aim to channel this ursine mysticism into calls for a more nature-focused world—does Birna successfully coax the she-bear from her rest, or do Wardruna need more time to hibernate?

A cursory listen of the pre-release singles would lead you to believe that Birna is a sort of career retrospective for Wardruna. After all, “Hertan” (Heart) taps into the soft and trance-inducing rhythmics of Runajlod – Gap Var Ginnunga in its beginning moments; “Birna” (She-Bear) conjures the larger-than-life percussion and bellowing horns that etched out Runaljod – Ragnarok‘s landscapes; and “Hibjørnen” (The ‘Hi-bear-nator’, as it were) showcases the same delicate minimalism as Skald‘s “Voluspá” through a picked lyre and bare vocal performance. Dig a little deeper, though, and one finds that Birna showcases a marked evolution in Wardruna‘s sound: “Himinndotter” (Daughter of the Sky) and “Ljos til Jord” (Light to Earth) experiment with utterly danceable drumbeats in their middle sections; “Dvaledraumar” (Dormant Dreams) and “Jord til Ljos” (Earth to Light) dabble in ethereal and otherworldly neofolk à la Alora Crucible; and “Skuggehesten” (Shadow Steed) is Wardruna‘s darkest piece to date, utilizing industrial rhythmics and gravelly horns to create a sort of bardcore analog to Nine Inch Nails.

Birna recounts the struggles of a person trying to reconnect with nature, the titular she-bear acting as guide and mentor along the way. Hardened by the modern world, ”Hertan” describes the narrator’s desires to molt their carapace—they yearn to cultivate an Animist perspective, asking the she-bear to trade places with them on “Birna” in the hopes of understanding her point of view. The stretch from “Ljos til Jord” to “Jord til Ljos” chronicles the experience of hibernation before being awoken on “Hibjørnen” by the coming of spring and the impassioned calls for the she-bear’s return on “Himinndotter”. Birna’s closing tracks document the narrator’s takeaways from their journey: after being faced with the harsh reality of the she-bear’s impending doom, the narrator must keep focused on what drives them when overwhelmed with a dying world (“Skuggehesten”), take time to slow down and listen to the ‘Voice of the Trees’ (“Tretale”), and retain conviction in the face of imposing challenges (“Lyfjaberg”).

From its opening moments, Birna betrays its heart, literally—a simple heartbeat in 6/8 forms the rhythm of “Hertan”, gradually introducing instrumental layers until a climax is reached mid-track. With a couple of exceptions, “Hertan” establishes the central songwriting conceit of Birna, slowly building on fiery rhythmics that urge to be liberated from their reins. “Himmindotter” shows its most effective execution, a lurching and pronounced chant of ‘BIR! NA!’ exploding into exultant singing and an irresistible percussive dance. Other notable moments include a repeated refrain giving way to a soaring vocal breakdown on “Lyfjaberg” and the scratchy staccato instrumentation of “Skuggehesten”, which fills every corner of the listener’s mind until a flash of reassurance signals through bright strings and hopeful lyricism. 

Other tracks experiment with more free-form structures, most notably “Dvaledraumar”, Birna’s oaken crown jewel. Opting instead to use layering as a tool for subtlety as opposed to a tool for tension-and-release, “Dvaledraumar” begins as a gradually shifting ambient piece, evoking a dark and ethereal backdrop that is cut through by Selvik’s voice and a hypnotically teetering lyre. Frigid torpor embodies deep vocals and subtle soundscaping to capture a gloriously plaintive and dreamlike atmosphere, but soon enough, the ice melts, the birds begin singing, and the sun beckons a bleary-eyed hibernator from their cave. “Jord til Ljos” recontextualizes the lyricism and lyre melodies of “Dvaledraumar”,¹ embracing the teeming life of early spring yet still trying to shake the cobwebs off after a long rest. “Tretale” aims for a similar free-form structure—and mostly succeeds—but spins its wheels for a hair too long and doesn’t quite end up capturing the intoxicatingly primal atmospheres of “Dvaledraumar” or “Jord til Ljos”.

The issue of ‘historical accuracy’ is a must in the discussion of primal-leaning folk artists, particularly so in the case of Wardruna. Despite frontman Einar Selvik’s myriad comments to the contrary, much of their fanbase sees their music as an authentic vision of ancient Norse (read: ‘viking’) music due to its ineffable chthonic energy and percussion-heavy orchestration. While Wardruna undoubtedly capture an ‘ancient’ and ritualistic atmosphere in their music, it’s fundamentally channeled through a modern-day interpretation of Migration Period Germanic culture. At its musical core, little ties this style of folk music to its ancient ancestry, which typically focused on simple compositions designed for storytelling as opposed to Wardruna‘s cinematic and larger-than-life soundscaping.

However, this somewhat blunt songwriting approach can be seen as a necessity to fully encompass a desired point-of-view—in ancient times, Animist principles were simply lived without thought, but embracing this same perspective in modern times is exceedingly difficult without considerable work. The intentionality in contemporary Animist folk songwriting helps to facilitate a more tangible connection to nature in a society designed to be anything but. Additionally, it would be disingenuous to deem Birna a wholly modern recreation, as it leans on many known ancient Norse practices, like channeling the storied mythology of the she-bear that colors the album’s concept; the seljefløyte on “Dvaledraumar”, a strikingly ephemeral woodwind made from goat willow branches that only lasts a day or two after construction; and the use of lyre on “Dvaledraumar”, “Jord til Ljos”, and “Hibjørnen”, an instrument deeply entrenched in the Migration Period Germanic musical œvre.²

While they may keep an eye to the past, Wardruna’s messages of ecological (and cultural) rehabilitation are a direct product of the here and now, a time when these messages are needed more urgently than ever. Through strikingly cinematic songwriting, soul-bearing vocal performances, and an unwavering desire to cultivate an Animist worldview, Birna opens a powerful dialogue between myriad forces of nature, manifesting through our most celestial and feared of beasts. Many people may feel overwhelmed and powerless at the hands of the modern world’s nightmarish machinations, but Birna serves as a reminder to stop, even for just a little bit, and find solace through a reconnection with our innermost primal selves. Take a moment to walk beside the bear, swim upstream with the fish, and seek counsel from the trees; they may have more to say than you think.

Recommended tracks: Dvaledraumar, Jord til Ljos, Ljos til Jord, Hertan, Himinndotter
You may also like: Nordein, De Mannen Broeders, Alora Crucible, Sangre de Muérdago + Judasz & Nahimana
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Label: Sony Music – Facebook | Official Website

Wardruna is:
– Einer Selvik (vocals, all instruments)
– Lindy-Fay Hella (vocals, flute)
– Arne Sandvoll (percussion, vocals)
– HC Dalgaard (percussion, vocals)
– Eilif Gundersen (horns, flutes)
– John Stenersen (moraharpa)

1. These themes are recontextualized again on “Hibjørnen”, marking the end of the narrator’s journey alongside the bear. ︎
2. In the end, I have little opinion either way on whether a modern interpretation or a faithful recreation is better in the context of music—the main takeaway here is to never buy a bridge from a Wardruna fan who tells you their music is authentically ancient. ︎

The post Review: Wardruna – Birna appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Traditional progressive metal, progressive rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Symphony X, Haken, Vision Divine
Country: Italy
Release date: 18 October 2024

It doesn’t seem to have been a quiet year for DGM: the Italian prog metallers are back at it again after eleven short months with their latest release Endless, a bombastic and energetic offering in their unmistakable, inimitable style. The almost hour-long experience draws on influences from progressive rock, jazz fusion, and folk, maintaining a sound that sits well within the progressive metal spectrum overall. With soaring vocals, twisty-turny guitar licks, memorable hooks and emotional instrumental passages, DGM pulls no punches on this performance, delivering what I consider to be one of their best works to date. 

From the start of the first track “Promises”, to the end of the album closer “…Of Endless Echoes,” DGM’s Endless flows almost effortlessly as the songs lead expertly into one another. The pounding aggression of “The Wake” followed with a much needed reprieve in the reverberant acoustic guitar with jazz flute accompaniment that is the intro to “Solitude;” a piece that crescendos into one of the best choruses on the album, and ends with the same moody acoustic, flute, and piano that were featured in the intro – before the energy picks up with the speedy keyboard passage that establishes the pace of “From Ashes.” There’s something about Endless that gives a summery vibe; for me, it’s the way guitarist Simone Mularoni uses bright major chord voicings over vibrant synth patches and melodic, up-tempo violin phrases. It lends an optimistic and hopeful sound to the music that makes it the kind of album I want to blast while driving my convertible to the beach through Italy’s winding mountain roads.

Endless blends progressive metal with some prog rock, jazz fusion, and folk influence with the inclusion of some interspersed flute and violin passages, both played by DGM’s keyboard wizard Emanuele Casali. This folk element is most notable during the break in the middle of the track “Final Call,” where an orientalist musical theme is introduced, while a jazz flute component is evident throughout; the flute often playing staccato notes behind heavy, palm-muted guitar as in  the track “Solitude.” Emanuele also loves to make use of bright piano tones, using them to accentuate more emotive passages like the latter half of “Solitude” and throughout the album’s ballad “Blank Pages.” Prior to release, DGM teased that they would be experimenting with a new sound, and although I’d call it quite a conservative experimentation, I’d say it worked out: the classic DGM sound is solidly established but these instrumental flourishes breathe wonderful new life into it.

The songwriting prowess of guitarist Simone and keyboardist Emanuele, both listed as composers, cannot be understated here. The album’s quality doesn’t waver from start to finish and holds up well on subsequent listens. Even the album’s power ballad “Blank Pages”—and I usually hate ballads (all great metal power ballads have already been written by 80s hair bands)—I could find no fault in, especially when singer Mark Basile delivers each line with exceptional clarity and masterfully makes you feel every emotion and every experience he’s been through. His is a voice so emotive and so capable, and I can think of no better suited vocalist for this band. 

As I listen back, I find myself wishing they’d thrown a couple of songs in Italian into the mix. Italy has such a rich and diverse musical culture and the language has by so many people often been described as being musical, that it’s almost a shame when another Italian group chooses to sing in English. I suppose it’s done for International audiences, but would an established group such as DGM really falter if they took a chance like that? Is it ‘progressive’ to play the safe bet and stick to English? This has long been my gripe with Italian metal bands as a whole. There’s only a handful who will release works in Italian; usually lesser-known outfits whose market is primarily if not wholly located within the boundaries of the peninsula, e.g. Folkstone (folk metal) or Wounded Knee (prog rock/metal). Some better-known international acts like DGM themselves tend to stick to English. What part of Italian culture are you exporting at that point? A strong Italian progressive rock music scene (aptly titled rock progressivo Italiano) has been around since the 70s, and no doubt has influenced countless groups within the current Italian rock and metal scene. I would love for modern progressive bands from Italy to embrace that history rather than the trend of singing in a foreign tongue that practically the whole of Europe (with [mostly] the exception of Spain) does. But I digress.

This is an album worthy of high praise, with DGM doing what they do best at the highest level, and innovating with new and original elements that add shine and polish to an already well-oiled machine. Despite the short wait time, it doesn’t feel like a rushed production. From the two singles “The Great Unknown” and “Final Call”, to the 14-minute album closer “…Of Endless Echoes,” each song brings a unique energy that causes the album to ebb and flow; its peaks and valleys recalling the seven hills of Rome. Endless is one of the best Italian prog metal releases of the last four years.

Recommended tracks: Final Call, The Great Unknown, From Ashes
You may also like: Labyrinth, Inner Vitriol, New Horizons
Final verdict: 9.9/10

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

Label: Frontiers Records – Facebook | Official Website

DGM is:
– Marco Basile (vocals)
– Simone Mularoni (guitars)
– Emanuele Casali (keyboards)
– Andrea Arcangeli – (bass)
– Fabio Constantino (drums)

The post Review: DGM – Endless appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Art rock, trip-hop, ambient, electronica, dark folk (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Massive Attack, Radiohead, Chelsea Wolfe, Nine Inch Nails, Björk, Bent Knee, Steven Wilson when goes more electronica
Country: UK
Release date: 1 November 2024

Art has many purposes, but a lot of the time it becomes a vehicle for escapism; I sit contentedly through many a middling film or serviceable album with a handful of bops because that’s all I want from them. It’s only through serendipity and the mystery of resonant frequencies that we can occasionally come across art that wends its tendrils deep into the cracks of the soul; that can resaturate dried husks of truth with meaning once more, that, due to some combination of neural pathways and reverberating sound waves, can invoke a physiological response that borders on the profound. 

i Häxa, taken from the Swedish term for “witch”, is a project comprised of vocalist Rebecca Need-Menear (Anavae) and producer/instrumentalist Peter Miles (highlights include producer for Architects and co-producer on Tesseract’s War of Being) and blends art rock, trip-hop, ambient, industrial, and dark folk influences together into one heady brew¹. Originally conceived as a single flowing suite, but released as four EPs (the first two of which I reviewed here), and now fused into a single album, there’s a few different ways to listen to the full i Häxa. Everything flows but there are recognisable song formations, distinct quarterings within that flow—at the same time, it makes little sense to listen to, for example, “The Well” without listening to “Fog of War” because the two are parts of a seamless whole.

Swollen layers of synths and pulsating backbeats, graceful piano and lamenting strings form the instrumental backbone of i Häxa with Need-Menear’s sinuous, high-toned voice—in timbre, a more powerful, just-going-through-a-phase sister to Magdalena Bay’s Mica Tenenbaum—sojourning from vulnerable (“Circle”) to threnodic (“The Well”) to boisterous (“Destroy Everything”). Around half the tracks feature spoken word recitations from Need-Menear—the dread monologue of “Fog of War”, the rhythmic poetry that drives “Inferno”, the venomous whispers on “Army”—and her deft ear for enunciation, her oratory range, and paganic lyricism keep the listener hanging on every word. Where spoken word in music all too often falls flat with ropey oration and lazy samples, for i Häxa it’s a vital and astonishingly successful texture. 

I could wax lyrical about each track for a while, but suffice it to say that the flow and complexity of the arrangements is pleasing, playing with time signatures (I still can’t work out the beat on “Eight Eyes”), manipulated vocals (“Vessel”, “Sapling”), and reprises (“Circle” builds on a piano melody first explored in “Last at the Table” while repurposing lyrics first heard on “Sapling”). On a song-to-song basis, i Häxa consistently impress, but it’s the interweaving overall structure that sells it, the consistent quartering, the effortless flow, the reprisal of motifs—sometimes familiar, sometimes transformed—all coming together to form something holistic. Despite marrying analogue and digital, i Häxa ultimately feels strangely natural, as though this energy always existed somewhere and Need-Menear and Miles became conduits for its message. That might be a weird metaphor but it’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to music; something that feels less like it was created and more like it always existed in some form and has only just found articulation. 

By the time we get to the penultimate double whammy of “Blue Angel” and “Infernum”, i Häxa have brought us to a place of malign chaos where crushing Aphex Twin-esque beats and volatile synths pulsate while cascading neoclassical strings and eerie choral vocals form a sonic tableau of damnation. Miles’ beats are consistently, to use a technical term, sick: evoking Massive Attack on “Underworld” and “Dryland” (that strings/vocal motif/beat combo is straight Heligoland), and more acrid dance acts like The Prodigy or Squarepusher on “Infernum”. Kudos has to go to the strings across the record which are utilised in versatile ways, from the energetic melody on “Dryland” to the tenebrous quartet on “Circle”. The impressive thing is that i Häxa can span such a vast musical territory—in genre, tempo, instrumentation—and make the work in its totality feel cohesive and flowing. 

I’ve probably made my point: I really like i Häxa, but I do want to give special attention to the lyrics. Need-Menear’s voice and delivery give life to her poetic lyrics as on “Sapling”—”did all we know turn out to be our worst addictions/and are we failing?, or the recitation on “Fog of War”—“heat has its own smell, its own language, and my skin will be scorched long before I understand its words”. Mysterious and evocative, the imagery swings from more intimate registers (“Last at the Table”, “Dryland”, “Circle”) to existential dread (pretty much everything else), always hitting on something spine-tingling. Additionally, I have to, again, praise the visual accompaniments to the album, as the music video for Part One is engraved on my brain in all its strange imagery and autumnal hues. Everything this duo touches feels like the work of true artists, living and breathing a unique vision. 

i Häxa’s eponymous debut has quite simply beguiled me. It’s a stunning work melding a variety of genres and viewpoints into a cohesive work of art, a flowing sonic experience, some primordial evocation of the sublime embodied in the dread words of a lost witch yearning for meaning to manifest within this mortal coil. Need-Menear and Miles have crafted something truly unique in spite of its familiar foundations, haunting in its poignance and sonic force, brimming with a depth to which one can’t help but succumb, something that nestles in the heart and lays eggs there. Come wander into the underworld, give in to your sick desire for the inferno; you won’t regret it, I promise.

Recommended tracks: pick any of the EPs and listen to it in full (or just do the full album, after all it was originally conceived as one long suite) but if you have to have individual tracks to hook you: Underworld, The Well, Dryland, Sapling
You may also like: Ophelia Sullivan, Marjana Semkina, Mingjia, Meer
Final verdict: 9.5/10

1. Their first gig was at ArcTanGent festival who lumped them, understandably, in the “uncategorised” category alongside Kalandra (clearly a folk rock group), Sans Froid (art rock), and Doodseskader (ok, I’ll grant them that one). Meanwhile, Imperial Triumphant got a category all to themselves, “esoteric death metal”, which isn’t even all that accurate.
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Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

i Häxa is:
– Rebecca Need-Menear (vocals)
– Peter Miles (all instruments)

The post Review: i Häxa – i Häxa appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Technical death metal, progressive death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Black Dahlia Murder, Psycroptic, Archspire, Infant Annihilator, Revocation
Country: Sweden
Release date: October 18, 2024

Let’s be honest here: tech-death is one big dick measuring contest. After dropping two albums then promptly dipping, Necrophagist’s absent throne has opened the floodgates for every musician with a penchant for speed to fill. Unfortunately, most of these musicians didn’t really get the memo that behind Necrophagist’s blisteringly fast playing was a backdrop of incredibly written riffs and solos. Those that understand the painstaking effort behind crafting a perfect tech-death song rocket into the upper echelons at four-hundred BPM, while the rest twiddle their thumbs hoping that they can one day graze the empire that Archspire or First Fragment have created for themselves.

Carnosus weren’t in this war from the start. They’ve been the cave-tribe off the southern fringes of The Black Dahlia Murder’s melodeath kingdom. They heard the glorious Gothenburg riffs and Trevor Strnad’s mountain lion-like screeches from afar, and in 2020, decided to try their own hand at such a musical style. While good in its own right, debut Dogma of the Deceased pales in comparison to last year’s Visions of Infinihility, to the point where these Swedish apemen likely found the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Extraterrestrial interference is the only way I can describe the amount of growth they had in three years, and it’s the logical conclusion to their continued success, because Wormtales is just as much of a leap forward.

Wormtales was a bit of a shock to me upon first listen. Unlike Visions, which starts out firing on all cylinders, we’re treated to simpler riff structures on ‘Birthless’ before exploding into a melodic solo. Not shreddy, mind you, but precise, and almost reminiscent of Christian Munzner’s (Obscura, Alkaloid) graceful soloing. There isn’t as much shreddy madness to be found on Wormtales as there is on Visions, but it works in the album’s favor. Moreover, we’re treated to the horrifying, ever-increasing range of domesticated pterodactyl Jonatan Karasiak’s vocals. In this one song alone, he goes from manic, Strnad-esque screeches to gurgles reminiscent of Afterbirth’s Will Smith.

However, ‘Within Throat, Within Heart’ proves that Carnosus aren’t going soft on us any time soon. Wasting no time with the blast beats and BREEEEEs, it proves that Carnosus have the fire within to create the techy madness they became known for on Visions, but have simply chosen to create something more on Wormtales. They became too smart for their own good and knew that they couldn’t rehash the same sound with different results. As the clean guitar proves near the end of the aforementioned song, Carnosus have decided to not play faster, but write stronger.

The pummeling riffs, like the one that drives ‘Neglectikon’, Karasiak’s unhinged vocals, and the—dare I say—beautiful guitar solos (come on, listen to the ending of ‘Wound of Wisdom’) have come together in harmony to create a signature sound unique to Carnosus. Sure, the influences are obvious, as they were on the last album, but this cave-tribe concluded that writing fast and only fast was completely beneath them, and decided to opt for songs that perfectly tow the line between bone-headed and big brained. ‘Worm Charmer’ starts with the most meat-headed riff on the album, and throws a curve ball with an incredibly tasteful bass and guitar solo about halfway through.

Unlike Visions, I wouldn’t say that Wormtales has a stronger half. In fact, everything from ‘Yearnings of a Rotten Spine’ onward is likely going to be a SOTY contender for me. However, every time I think I’ve found a favorite, the vocal acrobatics of back-to-back bangers ‘Harbinger of Woundism’ and ‘Paradoxical Impulse’ keep bringing me back. I know I’ve mentioned Karasiak a lot in this review, but he is truly the tipping point in increasing the final score by half a point. If the final song didn’t continue Wormtales’ tradition of experimenting by starting out with a throat-singing section, I think I’d say it’s merely just as good as Visions. 

When Carnosus said that their next album was already in the works back in 2023, I didn’t think it would be even close to this good. With Visions, they entered themselves into the Tech-War, but with Wormtales, they’ve shown that they’re wholly unconcerned with warfare, and all they want to do is make disgusting noises. Carnosus haven’t set out to become the next speedster, but have staked their career on continuing to evolve into something beyond. I’m a bit worried that the moment these boneheaded apes figure out how to make their bass even more audible, they’re going to evolve far past what humanity is able to comprehend. Perhaps with a second 2001 monolith, they’ll reach the very stars, and disregard the Tech-Throne entirely. 

Recommended tracks: Birthless, Yearnings of a Rotten Spine, Neglectikon, Harbinger of Woudism, Solace in Soil
You may also like: Hath, Slugdge, Afterbirth, Wormhole, Xoth
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Label: Willowtip – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Carnosus is:
– Marcus Strindlund (bass)
– Jacob Hedner (drums)
– Rickard Persson (guitars)
– Jonatan Karasiak (vocals)
– Markus Jokela Nystrom (guitars)

The post Review: Carnosus – Wormtales appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: dissonant death metal, mathcore, technical death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Imperial Triumphant, Gorguts, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Chat Pile, Car Bomb, Frontierer
Country: United States-NY
Release date: 6 September 2024

“First off, fuck Elon Musk”: the opening line of Jpegmafia and Danny Brown’s instant hip-hop classic Scaring the Hoes. Pyrrhon’s lyricist and vocalist extraordinaire Doug Moore starts Exhaust similarly—albeit a tad more literarily with his characteristic blend of flash prose and Realist poetry—the first track “Not Going to Mars” is a big fuck you to Elon Musk. Who isn’t sick of his shit by now? Exhaust revolves around the theme of societal exhaustion: the inability to pay for things as basic as medical care because of the felicity of circumstance (“Strange Pains,” “Luck of the Draw”), the degradation of life for capitalist overuse (“Concrete Charlie,” “Last Gasp”), and a general dread of societal problems like social media, artificial intelligence, and constant advertisement. In an increasingly divided country and world, everybody’s stretched a little thin.

With some introspection, Pyrrhon realized this applied to them as a band, too, losing their spark in a feeling of collective dis-inspiration. Their solution was renting out a cabin with a glut of psychedelics and their instruments: the results speak for themselves. This is a band who’ve rediscovered their teenage vitality. An endless stream of contorted riffs, Exhaust is frantic and abrasive with its mix of Ad Nauseamisms, Imperial Triumphant’s jazziness, Frontierer-esque mathcore sections, and a hearty dash of The Dillinger Escape Plan in Moore’s vocals which shift from sewer-y gutturals and acerbic screams to uncanny half-clean wails. Moreover, as half of Pyrrhon is now in Scarcity, the comparisons to The Promise of Rain from earlier this year are clear, especially with regards to process. Exhaust brims with vibrant energy, overflowing with intensity of a live show. Dylan DiLella’s guitar lines are more varied than his parts on Scarcity’s opus, but several of the disorienting treble bits are translated, and there’s a blackened underpinning to the already complex dissonant and technical death metal-cum-mathcore.

At a perfectly paced thirty-eight minutes and ten tracks, Exhaust is superb to delve into ad nauseam. From the zesty guitar solos in “Not Going to Mars” and “First as Tragedy” to the breakdown in “Luck of the Draw” to the flurrying blast beats to close out the album on “Hell Medicine,” every track is insanely memorable with genuinely endless highlights. My girlfriend (who runs our social media) commented I was thrashing around too violently listening to Exhaust, and it’s definitely caused the same neck pain as a grand old time at a metal concert. I can’t help but get involved with Pyrrhon’s infectious grooves; holding down the rhythm section, Steve Schwegler (drums) and Erik Malave (bass) warp time signatures and intricate jazziness in such a way that you forget it’s absurdly complicated. The churning drumming alternates between impeccably tasteful blast beats, perfectly placed fills, and—importantly—an integration into the rest of Pyrrhon so as to operate as a seamless, squalid unit. Malave holds down the fort with an absolutely filthy bass tone straight from the vile side of NYC, and when he takes a lead like in the free jazz-esque build of the middle portion of “Stress Fractures,” Pyrrhon clearly ascends a level. The band knows his worth.

While Exhaust is paced perfectly—intermittent slower tracks providing some much needed respite from the aberrant technical death metal—I think “Out of Gas” is a clear step below the rest of Exhaust. Its slow 5/4 intro would be at home on an Imperial Triumphant track, and it builds satisfyingly to a noisy climax, but for the first couple minutes Moore’s strange clean vocals border on the weird side of hardcore (think Chat Pile), and I find his slam poetry-like delivery to be not my style. It’s appreciated that Pyrrhon lay off the throttle on occasion, though. Thankfully, not a note is amiss across Exhaust, and Colin Marston’s legendary production touches sound phenomenal, one of his best works yet. He captures the filth, the vibrancy, and injects his own characteristically creative touch to create a flawless sonic artifact, dry and clear. I couldn’t imagine anybody else capturing the end of “The Greatest City on Earth” like Marston; the whole section features Moore’s strangest, most-convincing imagery while the band precisely ramps up the chaotic heaviness, a rather insane ending for merely the third track on the album.

Pyrrhon have always had the goods—The Mother of Virtues and What Passes for Survival are absolutely essential avant-garde death metal listens—but they’ve fully hit their stride here, balancing their intricate abstractions and an addicting zest. For an album so dense, the riffs and song structures are remarkably accessible without sacrificing an ounce of challenging musicality. Shrooms and a cabin perfected Pyrrhon’s approach, and while I’m exhausted from a tough start to the semester, Exhaust is providing me with a breath of fresh air and the vivacity to persevere.

Recommended tracks: Not Going to Mars, The Greatest City on Earth, Strange Pains, Luck of the Draw, Stress Fractures, Hell Medicine
You may also like: Scarcity, Aseitas, Ad Nauseam, Weeping Sores
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Pyrrhon is:
Erik Malave – bass guitar, backing vocals
Dylan DiLella – guitars
Doug Moore – vocals
Steve Schwegler – drums

The post Review: Pyrrhon – Exhaust appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: technical death metal, melodic black metal, prog death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dissection, Obscura, Beyond Creation, Inferi, Archspire
Review by: Andy
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 13 October 2023

Counterpoint is unequivocally one of the most significant musical advancements in human history along with ordering the overtones and equal temperament. A single melody bears the weight of narrative in music; several interacting melodic lines (counterpoint) tell an exponentially more complex story, and most importantly, the concept stimulates my wrinkly, prog-loving brain. Stortregn get counterpoint. 

The transition from standard Dissection worship to an unholy, stylistically distinct amalgamation of swaggering meloblack and ferocious technical death metal took Stortregn a decade; perfecting the style took three years. Impermanence was a shock to the system and a breath of fresh air for a tech-loaded 2021, an immaculately paced and performed album with a unique ear for melodic riffing. In these past two years, Geneva’s finest have honed their distinct style down to a science with the laser-focused precision of a Swiss watch; Finitude is both a technical and artistic masterpiece, deftly balancing form and function.

The performances on Finitude are unreal. Romain Negro’s harshes have clarity and diversity while Manuel Barrios’ bass weaves between the guitar parts with masterful ease. And, my God, the guitar parts: contrapuntal insanity. Johan Smith and Duran Bathija abandoned the typical lead/rhythm dichotomy to instead create a stunning Baroque soundscape, the two sounding as if they’re playing in an electric chamber ensemble more than a death metal band. Stylistically, they take the best of Inferi’s melodicism and flair for epic solos, the occasional harmonic unison of Virvum’s absurdity, and the impossibly intricate parts of Archspire while still mixing in a fair share of Dissection’s melodic sexiness (that’s the technical industry term). Finitude truly contains forty-three minutes of among the most stunning guitar parts ever put to tape. Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention Samuel Jakubec’s drumming, as well, since between this and Impermanence he’s rapidly becoming one of the best tech drummers ever. While his footwork has constant blasts as mechanically proficient as Dan Presland or Hanness Grossmann, his hands play with the delicacy of a jazz drummer’s touch. Most impressively, this collective talent functions as a cohesive unit; Stortregn interact as if they’re a single living creature. 

Perhaps the least intuitive but most fundamental aspect of Stortregn’s sound, the spatial awareness inherent to the production pushes Finitude to the next level. The production pays hyper-awareness to which channel each guitar part and drum beat is sent, creating a virile, dynamic interplay between all of these contrapuntal parts. Moreover, the multi-limbed approach of the drumming is fragmented across channels in such a way as to make Jakubec feel omnipresent yet never overpowering. This approach is sensationally dizzying, especially with Stortregn’s penchant for circular, tap-centric guitar riffs, but it pays off in the sheer volume of melodic complexity within Finitidue. Unfortunately, letting everything dominate the space does cause some significant brickwalling–and, therefore, fatigue with such a dense album–but that’s seriously my only substantial complaint on Finitude. 

I haven’t even mentioned a song up to now because I don’t know which one to highlight–they’re all deserving. Lead single “Xeno Chaos” dazzles with flamenco (which I wish they used more of in addition to this one and the haunting bit on “De Inferno Solis”) and a frantic, blinding solo. Or perhaps I should discuss “Cold Void” which dabbles in unexpected dissonance, or maybe the sheer heft of “Omega Axiom” gets you going. For me, the highlight is in the final few minutes of the entire album: “The Revelation” ends with a solo section in which those conversing guitar parts that meander across and through and [insert preposition here] each other finally come together in unison in an orgasmic shred-fest of epic proportions–think First Fragment or Virvum. 

Finitude raises the bar for how to be intricate and not be reduced to wankery. Never once in the shred did I ever think it was too much–Stortregn have proved twice in a row they understand pacing and performance beyond reason. If it weren’t for a gripe with the loudness of the production, I’d be slapping a 10/10 on an album for the first time at the Subway, but regardless I guarantee you that you won’t regret listening to this masterpiece.

Recommended tracks: Finitude, A Lost Battle Rages On, Xeno Chaos, Cold Void, Rise of the Insidious, Omega Axiom, De Inferno Solis, The Revelation
You may also like: Impureza, First Fragment, Virvum, Alustrium, Equipoise
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Label: The Artisan Era – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Stortregn is:
– Romain Negro (guitars, vocals)
– Johan Smith (guitars)
– Samuel Jakubek (drums)
– Duran K. Bathija (bass, guitars)
– Manuel Barrios (bass)

The post Review: Stortregn – Finitude appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Jazz Fusion (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Thank You Scientist, Weather Report
Review by: Nick
Country: USA
Release dates: 27 September 2022 (Spotify), 1 June 2022 (Bandcamp)

Ever since Thank You Scientist went more metal on their last release, I’ve been yearning for some more traditional jazz fusion in the prog sphere. We Used to Cut the Grass scratched that itch a little bit, but nobody seemed to come close to the absolute masterful songcrafting that appeared in songs like “Rube Goldberg Variations”. As such you can imagine my surprise when I turned on this new release by Marbin, a band I had never previously heard of. Dirty Horse scratches that progressive jazz fusion itch and then some.

The album comes out swinging with “The Freeman Massacre”, a funky jam that bobs into high energy passages and weaves out to more restrained quiet jamming. One thing you’ll immediately notice about this album from this song alone is how absolutely insane Everette Benton Jr. is on the drums. This dude is a BEAST, jumping between complex almost solo-like fills and calmer, straight forward sections. The dynamics he portrays are good examples of the dynamics displayed by the entire band.

I don’t think there’s any other pairing of songs that so well displays this dynamic variation as “Sid Yiddish Pt 1” and “Sid Yiddish Pt 2”. The former is essentially an 8 minute long sax solo that is swiftly followed by the latter which is a more intense play on a lot of melodies from said former. The ability to have these two seemingly diametrically opposed parts combine so well into each other to not feel jarring and out of place cannot be understated. Really masterful songwriting on all members’ parts.

I’m really straining to find any downsides to this album. Every single song is progressive jazz perfection with a number of styles taken from all corners of the musical world. From the funky jam band feeling of “Midnight Squirrel” to almost metal leanings in “Headless Chicken” to the baroque waltz of “Dirty Horse Pt 1”, this band keeps the styles dipping and diving so constantly that it’s almost impossible to get bored. The production is also stellar with every single instrument being not only easy to make out, but natural to do so as well. I rarely call out those who work on the production side of the musical world, but Brian Schwab and Nate Wood deserve special shout outs for their mixing and mastering respectively. All of the members honestly deserve shout outs. The playing is so tight and the songwriting is so fluid that the album’s length of roughly 74 minutes flies by like absolutely nothing.

All in all, this album is great for a multitude of occasions. Want some background jazz to do the dishes to? This’ll work. Want something to take you on a musical journey? This’ll work too. How about an album for a nice drive? You get my point. Nothing about this album is too avant-garde to be overwhelming, but it isn’t so simple as to be boring and, because of this, Dirty Horse lends itself to working in a multitude of environments that other jazz fusion albums may not shine as well. It really is a one size fits all.

So, are you a fan of jazz fusion legends like Mahivishnu Orchestra? How about newer bands like the aforementioned Thank You Scientist? If you fuck with them, you’ll fuck with Marbin. You’ll fuck with Marbin hardcore. This is for any and all progressive jazz fans out there. Check. This. Album. Out. I know I’ll personally be listening to this one for years to come.

Recommended tracks: Dirty Horse Pt II, Headless Chicken
You may also like: The Comet is Coming, Odd Circus
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Marbin is:
– Dani Rabin (guitar)
– Danny Markovitch (sax)
– Jon Nadel (bass)
– Everette Benton Jr. (drums)

The post Review: Marbin – Dirty Horse appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Atmospheric Death Metal, Prog Metal, Black Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Kardashev, Insomnium, Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Kauan
Review by: Zach and Andy
Country: Sweden
Release date: 9 September, 2022

Hello readers! We’re excited to introduce somewhat of a special occasion for us at The Progressive Subway: an album double review! Yep, a review for An Abstract Illusion (AAI) is quite the coveted one as two of our esteemed experts in progressive death metal, Zach and Andy, were at odds as to whom could have the opportunity to review them. Truth be told, Andy called dibs on the band first and he was gracious enough to let Zach join. Without further ado, please enjoy this dynamic duo review AAI‘s Woe.

Zach:

Band hiatuses are a funny thing. The word “hiatus” may be pushing it, as there are plenty of cases where the band just shuts up until they’re in the studio. Let’s be honest, who’d want to hear “Just wrote another bar of music today!”, followed by “Just deleted that bar…” every week for a year? Because that’s basically all we’d be getting. Now, it’s nice to see your favorite member showing little snippets of new stuff just to know they’re still kicking. I know I damn near screeched when Dean Lamb of Archspire pulled out a riff that would go on to be in ‘The Golden Mouth of Ruin’ on a livestream years ago. The esteemed Waldorf of Aquilus graced us with a killer album out of nowhere eleven years after his debut after everyone suspected he’d just moved on. What’s the reason these two musicians, playing vastly different genres, took so damn long? Simple. Their music is complex as hell.

Now, there’s the other scenario. Bands that say “It’s coming! It’s coming! Just be patient and it’ll be ready this year!” for about ten years. The difference between Tool and Wintersun is that the former didn’t ask fans to crowdfund them a whole studio and never deliver. Hey, at least Fear Inoculum was something. 

An Abstract Illusion never said, “Guys, guys! It’s coming!” In fact, the only kind of update we got was in February of 2020 with the picture of Pro Tools and the caption “trjede,” Swedish for third. Six full years since the band released Illuminate the Path, an album I consider to be a masterwork of prog-death only reached by the likes of Ne Obliviscaris, Woe was announced. Surely, this amount of hype and anticipation will only breed disappointment when Trejde finally releases?

Trejde finally came to me and my co-reviewer Andy in a promo about two weeks ago. After countless listens, and multiple investigations on what they feed the musicians in Norrobotten, Sweden, I can confirm that Woe is a massive, massive album.

While their previous effort, Illuminate the Path, was mainly about nature, it’s immediately clear with ‘The Behemoth That Lies Asleep’ that they’ve taken a more narrative approach with Woe. The song keeps you uncomfortable from the start, with those harsh vocals waiting to strike underneath the cleans, dropping you right into ‘Slaves’, whose first lines immediately paint a clear picture of what this album is about. “Following blindly/Ideology of sheep. Promises of heaven and paradise/in the name of oppression, inequality”. Yeah, looks like it’s time to delve into the insanity of a cult.

Now, unfortunately, I don’t have the time nor paragraph space to delve into the story as a whole, but I firmly believe it’s about the rape (metaphorical or otherwise) and subsequent death of a woman in the cult, and the entire group being dragged to hell as a result. To be fair, I never doubted the lyrical abilities of An Abstract Illusion, but I never expected such horrific lyrics to come from a band that wrote about the beauty of the Himalayas. ‘Slaves’ was enough to tip me off that this would be darker, but some of the lyrics on here would make Opeth in their prime blush. I’d encourage you all to read along with the story with each song and to run the spoken-word interlude track ‘Blomsterkrans’ through Google Translate if you don’t speak Swedish.

But with that darker lyrical sensibility, the core sound remains very much the same, and I mean that in the best way. The atmosphere switches between downright jaw-dropping and suffocating at the drop of a hat. Those beautiful keyboard melodies that provided my favorite moments on Illuminate are even more prevalent here. But what’s going to keep Woe in my brain longer than any other album this year is the sheer number of unexpected moments on this album.

Prog, for me, is a genre that throws the boundaries of what a song can do right out the window. When I first began my journey into the subgenre, everything was unexpected. Now, I can tell when the clean guitar/saxophone solo/ukulele shredding sections are coming; however, I didn’t expect “guitar solo over 808s” to be on my list of favorite things this year. This moment in ‘Tear Down This Holy Mountain’ would be downright silly if not executed correctly, especially on an album this serious so far. I can’t explain it, but even though it’s so unexpected, it just works. It was the first moment in prog that caught me truly off guard in a minute, and that speaks volumes for An Abstract Illusion’s skill.

Each time I think that this album has shown me all of its tricks, I’m continuously proven wrong. ‘Prosperity’ might just be the greatest song they’ve ever written, rounding out with an ending riff heavy enough to kill an elephant. ‘In The Heavens Above, You Will Become a Monster’ continues the tradition of AAI songs having the coolest titles along with being the shortest feeling 14-minute song all year, and ‘This Torment Has No End, Only New Beginnings’ closes the album with not only another hard-hitter but also sheer beauty in its clean guitars and keyboards.

Woe reminds me why prog-death will forever be my favorite subgenre. The skill it takes to make something of this magnitude can’t be put into words and can only be heard in the album itself. I get why they took so long to make Trejde now: they had to make it completely, utterly ironed out. Without a bit of filler, failed riffage or lyrics that fell flat. I can only imagine the long hours these three poured over every single bar of music, all while staying relatively silent the whole time. I can also imagine how excited they were to finally share it with the world.

Recommended tracks: Tear Down This Holy Mountain, Prosperity, In The Heavens Above: You Will Become a Monster. The entire album is supposed to be one long song, though.
You may also like: Aquilus, Countless Skies, Burial in the Sky, Amiensus, Hands of Despair, Wills Dissolve   
Final verdict: 9.5/10

Andy:

Peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, prog fans and one track albums: Some things are simply inseparable. So upon An Abstract Illusion announcing that their sophomore album, Woe, would function as a single song split into seven movements, anticipation reached an all time high for yours truly. Ever since Illuminate the Path so expertly wove together black metal’s penchant for atmosphere with progressive structuring and death metal’s guitar heroics, I have longed for a follow-up, and since its announcement, I just knew I had to grab Woe to review. The album being one track made it simply perfect; however, on Woe tracks flow together with a similar cadence as Stortregn’s Impermanence, so while the band technically considers it one song, Woe feels more like an excellently paced album more than anything. As I booted up Woe and listened for the first time, all fears of sophomore slumping absolved themselves.

Indeed, Woe doesn’t just sound as amazing as its predecessor, it actually improves many aspects. “The Behemoth That Lies Asleep,” the placid intro track and tone-setter, may not contain melodies so high as to make the Scandes seem scant but instead utilizes subtle strings and Wills Dissolve-like bubbling synths to craft an impeccable atmosphere out of the silence underneath, showing a matured songwriting to let the whole album build to more satisfying conclusions. This move is not dissimilar to Insomnium during the writing of Winter’s Gate, abandoning more momentary highs to craft a more evolved final product. I will admit I do miss Illuminate the Path’s endless heart-stopping guitar melodies, but Woe further shows the band’s newfound songwriting elegance as the still-present leads sound just a tad more restrained to allow more atmospheric chill sections to truly shine, luring prog fans. Heavier sections feature prominent blast beats and black metal sections, all of which make the levity of an occasional unrestrained guitar solo like at the end of “Slaves” or at 5:45 into “In the Heavens Above, You Will Become a Monster” all the more necessary. The guitarwork is so incredible that it sounds like a slightly less technical Virvum and certainly subscribes to the John Petrucci school of “chocolate cake” guitar tone, the timbre rich and sweet.

Don’t be fooled by my gushing over the axe-work only, though. The drums cascade like a waterfall, and the audible bass rumbles like a glacier. Unfortunately, perhaps (and certainly just a nitpick), the drums and low end do overpower the mix slightly during heavier, Kardashev-inspired sections, but the whole album encompasses such a rich range of sounds at every moment that the cramped production is hardly noticeable because the mix still does a good job of making seemingly dozens of subtle layers audible and cooperative with each other. Furthermore, the overpowering nature of the low end during heavier sections makes the softer, Kauan-adjacent, atmosphere-centric post metal sections stand out even more. These calmer sections among the stormy black and death metal ones best show off the band’s ascension to that of a fully matured, atmospheric prog metal band. Gone are the days of pure ear-candy guitar leads. Here to stay is a new An Abstract Illusion full of a colorful kaleidoscope of sounds: During tranquil moments, seventies prog rock synths and keys expertly weave their way through the album’s amazing clean vocals, wind instruments, strings, a real grand piano, and countless other minute texture enhancers. 

The center track, “Prosperity,” best encapsulates all to love about this album in one single riff. Like Caligula’s Horse’s “Graves,” the last couple minutes of “Prosperity” are made up of a single syncopated riff with some minor variations. While Woe feels absolutely behemoth (pun intended), stuffed with about a trillion ideas, An Abstract Illusion still know exactly how long to play a standout riff. Many of the best progressive bands fail to recognize that when one strikes gold they should dig in the same spot a little longer, but An Abstract Illusion ensure they don’t overwhelm a listener with too much at any given time. To be confident enough to *know* your riff is so solid as to be played a dozen times takes some real swagger. And, of course, that huge death metal ending of “Prosperity” somehow naturally flows into the amazingly luxurious piano-led, string-filled track “Blomsterkrans.” 

Shorter than Illuminate the Path, Woe avoids the bloat of its predecessor, every moment essential to the story told by the music (and lyrics). Even forty-five minutes into Woe, the album dodges expectations with the addition of female vocals to elevate the album to new heights. Every track that makes up Woe constantly shifts styles, blending a multitude of keys, intensity levels, and vocal styles–from Ihsahn-esque raspy screeches and death metal roars to superb cleans and subdued spoken word—into a brilliantly cohesive package. My only gripe with Woe beyond the loudness of the master is in its final moments when “This Torment Has No End, Only New Beginnings” ominously builds in intensity… until it suddenly cuts out. The finale functions not too far off of Leprous’s “The Sky Is Red,” leaving me aching for more, and after so many waxing and waning songwriting habits, the ending feels disappointing–even teasing–to collapse on a waxing gibbous rather than the glory of the full moon. 

I could ironically end the review here to mimic the album, but I won’t because Woe deserves a full conclusion. The album shows a band not at all content to rest on their laurels. An Abstract Illusion admirably pushes themselves to write in a harder-to-tame format like Wills Dissolve and Insomnium did before them, and just like those bands, An Abstract Illusion succeeds in expanding their own boundaries without compromising their established sound. Get swept up in the river that is Woe; be it the raging black metal rapids, the calming streams after, or the entire journey. Every prog metal fan ought to listen to Woe.

Recommended tracks: Woe (it’s one song…)
You may also like: Wills Dissolve, Virvum, Descend
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | YouTube

An Abstract Illusion is:
– Robert Stenvall (vocals, Keyboards)
– Karl Westerlund (guitars, bass)
– Christian Berglönn (drums)

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