Logo and illustration by Jack Sabbat, Ornaments by Joos Melander

Style: Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Progressive Metal (mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Hammers of Misfortune, Negative Plane, Malokarpatan
Country: Denmark
Release date: 28 February, 2025

Have you ever thought to yourself: “Man, swords sure are cool. I just wish they came in a larger variety of shapes and sizes”. If so, why do you talk like that? Also, the year is 2025, and I think I may have an answer to your prayers.

Enter Copenhagen based quintet Scimitar, whose debut album Scimitarium I features an illustration I think you may be veeeery interested in. Oh, they also play music I guess… And it is quite good! Extremely good in fact. Scimitar plays an arcane form of heavy metal with a serious black metal bent not entirely unlike Negative Plane and their ilk. Winding guitar riffs weave through a swarming drum performance as Shaam Larein’s unique lilting vocal performance glides like an apparition over it all. The lead guitar often takes on the role of conveying the primary melody while the vocals support it with their own secondary melody; it is not quite contrapuntal, but the result is faintly similar. The formula on display on Scimitarium I instantly caught my attention, shining like the glint of sharpened steel that comprises the blade of a certain shape of sword.

Scimitarium I opens with its title track, starting with a dissonant riff that is deceptively catchy and works as a great tag to set expectations and the mood for the entire album. The track ends as this riff simultaneously implodes in on itself and explodes into “Aconitum”, wasting no time to flex Scimitar’s sharp structuring and songwriting skills. Long-winded serpentine riff phrases create space for plenty of variation and smart use of harmonic interplay during repeated sections. Each and every idea is taken to its logical conclusion, then taken there again down a different contextual path within the song. The result is that Scimitar can rely on only a few of their strongest ideas, streamlining the listening experience without losing the esoteric nature at the heart of their sound. “Aconitum” is perhaps the strongest and most straightforward example of this; the chorus has a great lead guitar melody that can be superimposed over the entire rest of the track, fitting in perfectly the entire time, and showcasing just how deeply Scimitar understands their strengths and the skill with which they are able to utilize them.

Besides general songwriting prowess, Shaam Larein’s vocal performance is the primary highlight of Scimitarium I for my tastes; she’s great at crafting arcane melodies that are equal parts catchy and esoteric, able to get stuck in your head without taking away from the occult atmosphere. Larein often uses her voice more texturally than as a vehicle for delivering melody, but very rarely does she flip fully into screaming. Particularly effective is how she regularly switches into her falsetto at the end of phrases, giving her performance a feeling of spectral uneasiness. Even while Larein is singing, her syllable placement and the pacing of her phrases are more in line with a harsh vocal performance, further bridging the gap and muddying the waters between Scimitar’s sharp black metal edge and heavy metal spirit. 

Those who are familiar with Slægt’s particular mix of black and heavy metal will mostly know what to expect from the instrumental side of Scimitar’s performance, given that the two groups share three members between them. For those who aren’t, Slægt play a heavy metal infused form of melodic black metal with plenty of goth tendencies in the vein of Tribulation. While Slægt is mainly concerned with exploring the black metal side of these guys’ particular sound, Scimitar ventures further into heavy metal territory, infusing the performance with a scrappy DIY aesthetic. There are still plenty of the black metal performance techniques, but they are used in the context of and in service to a heavy metal conceit. The bass guitar heavily utilizes chromaticism and relies on leading tones that anchor the ripping melodic black metal based guitar riffing. The drumming is very busy, constantly filling space with fills and short blasts, but never distracting from the rest of the performances. This is not to say that Scimitar never fully unsheathes their black metal side—they do so quite a few times, and always to great effect. Take “Red Ruins” for example: around 1:20 there is a chilling ghostly vocal harmony that leads into Scimitarium I’s first fully mask off black metal section. Harsh vocals accompany a vicious tremolo attack, followed by a harmonically disorienting arpeggiated riff that winds around itself like a whirling drain. Scimitar’s sound is malleable and can be stretched into so many different directions, from black and heavy metal to goth and pop (“Hungry Hallucinations”), but always retains its core sound and never diverges from the almighty riff. 

Scimitar has stumbled upon a nearly perfect blend of sound for my tastes, a paradoxical fog which repels direct comparison through an inviting familiarity. Each performance is grippingly authentic, each riff thrillingly engaging, and each moment ridiculously addictive. We’re only about a third of the way through 2025, and Scimitarium I is already a strong contender for ending up as my favorite album of the year, and it is not particularly close either. Even in an early year full of strong underground releases, Scimitar cuts through the chaff, sharpening its uniquely shaped edge with a calculated efficiency. Perhaps those warriors from Hammerfell were onto something after all.

Recommended tracks: Aconitum, Hungry Hallucinations, Ophidia
You may also like: Slægt, Molten Chains, Funereal Presence, Predatory Light, Ponte del Diavolo
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Crypt of the Wizard – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Scimitar is:
– Shaam Larein (vocals)
-Johan L. Ekstrand (unknown)
-Anders M. Jorgensen (unknown)
-Olle Bergholz (unknown)
-Adam CCsquele (unknown)

The post Review: Scimitar – Scimitarium I appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive metal, Nordic Folk, Djent (Clean vocals, Danish lyrics)
Recommended for fans of: Kalandra, VOLA, Myrkur, Tesseract, David Maxim Micic
Country: Denmark
Release date: 31 January 2025

The Grammys have just been and gone and, a Gojira win notwithstanding, it’s a reminder of how far removed from the mainstream prog really is, not just in form but in theme. Distilling any genre down to a single theme is stupidly reductive but I’m going to do it anyway, and modern pop’s main theme to my mind is interpersonal drama. Whether it’s Sabrina Carpenter’s horny paeans to her exes, Kendrick Lamar calling out Drake’s apparent hebephilia, or Beyoncé butchering a Dolly Parton classic in order to threaten whoever her husband cheated on her with, the tenor of pop feels a bit like it’s stuck in high school. Perhaps that’s because all of these people were popular in high school; the average prog musician almost certainly wasn’t, and that might explain the intellectualised escapism of the genre’s preoccupations—we get concept albums about prehistoric epochs, cosmic nihilism, and the rise and fall of empires. When a band like Danefae, a young Danish quartet, come along drawing on their country’s cultural history and nature metaphors to tell stories in their native Danish, that information hits the average Grammy voter with the force of an anti-meme. 

“Fuglekongen” opens their sophomore effort, Trøst, with contemplative harmonies and twittering bird song. Pretty piano dances with intricate percussion before segueing into a waltzing chorus, where the vocal melody lifts the tune of “La Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saëns. So far, so picturesque, which makes Danefae’s heavier excursions all the more surprising. Indeed, fans of the first album and newcomers alike will be shocked when the djent grooves come in. While Tro was rooted in the Nordic folk of artists like Kalandra and Myrkur, Danefae’s sound has evolved and, here, dives more heavily into a mode of progressive metal familiar from the likes of VOLA and Tesseract. The final product, if it resembles any work in particular, often recalls David Maxim Micic’s dreadfully underrated ECO. The counterpoint between the two modes, airy lightness and crushing heft, is an evocative combination conjuring images of viking ships in turbid seas backlit by Valhalla shining on the horizon.

Vocalist and pianist Anne Olesen is the beacon guiding the roiling metal to the safety of the shore, her mellifluous delivery and youthful timbre soaring gently above. Singularly, she carries the folk-tinged melodies, but often her vocals are layered with those of guest vocalists into stronger harmonies and even to swells of choral proportions. On the grief-laden epic “P.S. Far er død”, a glorious polyphony builds around the six minute mark as Olesen and guests Andreas Dahl-Blumenberg and Ole Olesen become a consonance of chattering voices. Her impressive vocal versatility roots the listener while the rest of the band play across the rock/metal spectrum. Her chanting on “Vætter” conceals the growing heaviness of the instrumentation underneath, the band layering themselves toward an explosive finale, while her breathy syncopated delivery on the bridge of “Vandskabt” thrums with energy. “Natsværmer” opens with eerie piano arpeggios and deliciously ominous bass slides which undergird the track, contrasting the yearning for light of the verses with its vaunted discovery in the far more optimistic chorus. 

Much heavier moments abound, however. “Natsværmer” crescendos with a few strikes of Meshuggah-density djent, which also see use on the thunderous main riff of the baptismal spume of “Vandskabt”, a track more post-metal in flavour with tremolo highs and stalwart drum work. “P.S. Far er død” features a couple of sublimely melodious guitar solos, and around halfway through the vocal polyphony explodes into a section featuring chugging Car Bomb-esque riffs and tremolo picked lows before resolving itself into a belting finale. “Blind” is perhaps the most consummate blend of the lighter and heavier elements on the album, issuing VOLA-esque grooves beneath rich atmospheres of synth and piano and delivering a cathartically massive chorus.

Trøst’s sonic chiaroscuro, the fissile interplay of the lighter elements—piano, strings and reserved percussion—with the heavier, has a holistic quality, a pleasing completeness. Occasionally, the heaviest outings shift their sound too far into the realms of more generic metal, while the title track, a two minute solo guitar interlude feels a little too light and disconnected to really be at home on the record. These moments which fail to play to Danefae’s unique strengths never choke the compositions, although they do sometimes drag individual songs down for thirty seconds or so. For the most part, however, the deft equipoise is shockingly well done.  

A resounding sophomore effort, one can take comfort in Danefae’s atomic mastery, melding the heaviest grooves and the airiest elements into a unique amalgam of Nordic folk serenity with progressive metal’s claustrophobic crush for a sound that’s eminently habitable and aids their Danish storytelling. Trøst takes its time, its obvious aesthetics slowly unfurling to reveal greater depths and complexity with multiple listens; that may well be the very antithesis of being brat, and it probably precludes Danefae from ever getting a Grammy nomination but, honestly, who the hell cares?  

Recommended tracks: Fuglekongen, Vandsbakt, P.S. Far er død
You may also like: Madder Mortem, Meer
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Independent

Danefae is:
– Anne Olesen (vocals and piano)
– Anders Mogensen (guitar)
– Carl Emil Tofte Jensen (bass)
– Jonas Agerskov (drums)

The post Review: Danefae – Trøst appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Amorphis, In Mourning, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium
Country: Denmark
Release date: 25 October 2024

I claimed Iotunn’s second album to review because I pretend to be a sophisticate with nuanced taste, but I have to admit that I’m a bit more sophomoric than that when it comes to progressive death metal. I like when singer man is melodramatic and double bass goes blast blast blast and solos go weedly. Full disclosure: I’m a bit of a Iotunn fanboy, and my rhapsodic review will reflect that. Iotunn is tailor made for my taste, and their cosmic blend of Opeth, Amorphis, and Insomnium (Winter’s Gate in particular) is breathtaking every time I spin Kinship. 2021’s Access All Worlds was one of the most impressive progressive metal debuts in recent memory, and it’s safe to say Kinship exceeds my hype for a follow up. 

Anybody with a finger on the underground scene’s pulse knows the Faroese vocal juggernaut Jón Aldará (Barren Earth, Hamferð). His belts are bombastic and over-the-top dramatic, and his heavenly softer singing (on full display at the start of opening epic “Kinship Elegiac” or “I Feel the Night”) could lull a restless baby to sleep. Despite the standard progressive metal-length tracks and extended instrumental solo sections, Kinship always returns to an Aldará chorus, striking spoken word section (“Twilight”), or Akerfeldtian growl. He’s a golden talent, and Iotunn flaunt him. Even with a wicked instrumental contingent, the standout moments are nearly all choruses, an obvious rarity in death-tinged metal, but the hook of “Earth to Sky” hasn’t left my brain in a week.

I don’t mean to diminish the remarkable talents of the rest of the band, particularly brother guitar duo Jesper and Jens Nicolai Gräs. Their leads are as blazingly triumphant as Aldará’s, and their atmosphere building is in the upper echelon of metal bands. At 4:00 into lead single “Mistland,” for example, the two segue the chorus into an epic lead melody before blazing up a scale with heavy metal swagger—the solo in “The Coming End” is another stellar one. As for atmosphere building, the two often trading off with one brother playing spacious open chords, the other skating his way through tremolos or other little ornamentations. “Kinship Elegiac” has a Floydian edge near the end, and the transition to the slick prog rock influence is frisson-inducing. Similarly, closer “The Anguished Ethereal” takes a bit longer to get started than it needs to, but once it does its blackened edge makes it a fascinating closer and the most sinister work the band has done to date. 

As I mentioned, Iotunn utilizes a longform songwriting style that just screams “Opethian prog!” yet they don’t forget lovely choruses or motifs, never drift aimlessly through their cosmic creations. Whereas my biggest criticism for Access All Worlds was that some songs didn’t earn their extended lengths, every song but “The Anguished Ethereal” and the pretty-but-with-little-substance ballad “Iridescent Way” DEMANDS its length on Kinship—the album earns its hour plus runtime. However, as on Access All Worlds, Kinship can come across as formulaic. Every song but “Iridescent Way” is a consistent mix of the blast beat-laden almost-power-metal choruses, the chiller Insomnium-esque death metal sections, and the rad solos. I never grow tired of them personally since every single time I have an eargasm and leave my body, but the repetition bears a mention. The easiest fix I can think of is to avoid the slower-paced 4/4 march in every track; Bjørn Wind Andersen is a talented drummer, whose fills and blast beats are impeccable, so surely he can play around in more interesting rhythms. Variation in time signatures may make Iotunn’s third album flawless.  

It was exceedingly difficult to write this review because every sentence I wanted to write some onomatopoeia for a moaning sound. While I can step back and be a little critical, I truly adore everything about Kinship. In a year where few albums have truly wowed me, Iotunn saved the day, providing me with an absolutely awesome soundtrack for the final two months of 2024. Kinship is prog death at its finest, simply sublime.

Recommended tracks: Kinship Elegiac, Mistland, Twilight, Earth to Sky
You may also like: Barren Earth, Hamferð, Sunless Dawn, In Vain, Descend, Wilderun
Final verdict: 9/10

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

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

Iotunn is:
– Jón Aldará (vocals)
– Jesper Gräs (guitars)
– Jens Nicolai Gräs (guitars)
– Bjørn Wind Andersen (drums)
– Eskil Rask (bass)

The post Review: Iotunn – Kinship appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Black Metal, Symphonic Metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, Ihsahn (especially his new album), Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septicflesh, Limbonic Art
Country: Denmark
Release date: 24 May 2024

I’m a prog and prog death guy at heart. Black metal never really made an impression on me—most of what I’d heard was the raw, lo-fi stuff and I wasn’t a fan—but years ago I ended up cruising the progressive metal underground looking for hidden gems and came across what was, weirdly enough, the first black metal band I actually really liked. Lamentari’s enormous production value, their reverence for orchestra and choir, and their thunderous grandiosity were an instant hit with me, and I was ahead of the curve enough to be the one to introduce my symphonic black metal obsessed colleague, Andy, to them, too. 

After two astonishingly tight EPs and one epic standalone single, expectations were high for a debut album, and when it was finally announced, myself, Andy and Zach all lost our collective shit. If you liked the new Ihsahn self-titled earlier this year, which saw Emperor’s legendary frontman break out the orchestra, you’ll love Lamentari. They’ve been doing the symphonic black metal shtick since 2019 and have consistently recorded with real orchestras and choirs to take their sound to new levels of extravagance. 

Straddling traditional black metal standards like tremolo-picked riffs and blast beats, with the greater complexity of progressive death metal riffing and singer Daniel Lønberg’s vituperative, gnashing harshes, Lamentari’s style has an operatic intensity. Much of that is down to the symphonic accompaniment, orchestrated by keyboardist Max Uldahl; citing legendary composers Howard Shore and John Williams as their main orchestral influences, that sense of soundtrack bombast is a huge part of Lamentari’s ridiculous intensity: thunderous brass swells, choir straight out of a demon summoning scene in a splatterfest horror flick, and urgent strings consistently elevate the compositions. If Aquilus are black metal’s Debussy tenderly tinkling the ivories, then Lamentari are Holst evoking the bellicosity of Mars, Wagner portending the valkyries, Lydia Tár rugby tackling her replacement; theatrical, frenzied, and given over to wild excess. 

There are quieter moments, such as Jamie de la Sencerie’s understatedly glorious fretless bass solo over pensive choir on “Tragoedia In Domo Dei”, but a lot of the time Lamentari are so in your face it’s ridiculous. On “Appugno”, for example, strings swoop and brass pulsates as the tempo rapidly accelerates into an insane solo, which breaks off quickly to a lone tapping lick underneath which the orchestra and choir swell repeatedly heralding the solo’s return. Indeed, the frankly jaw-dropping lead guitar work of Emil Holst Partsch is a huge part of Lamentari’s ostenatiousness, sweeping and shredding his way through the whole album, whammying his way up to absurdly high notes that sound like they’re coming from a goddamn theremin, and yet always imbuing proceedings with a wonderful sense of melody, leading to moments as sublime as the mid-section of “Intra Muros Mentis” where intense sweeps and rhapsodic orchestral swells make for one of the most gleefully over-the-top moments on an album already rich in musical magniloquence. Michael Møller provides rhythm to Partsch’s lead, and works in perfect concert with drummer Thomas Mascagni, both weaving intense playing between a symphonic style with frequent caesuras and tonal transforms.

However, there are some mild fumbles to contend with. Now, don’t get me wrong, everything on this album rips, and there’s never a sour note. However, “Dolorum Memoria” attempts a more restrained mode, opening with gorgeous flamenco and whispered harshes that slowly intensify as the song builds post-metal style to a crescendous release. A meditation on grief, it’s the most ambitious stylistic swing on the album, but the whispered harshes don’t quite work—it’s only when the song finally ascends to its grandiose climax that the song comes together. However, I appreciate the ambition and I’d love to see more of that—what would Lamentari sound like with a guest opera singer ala Fleshgod Apocalypse? Harpsichords? Gregorian chants? Obscure instruments and world music influences? A full forty minute symphony? This combination of genres has limitless potential, and if any band could find the best ways to utilise them, it’s these guys.

After penultimate orchestral interlude “Spiritus Diurnus” you’re expecting a real blindside, but closer “Arcanum Ignis Animae”, though as great as any of its peers, feels like it could have comfortably sat anywhere on the album. At a fleeting thirty-eight minutes, Ex Umbra in Lucem is a rather short record. An epic finale like “Confutatis” and “Iconostasis” from their previous EPs—or even just rehoming the standalone single “Nihilitatis” as a closer, something I suggested to my fellow Subway reviewers who coined it Ex Umbra in Lucem (Chris’s Version); send my royalties in cash, please—would’ve rounded the album up to a solid fifty minutes in runtime and ended proceedings with an even bigger bang, and I can’t help but feel the album would be stronger for having been capped off in such an extravagant way. That said, these are the quibbles of a fan who’s been waiting four years for this debut full-length and allowed his imagination to get the better of him. Lamentari execute some incredible feats here, and if my expectations were set a little too high, it’s only because I know what fantastic musicians these guys are. 

Some of black metal’s leading luminaries have released fantastic material so far in 2024, but Lamentari may well have bested all of them. Uncompromising, dramatic, and virtuosic, Ex Umbra in Lucem is nearly everything I wanted from a Lamentari full length, a defiant statement from one of black metal’s most exciting new voices.

Recommended tracks: Tragoedia In Domo Dei, Intra Muros Mentis, Appugno
You may also like: Aquilus, Thy Shining Curse, Xanthochroid
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: Independent

Lamentari is:
– Daniel Lønberg (vocals)
– Emil Holst Partsch (guitars)
– Michael Møller (guitars)
– Jamie de la Sencerie (bass)
– Max Uldahl (keys and orchestrations)
– Thomas Mascagni (drums)

The post Review: Lamentari – Ex Umbra in Lucem appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Genres: power metal, progressive metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Nevermore, later Symphony X, Blind Guardian
Country: Denmark
Release date: 26 January 2024

I was a big fan of Manticora’s 2020 album To Live to Kill to Live. My fellow reviewer Matt at the time put the record at the top of his album of the year list, and it was near the top of my list, too. In a genre primarily focused on melody and technicality, Manticora set themselves apart with sheer aggression and intensity through their incorporation of thrash—and later also death metal—influence. On To Live, everything they’ve been working on since their inception in 1996 came together, resulting in an utterly relentless album that was by all accounts far too much but kept you hooked like snorting an extra line of cocaine after nearly crashing your car out of fatigue from the last batch. Perhaps not the safest high but definitely a memorable one. 

Matching—let alone topping—a later career masterpiece is difficult for any band, and so instead the band decided to take a step back from the ambitiousness of To Live with Mycelium, cutting the runtime by about a quarter and casting aside the long songs, making this their shortest album since The Black Circus 2 in 2007. Length was never really an issue with me for Manticora, though. Their core sound is rather uniform, so the real question has always been whether they can give a steady enough cocaine supply to make you forget about the fatigue.

Sure enough, this is another Manticora record. Not even the opening interlude is safe from heavy, epic riffs and loudness, unleashing impending doom after less than thirty seconds that increasingly intensifies until they transition into the real opener “Necropolitans,” and the band pulls out all the stops to pummel the senses with their now familiar brand of death metal inspired riffs and frenetic drumming (which apparently the band programmed themselves entirely – props to them for making it sound so natural). Lars Larsen’s ever dramatic vocals wail on top for even more sensory overload with just enough control and sense of melody to make it work. “Demonday” is more of the same, assaulting you with more furious guitarwork, high intensity drumming, and commanding vocals. Clearly, the band’s cocaine dealership is still in business.

Surprisingly though, Manticora show some actual restraint on Mycelium. “Angel of the Spring” would almost qualify for a power ballad, and tracks like “Golem Sapiens” and “Mycelium” take a few mellower progressive detours as well, the spoken word in the former being tastefully incorporated in its tension-packed midsection, and the latter actually going for melodic riffs instead of MAXIMUM BRRR ALWAYS—a welcome change of pace. Also helping are the mellow intros to a sizable number of tracks such as the electronic opening of “Beast of the Fall” or the string and piano that form the interlude “Equinox” that continue well into “Mementopolis” before exploding. Worry not – there’s still plenty to snort here – but at least we’re not overdosing ourselves into the hospital.

However, I do have some measure of criticism against Mycelium. Even more so than usual I find the drums on the loud side, and too much treble on the lower end causes the guitars to sound muffled turning the bass into a footnote. Given how busy Manticora’s sound is, the listener needs as much breathing room in the mix as possible, so these mixing issues push something already overwhelming into something bordering on unpleasant at times, especially notable when a softer track like “Angel of the Spring” fails to give adequate room to breathe. What I also found lacking is the autopilot writing that plagues the final two tracks. “Mementopolis” at least has interesting blackened bits and a thrilling bridge but is only let down by its chorus, while the closer “Día de Los Muertos” just doesn’t offer anything the band hasn’t already done better elsewhere in their career and the way it unceremoniously fizzles out makes for a disappointing end to the album.

All around though, Mycelium is a solid release. As veterans of the genre, Manticora have found a sound that works for them and they’re sticking to it. The album doesn’t live up to their 2020 masterpiece To Live to Kill to Live, but it’s still highly entertaining either way and a few moments of well-timed restraint make it sound relatively fresh. If you’re feeling bogged down by life lately and need some energy, consider readying your mirror and prepare to snort, or, alternatively, put on Mycelium and let its energy run you through a brick wall or two.

Recommended tracks: Demonday, Angel of the Spring, Golem Sapiens
You may also like: Triumpher, DGM, Silver Talon, Hunted
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Mighty Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Manticora is:
– Lars F. Larsen (vocals)
– Kristian H. Larsen (guitars)
– Stefan Johansson (guitars)
– Kasper Gram (bass)
–

The post Review: Manticora – Mycelium appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Genres: progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Haken (ketchup/mustard era), Soen, post-hiatus Fates Warning
Country: Denmark
Release date: 19 January 2024

One of the biggest strengths I believe this blog has is that no matter who you are, we will give an honest critical assessment of your work. I’ve given some of my most critical reviews to albums from friends because if I know you, I put in extra effort to give you the best review that I can, for better or worse. Advocacy is a band whose debut EP I reviewed a few years ago and gave a middling score to, so I was quite surprised to see them actively reach out to us with a promo for their debut full length, being extremely attentive and polite in the process; thus, it pains me to say that I must hit them with the big UNFORTUNATELY… I’m not sure if they’ve markedly improved. It has potential though! 

Advocacy play a modern brand of progressive metal with chonky, downtuned riffs, a smooth drumming style, and somber but melodic vocals akin to Soen or Katatonia, landing them to an overall sound similar to Haken circa Vector and Virus era but without the quirkiness. Though really, I could name almost any band because Advocacy are quite amorphous with their influences, ranging from djent to Iron Maiden-esque harmonies to Soen-esque groovy alt-prog to Spiral Architect-esque old school tech riffs to post-rock or even blackgaze styled swelling tremolos. This plethora of influences results in a staggering amount of good riffs throughout The Path of Decoherence and is, in my opinion, the band’s greatest strength on this album.

However, problems arrive quickly as loud drums and muffled guitars smother much of Advocacy’s soundscapes to the point that quieter parts are still too loud (“Star Formation,” 2:28) or that I hardly noticed a guitar solo until it transitioned into a different one (“Prayer for the Reckless,” 4:50-5:11), and apparently the band has three guitarists but I can only ever discern two underneath the muffled production. I’ll give them credit for how professional their mix sounds otherwise and that none of these problems are poor enough to give me a headache, but it’s too imbalanced for me to give it a pass.

Another problem with The Path of Decoherence is Advocacy’s tendency to overcomplicate, resulting in unpleasantly crowded arrangements and convoluted transitions. Sometimes the drummer will go nuts in a quiet part (“Prayer for the Reckless,” 0:35), other times they will unnecessarily chop up the vocal melodies to sound prog (“Leap of Faith,” 3:10), put in a section too many (again, “Leap of Faith,” 4:10, “Prayer for the Reckless,” 4:00, 5:56), or make the riffs proggier than the vocals (most of “Cut Loose”). And speaking of the vocals, they are easily the weakest link here. Søren Kjeldsen’s timbre is pleasant and strongly akin to Joel Ekelöf from Soen, but his melodies sound a little lifeless to me more often than not. With the lyrics in front of me, I can tell what he’s going for usually but he plays it safe too much, and with how overbearing the guitars and drums are, what passion he does have hardly comes through. 

On the bright side, though, Advocacy show promise underneath the rubble. In “Deranged” they incorporate post-rock elements which force them to keep things relatively simple, resulting in a stunning climax despite a few wonky transitions. “Star Formation” recalls modern Fates Warning with its melodic shred over whirling tech riffs; “Cut Loose” has some wonderful emotional guitarwork near the climax; and like I mentioned earlier, their riff game in general shines in both quality and diversity, gracing each song with at least one hard hitting riff. 

So, yeah… The Path of Decoherence is rough, but it’s by no means beyond salvageable. Advocacy have a lot of the right ideas and their playing is up to the high genre standards of progressive metal. Now they just need to find a way to piece those ideas together in a way that brings out the best of them, and iron out the aforementioned production issues. There is a great band in there somewhere, and I’ll be eager to see if one day they can fulfill their potential.

Recommended tracks: Prayer for the Reckless, Deranged
You may also like: Avandra, Nospūn, Pyramid Theorem
Final verdict: 5/10

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

Label: Target Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Advocacy is:
– Søren Kjeldsen (vocals, guitars)
– Søren Wind (guitars)
– Peter Locher (guitars)
– Peter Juelsgaard (bass, backing vocals)
– Andreas Bek Nygaard Hansen (drums)

The post Review: Advocacy – The Path of Decoherence appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde doom metal, experimental rock, drone, dark ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Bohren & der Club of Gore, Lingua Ignota, Spencer Zahn, Talk Talk, Bell Witch
Review by: Andy
Country: Denmark
Release date: 24 November 2023

I would name my child after Italy’s I, Voidhanger records if I could: their motto—“obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground”—says it all. Their roster of eclectic, artistic bands has no parallel, and essentially every album is worth listening to because you don’t know if you’ll get freaky jazz fusion tech death (Sarmat), drone/jazz/world music triple albums (Neptunian Maximalism), or any other style of freaky, unusual (typically metallic) music. I knew I needed to claim Sol as soon as I saw the list of instruments used on the album, including (and certainly not limited to) marxolin, church organ, tuba, bass clarinet, hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre… indeed, they really looted an entire university music department. 

Promethean Sessions invokes a particularly unusual compositional style, closer to Talk Talk’s Spiritof Eden than any metal project. Recorded over many years’ worth of sessions, Emil Brahe (the mastermind of Sol) painfully stitched together a diverse tapestry of sounds into an intricately-detailed, thought-out composition still oozing with an improvisational vitality. Getting lost in the textured ambience of Promethean Sessions is ineluctable, especially with such spacious, dynamic production. Sol has a rich sound, befitting of the contemplative ambience found on tracks like “A Choir of Teeth,” which feels deeply spiritual in a manner similar to Lingua Ignota—minus her death industrial harshness. Going along with the ambience, Promethean Sessions’s flow is distinctly divorced from typical metal composition, even I, Voidhanger’s weirdest offerings. Indeed, Sol sound beautifully ecological here, letting the spirit meander like the branching of a river delta or of a root system, fractal intricacies breaking off from the main composition beautifully.

Despite the evocative, harrowing atmosphere Sol’s music seeps, the album feels pitifully one-dimensional. For example, the magnificent cast of instruments really doesn’t add much except for occasional texture: my disappointment that the bowed lyre and tuba weren’t prominent features of a metal track is immeasurable. Speaking of, the tracks that verge on metal at all (“I bred a Sun from the Golden Mouth,” “Paranoia Sunrise”) are surprisingly non-exploratory, borrowing the fuzzy distortion of stoner-doom rather than a more dynamic style. At first, these straightforward metal sections are a fitting contrast to the slow atmospheres, but on closer examination, I found that the ambient sections showed off Sol at their strongest, providing a richly textured soundscape suited both for close listening or a peaceful background for reading. 

Moreover, the vocals across the album are unspectacular, even when regarded as just another instrumental texture. Except for the slightly ecstatic vocals on “A Choir of Teeth,” the droning monotony of most of the vocal lines is, to be quite frank, bland as hell. None of the vocalists have a spectacular enough timbre to work well as a drone above the concord of sounds and instruments. I can feel a hint of the energy that the vocalists attempt to contribute, but instead they make a disappointingly flat, slow album even more one-note until parts like the climactic choir at the end of “Where the Trees Meet the Storm.” Had Promethean Sessions had more overwhelming moments like the final minute of that track, this review would’ve gone a lot differently.

While I criticized Promethean Sessions a lot, it still perfectly fits every aspect of the “obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground” except for possibly the metal part. I can’t fault the uncompromising vision or immaculate attention to detail of Sol, and I still think this is a worthwhile album to let wash over you; however, the execution was lagging a little bit behind the vision here.

Recommended tracks: A Choir of Teeth, Paranoia Sunrise
You may also like: Neptunian Maximalism, Forlesen, Intaglio, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Galya Bisengalieva, Aerial Ruin
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

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

Band in question is:
Emil Brahe: Synthesizer, organ, accordion, electric mandolin, gong, vocal
Andrew Dorman: Vocal, synthesizer, guitar, marxolin
Rikke Alminde: Vocal, church organ, vibraphone
Tor Brandt: Vocal, guitar, piano
Stine Kloster: Vocal, bowed banjo, guitar
Christian Qvortrup: Drums, vocal
Andreas Hansn: Guitar
Peter Borre: Bass
Lotte Maxild: Bass clarinet, clarinet, organ
Olga Goija: Viola
Jens Balder: Trombone, tuba
Christian Sinding Sondergaard: Dulcimer, violin, guitar
Mikkel Reher-Langberg: Clarinet
Jens Peter Moller: Double bass
Aske Krammer: Double bass, percussion
Anna Emilie Wittus Johnsen: Hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre
Mikko Mansikkala Jensen: Feedback guitar

The post Review: Sol – Promethean Sessions appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Power/Prog (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Vanden Plas, Pagan’s Mind, Leprous
Review by: Matt
Country: Denmark
Release date: 02 June, 2023

Time has certainly flown since we last heard from Anubis Gate, right at the start of the pandemic. However, the passage of eons is of little concern to the gods, and Anubis Gate have kept on doing their thing as always. Hearing new Anubis Gate is a little like going back in time to the mid 2000s, when analog and digital production lived in harmony and a Mattias Norén artwork meant you were getting a great album. Most prog bands of the era either lost their edge or migrated to the lands of chug, but Anubis Gate stubbornly remain themselves, uncaring or oblivious to the world of mortals.

Not everything is the same, of course; We’re not quite back to pre-Detached levels of power metal, but Interference shows more willingness to step on the gas than 2017’s Covered in Black did, which is much appreciated. At the same time, there are more 80s new wave influences and overtly Floydian moments of ambience and bluesy guitar playing than ever before. Last album’s persistent aura of melancholy is still lingering around, but the clouds have parted and allowed some sense of fun to return. The contrast between pummeling riffs and calm sections makes for great drama without coming across as jarring, and if things ever threaten to drag, it is usually resolved by a fantastic chorus just in the nick of time. Musical descriptors are all somewhat irrelevant anyway, as Anubis Gate have a way of giving you the album you need, even if it’s not the album you want. Just know that, although the songs rarely go in the direction you would expect, you are in good hands.

Take one of my favorites, “Ignorance is Bliss”: It’s two minutes before we get a proper verse, and they drop everything multiple times for ambient cooldowns rather than immediately going to the next section, but the more thoughtful pace results in a sort of cinematic tension. There’s a similar push-and-pull on “The Intergalactic Dream of Stardom” between laid-back, swaggering classic rock sections and the ultra-precise cosmic sound we’re more used to from this band. If you really look at it, there’s a lot of what you might call “downtime” on this album, and it’s impressive that you don’t spend it just waiting for the payoff. The songs are structured in quite a mature way, where the meandering is well-disguised and still purposeful. Of course, if you want more immediate single-oriented songs, that base is well-covered with “Emergence” and “The Phoenix” being a couple of the catchiest songs they’ve done.

On the vocal front, Henrik Fevre has nothing left to prove at this point in his tenure, having comfortably made the role his own forever ago. I’d just like to say that I appreciate the more natural production on his voice of late. The “ethereal god from space” sound was part of this band’s appeal in the past, but the heavily edited walls of quad tracking and chorus irked me at times. The vocals are still unmistakably modern and dolled up, but for the first time I really have the sense of a good singer delivering his lines in realtime. Fevre isn’t stylistically flashy, just delivering excellent melodies with great tone, but he has some surprising high notes lurking in the toolbox when you least expect them. I daresay the vocals are the best part of the album, bringing the best set of choruses the band has yet penned.

Suffice to say, Anubis Gate have extended their winning streak yet again. Whether you’re an old fan of Andromeda Unchained or a current diehard follower, Interference is not to be missed. Now excuse me, I’ve got to wipe this bird shit off my copy…

Recommended tracks: Ignorance is Bliss, The Intergalactic Dream of Stardom, Interference
You may also like: Lord of Mushrooms, Darkwater, Tanagra
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Spotify | Official Website | Facebook

Label: No Dust Records – Facebook | Official Website

Anubis Gate is:
– Henkrik Fevre (vocals, bass)
– Kim Oleson (guitars)
– Michael Bodin (guitars)
– Morten Gade Sørensen (drums)

The post Review: Anubis Gate – Interference appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Metal, Power Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: DGM, Redemption, Symphony X
Review by: Francesco
Country: Denmark
Release date: 27 January, 2023

Vengeance Fulfilled is only the sophomore effort of Danish act Third Eye, but the production and songwriting ability of this quintet would have you believe they have more than just a single previous full-length under their belt, even if said last release was over ten years ago. There is a lot of quality material on this hour-long effort, and some moments of really great musicianship, but there are also a few pitfalls that the songwriting suffers slightly for.

Although overall the musicianship itself leaves nothing wanting, some of the guitar riffs on Vengeance can often best be described as syncopated and rhythmically grooving; “chugging”, if you will – especially over the vocal passages. This has become a really trite staple in metal recently and strikes me as a bit lazy. While the lead work sometimes presents cool melodic ideas, in the verses at least, the vocals take precedence over the riffing–although newcomer Tiago Masseti well demonstrates his top-notch power metal chops. And while the drumming on the album is tight and technical, rounding out the rhythm section is a bass that is most often relegated to loosely following the guitar, unfortunately. I think progressive metal generally allows bass players to really shine, and on this release, with few exceptions, I don’t feel that was the case at all. Lastly, the keyboard use is a little sparse but often provides ambient background elements and is even used a few times as a solo instrument–notably on “Forest of Lies”.

The tracks themselves are each quite well supported by huge, bombastic, and extremely catchy choruses. I think “Vengeance Fulfilled” is an absolutely standout title track with enough feel changes to make you think you’ve accidentally hit the skip button, and marks one of the few appearances of harsh vocals in its refrain. The track “The Silence of Indifference” well showcases the singer’s super versatile range even though he has a tendency to oversing monosyllabic phrasings, and this is especially notable in the album’s ballads “Even the Gods Cry” and “Fire and Lightning”. These are the only points where Vengeance Fulfilled stumbles. The songs break the flow of the album completely. I wish, I wish metal bands with clean singing would stop writing emotional ballads. The late 80s/early 90s have given us the best progressive metal power ballads that ever were or will be. There’s hardly a need for more and I don’t know that many modern progressive metal bands will ever come close to the writing of Dream Theater‘s “Another Day” or Savatage‘s “Edge of Thorns”, but I welcome wrong opinions.

I wouldn’t say Third Eye break new ground with their latest release, but despite this, I’m happy enough to add them to my regular rotation. Vengeance Fulfilled is a great example of a modern progressive metal album that doesn’t devolve into heavily-quantized djent monotony with post-hardcore vocals or break into rambling, incongruous start-stop jazz sections.  It’s metal through and through–complex, melodic, and compelling.

Recommended tracks: Vengeance Fulfilled, Forest of Lies, The Silence of Indifference
You may also like: Anubis Gate, Inner Vitriol, Nonhuman Era
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: No Dust Records – Website

Third Eye is:
– Tiago Masseti (vocals)
– Michael Bodin (guitars, keyboards)
– Martin Damgaard (drums)
– Andreas Schumann (bass)
– Jonas Hansen (guitars)

The post Review: Third Eye – Vengeance Fulfilled appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tesseract, Tool, Leprous, Agent Fresco
Review by: Mark
Country: Denmark
Release date: September 2, 2022

Progressive metal is a uniquely demanding balancing act. As a genre sometimes known for focus on technicality, it’s easy to understand how one might fail to engage with it on an emotional level. However, it truly shines when its usual characteristics are used to bolster its narrative, and knowing how to do this effectively is what ultimately separates the pros from the amateurs. To convey dissonant and conflicting emotions, to hypnotize with jagged rhythms, or to sell the feeling of a long journey coming to an end. There’s an incredible power hidden beneath the genre’s surface and when a band comes along showing that they might understand this, it is all hands on deck.

Feather Mountain initially caught my attention as one such band with their second full-length outing To Exit A Maelstrom. The pre-release singles showed attention paid to this harmony of technicality and emotion and, although something did feel familiar, I was keen to get tucked into the rest. Album opener “August Mantra” does a decent job of outlining what’s on the table: contemporary progressive metal in the style of Tesseract, Leprous, and Tool. All hallmarks are present here including dynamic songwriting with intensely shifting energy levels, angular riffing, mixed vocals, genre hopping, and extensive emotive layering poured across most of the compositions. Any fans of those aforementioned bands are going to find themselves pretty comfortable here, but Feather Mountain have not given themselves a modest task by huddling in with the elite of the genre. Not only does this style of music require accomplished musicians just to execute, but to stand out amongst them is even more difficult.

The band do not go to massive lengths to conceal these influences. Single “Pariah” sounds like a track off of Polaris split with an Ihsahn tune, and the entire album either side of that is peppered with the heavy, syncopated riffs of Tool, the jagged grooves of Agent Fresco, and the staccato clean guitar of Malina-era Leprous. As these ingredients are firmly established in the genre, although enjoyable, I ultimately found a little bit of work in separating Feather Mountain from their inspirations.

Make no mistake, what’s on hand here is performed exceptionally well. When vocalist Mikkel Aaen Lohmann belts his high notes it can cut right through you and genuinely leave you feeling moved, the chorus of “Beneath Your Pale Face” being one of the standout examples. The guitar work of Jens Baalkilde Andersen has plenty of subtle flair that never comes across overly conspicuous, and the rhythm section from brothers Andreas and Christian Dahl-Blumenberg is clearly proficient as it handles the complex grooves and genre-hopping with ease.

Regardless of apparent derivativeness, what actually lets To Exit A Maelstrom down ever so slightly is a mix of its composition and production. Large portions of the music can feel oddly cacophonous, where it seems the band simply stacked a few too many ideas on top of each other. “Bliss” is a prime example here, where the overall delivery of the song feels strangely caffeinated and in its later heavy sections the syncopated grooves combine with just a few too many textures to be parsed enjoyably. The more sparse and open songs such as “Sincere” and “Maelstrom” are the more notable tracks on the album as the emotional weight of the band’s songwriting is completely unobstructed and this is a welcome respite from what comes in between.

Some of this busyness is clearly intentional and is revealed as such when we come to examine the themes of this album. For brothers Andreas and Christian, To Exit A Maelstrom was a space to parse the unenviable emotions of losing their father to Alzheimer’s disease and this discomforting rawness is certainly felt at times. I pause at these more discordant moments on the record as they reflect the severely confounding and nebulous nature of such a horrendous illness and it is obvious to me that this is how the band wanted us to feel. Inherent comparisons to the illustrious The Oubliette from The Reticent soon follow and this leads me to conclude that although I strongly felt the disorientation conveyed by the themes and composition of To Exit A Maelstrom, what I regrettably did not feel was the fear and the anxiety that is truly warranted by the gravity of such themes.

Feather Mountain did not have an easy task with this album; to stand out amongst the progressive metal royalty that they have stylistically placed themselves next to, and to do so while also conveying such intensely raw themes is a serious challenge. Their reach and ambition forced me to take this album far more seriously than I do most others, but that also led me to judge them by a much higher standard and it’s one I believe they have mostly met. When it comes to the mechanics of their sound, I hope they make a stronger effort in their next outing to carve their own space in the genre because, if they do, I believe they could be something special.

Recommended tracks: Pariah, Sincere, Maelstrom
You may also like: Altesia, Mental Fracture
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Feather Mountain is:
– Mikkel Aaen Lohman (vocals, keys)
– Jens Baalkilde Andersen (guitars)
– Andreas Dahl-Blumendahl (bass)
– Christian Dahl-Blumendahl (drums)

The post Review: Feather Mountain – To Exit A Maelstrom appeared first on The Progressive Subway.