Style: Avant-garde, experimental, progressive metal, world music (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Igorrr, Wardruna, Eolya, Forndom
Country: Iceland
Release date: 14 July 2025

When you’re in the reviewing game long enough, it feels like you’ve seen it all. We’re within days of my third anniversary writing for The Progressive Subway, and 2025 feels like a wasteland. The blog is depressed by the lack of good new releases, the usual summer lull is hitting harder than ever, and I’m sifting through everything that’s available to review without enthusiasm. Insipid trad prog? No thanks. Uninspired prog rock? Not on your life. Middling djent debut? God, please smite me down. Sometimes you just feel that new releases no longer inspire you the way they did when you were a wide-eyed young reviewer with enthusiasm and hopes and dreams. If I employed a compass to point me to the interesting new releases, where would it take me?

Perhaps to Spaniard at large in the land of the ice and snow, Mario Infantes, formerly of baroque metal group Cult of Lilith, who has returned with a second solo effort, Bitácora (from the Spanish for binnacle: the casing for a ship’s compass). Exploring a range of moods and genres, Infantes melds a wealth of folk traditions with metal and symphonic influences, exploiting an ensemble of instruments from various countries in the process. The resulting concoction bears resemblances to his alma mater group, as well as the work of Igorrr, but utilises a rather different sonic palette. Singing in both Spanish and English (and quite possibly in other languages), Infantes leads the project as a multi-voiced, multilingual, multi-instrumentalist. He has a natural, operatic tendency, from Einar Solbergian high falsetto to resounding tenor, utilising Igorrr-esque harshes, layered choral harmonies, throat-singing (or close to it), and some more performative voice acting—moments of laughing, spoken word, even something akin to rap.

The instrumental bed, meanwhile, is a deft blend of metal instrumentation and folk instruments from around the world. Handpan features heavily, forming a raindrop dressing for the contemplation of ballad “Streams” and the Balkan lament “Notre Prison”, while a dissonant chiming gamelan underpins “Xhadhamtje”. At various other junctures, we hear from duduk (an Armenian double-reeded woodwind), bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), oud (Middle Eastern lute), zurna (double-reeded woodwind)¹, and doubtless more that my untrained ear failed to pick out. When the riffs come, they often have a rather loose structure, allowing Infantes to use them as an emphatic texture rather than as a restrictive rhythm that hampers the madness of his sonic science, perhaps best heard on “Cianuro”, where the riffs constantly morph, rarely repeating a measure. The resulting concoction is international yet seamless; while a particular section might sound Indonesian or Spanish or Eastern European, the totality seems borderless, the creation of a citizen of nothing smaller than the world itself. 

“Xhadhamtje” is probably the most avant-garde swing on the album with Infantes’ throaty keening and a palimpsest of sinister whispers and nightmare sounds ala Ecophony Rinne, giving way to an enormous operatic crescendo with help from shrieking guest vocalist, Stirga, and an eruption into metal riffs, all underpinned by a nightmarish windchime motif. “Muharib Alqifaar” opens with zurna, Phrygian wails and mysterious oud picking, before exploding into heavier and heavier riffs, and while the coda of Spanish rap feels tacked on, it’s mostly a very successful journey through Bitácora’s various modes. Closing epic, “Cianuro”, operates similarly: a nine-minute distillation of Infantes’ various idiosyncrasies, from balladic crooning sections to upsurges of manic metal. In these heavier moments, the guitar tone and prominence of the bass in the mix, as well as some of the operatic tendencies and manic harshes, have more than a whiff of Igorrr about them, but Infantes owns his sound for himself.

Indeed, it’s in his restraint that this is most apparent: “Sírenu” largely consists of Infantes and an oud with strings before its orchestral crescendo and a gorgeous guest performance from Sunna Friðjónsdóttir. “Away” relies heavily on handpan, much like “Streams” before it, growing inexorably toward a cathartically rhythmic, ritualistic chant. “Streams” is probably the most accessible track on the album, the swelling strings in its chorus proving genuinely stirring. Infantes excels at giving each track a distinct personality of its own, and intersperses the more experimental and heavy sojourns with calming palate cleansers; the softer moments are, perhaps, the album highlight, their meditativeness and sublimity proving a soothing palliative. 

As Bitácora closes with its conclusive coda of lo-fi flamenco and scatting, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve just returned from some astrally projected existential journey and come to at the corner table of a Spanish bar; after such a unique sonic adventure, it feels necessary to sit contemplatively for a minute or two. Certainly, Infantes is a remarkable musician and composer. And while the avant-garde scene can be demanding, and not every swing here lands, far more hit the mark than in the average work of this genre. Far too often, experimental composers throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, leaving listeners with an all too disjointed affair. But Bitácora manages that rare thing: an evocative, flowing listen with peaks and valleys, genuine emotion, and moments like a sonic punch in the face. A much-needed reminder that there are always innovative artists plugging away at their craft, and it’s nice when the compass leads you straight to them. 

Recommended tracks: Streams, Sírenu, Cianuro
You may also like: Maud the Moth, Evan Carson, Elend, Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: Lost Future Records – Bandcamp | Official Website

Mario Infantes is:
– Mario Infantes (vocals)

With guests:
– Hrafnkell Örn Guðjónsson (Drums)
– Yara Polana (acoustic guitar)
– Gísli Gunnarsson (additional orchestration)
– Ásgeir Ásgeirsson (Oud)
– Sunna Friðjónsdóttir (additional vocals)
– Živa Ivadóttir (additional vocals)
– Simon Thorolfsson, (guitar on Obsidian I)
– Samúel Örn Böðvarsson (Bass)
– Daniel Þór Hannesson (guitars)
– Sebas Bautista (additional guitars)
– Tayebeh jourbonyan (additional vocals)
– Erik Qvick (additional percussion)

1. Infantes’ Instagram page has lots of great little videos where he demonstrates these instruments and talks a bit about them. ︎

The post Review: Mario Infantes – Bitácora appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: experimental, noise, dark ambient, industrial, avant-garde black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Merzbow, Ben Frost
Country: Finland
Release date: 13 June 2025

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Finnish experimental metal artist Oksennus sees a pile of rocks and grinds them to dust in his deconstruction of metal, like a postmodernist would, on his newest release(s): Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä and its sibling EP Naama Ummessa. Metal is broken down to its atoms—distortion, percussion, and vocals—and reassembled in a completely novel way. The shorter of the two EPs, Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä, works within the confines of two tracks, each precisely 13:00 long to construct its cathedral of broken riffs and vomitous¹ vocals. 

Taking up the first half of the release, “Loppu” plays around within a unique, uncompromising atmosphere. Microtonal guitars ramble onward until gurgling vocals à la the Demilich guy on ketamine dominate the foreground—although they often drop into the background as Oksennus use the mix as an ever-shifting playground for which texture dominates. In the background, various “whooshing” noises recall a variety of things: a muted train going “chugga chugga,” shoveling snow, falling down the stairs with an electric guitar. As ominous as the sounds are unusual, Oksennus shatters conceptions of genre by dragging his distinct style of black metal from rawness to beyond—a primally unrefined ambience.

Not until “Tuli” does Oksennus make his most revelatory strides within a strictly metal framework. Beginning with inescapable blast beats in the vein of Plague Organ, he quickly contorts the rhythms into free time atop a buzzsaw guitar. As the track progresses, drum parts collapse at the seams as complex arrangements of percussion are stitched together, seemingly recorded a couple of seconds at a time. Moreover, the demented ambient noise of the first track continues throughout “Tuli” but in increasingly distorted tones—bringing them more firmly into the world of metal along with the blast beats—transitioning between the sound of blowing a raspberry and the droning vibrations of the cicada. Like how the best black metal rebels against religion and/or mankind, Oksennus is a perversion of an inimical power structure, as well.

“There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” – Brené Brown

In Oksennus’ case, they rebel against the human eardrum. Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is nearly unlistenable without suffering the risk of a migraine, the EP transcending the comprehensive capabilities of the human mind in 2025 CE. The experimental elements mentioned are hardly intentional. The guitars are microtonal because Oksennus doesn’t know how to tune his instrument; the mixing shifts in and out of focus from engineering ineptitude; and the time is free because he can’t even program a drum correctly. Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is proof that the postmodernists often become satire of themselves (look into Salvatore Garau, for instance). I don’t think that Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä was truly going for something revolutionary nor was his take a postmodernist interpretation of metal intentionally². The world of the experimental, progressive, and avant-garde will always create missteps, and Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä is chief among them, purely as a result of Oksennus’ radical incompetence in composition and performance.

Recommended tracks: Loppu
You may also like: Jute Gyte, Botanist, Simulacra, Plague Orphan
Final verdict: 2/10

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

Label: Sacrifical Dance – Bandcamp

Oksennus is:
– K. Olavi K.virta

1. Oksennus means “vomit” in Finnish! ︎
2.  It’s a testament to how silly postmodernism can be that I bet you believed me for the first chunk of the review. ︎

The post Review: Oksennus – Auringolla Ei Ole Käsiä appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-classical, ambient folk, experimental, a cappella (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Caroline Shaw, Roomful of Teeth, Philip Glass
Country: Sweden
Release date: 25 April 2025

The term “solastalgia” describes the mental distress caused by the changing of one’s home environment and the inability to prevent that change. It can manifest as climatic change, loss of species, rampant urbanisation, or any number of other alterations, but what it speaks to is a uniquely modern sense of grief. The inability of governments to tackle climate change is multifactorial—greed, stupidity, and denial are all in the mix—but perhaps the most important reason is the sheer incomprehensibility of the task. The unhelpful moniker ‘global warming’ belied the complexity of the phenomenon; the average temperature rises, yes, but the effects are instability, chaos. We are living through a manmade extinction event; the 1.9 million species on Earth we have identified are estimated to comprise a mere 0.1% of the species actually alive—scientists believe anywhere between an average of 24 to 150 species go extinct per day. Such a monumental catastrophe is beyond the powers of any human to comprehend, and so our grief is elliptical, localised, it intrudes upon us in banal guises, knifelike thoughts piercing consciousness at unexpected junctures. 

I doubt that Rebekka Karijord would object to being characterised as suffering from solastalgia. The Swedish artist, composer, and producer has worked on film soundtracks as well as her own solo material, and my first exposure to her was with the original soundtrack she composed for the documentary Songs of Earth with the London Contemporary Orchestra. (a male ʻōʻō in Kaua’i singing to a mate that would never hear him never join the duet the last of his species and now extinct) For that project, Karijord experimented with orchestral mimicry, attempting to emulate natural sounds like running water and melting glaciers via instruments. To her latest work, The Bell Tower, she brings that same experimental ethos. (your father scrubbing at stubborn insect splatters on the fenders a Pollock-esque invertebrate morgue as he washes the car something you’ve never done as there are so few insects now) Named for the Rainier Maria Rilke poem ‘Let This Darkness Be A Bell Tower’, this mournful, anthropocene work centres on the human voice. Karijord used specialist recording equipment to record the voices of twenty-five singers, and then built a sampling instrument to manipulate these voices and her own, and turn them, as such, into her instruments. (terrestrial species are migrating an average of 17 km per decade marine species around 70 km towards the poles in order to escape rising ocean temperatures) Karijord herself takes lead vocal duties for some tracks, and is joined by choral group Roomful of Teeth, but every other sound and “instrument” on this album is made by the manipulated vocals of Karijord’s digitised army, and so, albeit in a slightly unusual sense, the entire record is a cappella.

“Lacrimosa” opens with a mission statement, sampling a speech by the poet and philosopher Joanna Macy in which she talks about the need to offer gratitude to the things we’re losing: “how do you say goodbye to what is sacred and holy?” (humanity is a geological event which will be measurable in the strata millions of years from now will we be akin to the Permian extinction) Mournful human voices swell ambiently beneath the speech, building to a complex choral counterpoint as Macy’s speech ends. The voices, wielded like uncanny instruments, almost hellish in their tones, transform into undulating sirens and a persistent foreboding rasp heralding the environmental emergency before us. (the sea ice at Halley Bay thawed early in 2016 and 2017 collapsing under the weight of the nesting emperor penguins thousands of chicks drowned too young too weak to swim to endure the icy not icy enough sea) “Lacrimosa” gives a strong flavour of the various ways Karijord utilises the vocal samples, varying from overtly vocal-like noises to ambient textures to mimicking extant instruments. 

Some songs are more conventional: “Sanctuary” feels more of apiece with Karijord’s art pop origins and sees her take the lead with Roomful of Teeth harmonising in a simple verse-chorus structure. The ecological grief continues as she questions, “my daughter, have the springs gone silent / will you ever dare to have a child / or has the ocean reached your doorstep / and the sun turned hostile?” (my grandparents would recall six feet snowdrifts how extreme the winters were but it no longer snows a dusting at most perhaps cold but never snow it’s simply too dry) “A City by the Sea” contemplates a toxic sea with Karijord leading solo as samples pulse monotonously behind and the choir provide a textural polyrhythm, ending with a harmonised chant of “oh, let them take me now”. (approximately 25% of US congress representatives are climate deniers) Meanwhile, “Serenade”, a paean to nature and a yearning for transformation, uses vocal samples sparingly for a strings effect. The hauntingly muffled vocals in the mid-section recall a similar effect I’ve only ever heard on Ulver’s Shadows of the Sun, a similarly haunted and funereal record. 

Karijord pushes the post-classical influences further on a couple of tracks, notably “You, Mountain” and “9th Duino Elegy” both of which centre around madrigal vocal arrangements. (in 2016 the Siberian permafrost thawed to reveal a frozen reindeer corpse containing anthrax infecting twenty people and killing one boy as well as two-thousand reindeer) The former is possessed of a percussive quality, a number of syncopated voices moving in and out of synchrony in bursts of four before moving into a sample-driven section that segues into ambient registers, allowing Karijord to take the lead. The latter is a rather traditional madrigal arrangement between Karijord and Roomful of Teeth with multiple harmonies singing in counterpoint, lifting lyrics from the Rilke poem of the same name. (rainbows glisten on sand they lure me in close until I gag every inch of skin ripples twitching inhaling toxic gas I’m choking) This, alongside “Lacrimosa”, is one of the more arresting pieces on the album, a haunted elegy to the earth and our transient lives upon it. 

These more fully-formed pieces are punctuated by shorter, quasi-interludinal works. These tracks usually build layers of voices in almost post-rock fashion to a climactic volume before peeling back. (28% of all assessed species are considered to be endangered and at least 55% are vulnerable) “Fugue” bestows upon the vocal samples an almost brassier tone with higher raindrop voice-synths splashing with Poissonian abandon; “Megafauna Pt.1” opts for a lone synth and a desolate wind to evoke some lifeless tundra; and “Earth”¹ is a peel of plaintive voices ringing out against the terrible void. Unfortunately, these pieces are relatively simple experiments with vocal samples which feel a little undercooked and their congregation in the record’s second half weakens the album a little. (areas of India Australia northern South America Central Africa and the Middle East are set to become uninhabitable within the next twenty-five years as temperatures soar to unlivable levels) They lack the experimental qualities that make “Lacrimosa” such a highlight, or the focal lead work of Karijord and her collaborators to ground them in a stronger sense of identity. The closing piece, “Vespera”, another more interludinal piece, is more successful for its placement, a fully choral requiem which, in its final moments, features a sound like trilling birds settling into the canopy as dusk falls. (mourners clad in black gather around the glacier a frozen monolith turned to a puddle and a plaque with an inscription: This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.) The longer sojourns on The Bell Tower demonstrate its greatest strengths allowing increased time for structural variation, evolution of ideas, and pushing the sample machine to stranger ends. 

The most powerful weapon humans have is our voice. Our ability to communicate, to justify terrible things, to agree to deals with other humans, to collaborate in building grand designs, to stamp our mark irrevocably on the planet, it all begins with the voice. It’s the murder weapon we’ve stabbed into the heart of nature, which makes for a terrible irony when it’s the very same thing we use to grieve our crime. Karijord’s anthropocentric requiem is a salve, something to ease the grief through shared acknowledgement. The Bell Tower demands to be listened to in the balm of pre-morning twilight with Macy’s exhortation on our mind, with gratitude and sorrow. When the sun rises, we must act. 

Recommended tracks: Lacrimosa, Sanctuary, 9th Duino Elegy
You may also like: Galya Bisengalieva, Courtney Swain
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Bella Union – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Rebekka Karijord is:
– Rebekka Karijord (vocals, sampling)
With guests:
– Roomful of Teeth (vocals)

1. “Earth” struck me as being rather similar in style to David Crosby’s “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here”, written in an almost hallucinatory state and dedicated to his girlfriend Christine Hinton who was killed in a car accident. ︎

Bibliography:  

• The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan
• The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
• What the Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales
• Lyrics (“Rainbows glisten on sand…”) taken from “Way Too Long” by Bent Knee
• Data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature
• Probably some other stuff I Googled and forgot about.

The post Review: Rebekka Karijord – The Bell Tower appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album art by Jonathan Snead and Ben Hjertmann

Style: Dream pop, math rock, indie folk, experimental (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gentle Giant, toe, Sungazer
Country: USA (North Carolina)
Release date: 7 April 2025

As the saying goes, there is a fine line between genius and insanity. To become a visionary in a given field, one needs a combination of obsessive focus and a disconnect from conventional lines of thinking that can easily come across as a bit unhinged, especially to the lay observer. Without years upon years of study, there’s little to distinguish such concepts as, say, statistical Riemannian manifolds or the Lagrangian formulation of physics’ Standard Model from the laborious ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic’s notebook. Music theory is no exception; sure, the basics of key signatures and chord progressions are simple enough to grasp, but in the deepest depths of the theory iceberg, one can run across bizarre ideas like xenharmonics, Partch lattices, and Klumpenhoewer networks that might as well be the Necronomicon to the uninitiated who attempt to comprehend them.

Enter North Carolina-based composer, luthier, and possible madman Ben Hjertmann, with his newly assembled math/folk/dream-pop project Spiral Garden. A longtime acolyte of Just Intonation and all things microtonal, Hjertmann has hand-built and retooled over a dozen instruments into bespoke, painstakingly intricate tuning ratios for the band’s debut album, weaving together obscure, esoteric aspects of meter and tonality into an awe-inspiringly overengineered musical Kabbalah. The end result? One of the most unique-sounding albums I have ever heard, to the point where putting a pin in its sound is nigh impossible. Roughly speaking, though, I would say that Spiral Garden does to Appalachian folk music what peak-era Gentle Giant did to European baroque and medieval traditions: adding in contemporary rock elements while maintaining a consistent dedication to rhythmic intricacy, compositional left turns, and playing as many different instruments as possible. More modern comparisons could be drawn to toe‘s gentle, spacey take on math rock and the similarly overthought, multilayered visions of Appalachia spun forth by Adjy, but for the most part this album is decidedly its own beast. 

For all its seemingly intimidating complexity, the album makes a clear effort to ease the listener into things, with “Septangle” starting with a soft, clean guitar line in 7/8 time beneath Hjertmann’s gentle tenor. Not exactly bubblegum pop, but certainly accessible enough. Yet, as the tune winds on, with Jonathan Snead’s viol and Emalee Hunnicutt’s bass adding additional layers that form a complex, interweaving mesh of an arrangement, a sense begins to grow that this music isn’t quite of this earth. It isn’t “extraterrestrial”, really—the instrumentation has an organic, lived-in feel and the lyrics are pointedly terrestrial, speaking of the temporal cycles that drive the seasons around us and push humans through stagnation and fleeting pleasures alike. Rather, it feels like watching a late spring sunset from a back porch in an alternate reality, where children read Berenstein Bears novels, Nelson Mandela died in prison, and Western music tonality is based on exact whole-number frequency ratios tuned using the 60Hz hum of old electrical wiring¹. 

The rest of the album winds further into the weeds of unorthodox music theory, calling forth more visions from a series of existences slightly orthogonal to our own with largely successful results. At its best, Spiral Garden communicates a sentimentality that is somewhat askew yet deeply heartfelt, a dreamlike filter over nostalgic summertime memories that tints them with a color you don’t quite have a name for. A clear example is “Heirophony”, which takes its fancy 15/8 meter and exotic 5-limit tuning and turns it into a deliriously beautiful indie folk almost-waltz, striking the very core of my soul in a place I didn’t know existed. A similar beauty thrums through the whisper-soft lullaby of closer “A View from the Trees”, where Hjertmann’s tender vocals and the gentle layering of acoustic and slide guitars are so enrapturing that its 60/16 time and multiple massive modulations go almost unnoticed. And it’s not just the pretty stuff that lands, either. “Shovel” is the song where the band’s Appalachian roots are most apparent, with Hjertmann adding three strings to an actual shovel to form a lead instrument that ends up sounding something like a cross between a banjo and a sitar. Its lyrics of tradition and nature colliding with capitalism feel authentic and lived-in, and it’s just fun to hear this bunch of theory nerds unwind a little with a comparatively direct, rootsy bop.

Unfortunately, it is extremely hard to craft an album this innovative without some experiments going awry, and Spiral Garden are no exception. Sometimes they just go a bit too far, as in “Aurora”, the weirdest track out of an already eccentric bunch. While the intricate hocketing and syllabic interplay between Hjertmann and Hunnicutt’s voices is undeniably impressive, and the distorted rhythm guitar is a nice change of pace, on the whole its overindulgence in polyrhythm makes it come across as a bit of a mess, and its spacey tone and overly abstract lyrics play counter to the band’s strengths. On the opposite side of the coin we have “Beal-Four Island Industrial Park Museum”, a dreamlike instrumental soundscape whose atmospherics are lovely for a while, but end up dragging a tad over its nine-minute runtime. Most unfortunate, though, is “Shadow Key”, whose fascinating concept of two microtonal modes colliding to form a perception of C major is sabotaged by Will Beasley’s snare hits landing with bafflingly off-beat timing, alongside various jarringly dissonant notes sprinkled haphazardly throughout like 100% cacao chocolate chips in a cookie. I’m sure there’s some deep polymetric/microtonal rationale behind all this that I don’t have enough music doctorates to understand, but the fact remains that these sounds, on an instinctive, lizard-brain level, are fundamentally unpleasant in a way that, as other songs on the album prove, they don’t have to be.

And yet, despite all these complaints, I find myself with a deep, abiding affection for Spiral Garden that goes well beyond my awe and respect at the sheer effort and attention to detail that has so clearly been put into its every nook and cranny. It is a captivating, uncompromisingly unique piece of art that, at its best, stuns me in a way no album ever has. Even its stumbles are simply evidence of just how many creative risks have been taken here, how hard Hjertmann and co. have swung for the fences, and I’d take that over Dull Yet Competent Neo-Prog Album #734 any day. This is an album by and for massive nerds, but one with an instinctively accessible, deeply human emotional core, and I eagerly await whatever twisted tesseracts of theory these guys will send listeners spiraling down next time.

Recommended tracks: Septangle, Heirophony, Shovel, A View from the Trees
You may also like: Adjy, Anathallo, Mingjia, foot foot, The Mercury Tree
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook

Spiral Garden is:
– Ben Hjertmann (lead vocals, various handcrafted guitars and keyboards, percussion, sampling)
– Emmalee Hunnicutt (fretless bass, cello, backing and co-lead vocals)
– Graham Thomason (synth, piano, organ, backing vocals)
– Jonathan Snead (viola da gamba, hammered dulcitar, autoharp, slide guitar, backing vocals)
With guests:
– Will Beasley (drums, except where noted)
– Zack Kampf (drums on “Septangle”)
– Daniel Richardson (soprano sax on “Shadow Key”)
– RJ Wuagneux (guitar solo on “Septangle”, additional guitars on “Beal-Four Island Industrial Park Museum”)
– Dave Bullard (drums on “Aurora”)
– Hinton Egerton (theremin on “Aurora” and “Beal-Four Island Industrial Park Museum”)
– Jonathon Sale (tabla on “Paramonde”)
– Lane Claffe (additional guitars on “Beal-Four Island Industrial Park Museum”)

1. Not only does the band “tune to your fridge”, but they have put forward a genuine offer to sell a pitch-shifted copy of the album to any listeners in countries that use 50Hz current instead. These people are committed. ︎

The post Review: Spiral Garden – Spiral Garden appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: free jazz, avant-garde drone, Hindustani classical music, ritual ambient (mostly instrumental, clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Sunn O))), Sun Ra, Ravi Shankar
Country: Belgium
Release date: 11 April 2025

Art is subjecti… shut the fuck up. My viewpoint is certainly colored by being a reviewer, but while the enjoyment of art is subjective, I certainly believe that there are objective qualities to the form. The Belgian collective Neptunian Maximalism (NNMM) released one of the best and most important experimental albums of the 20s thus far, Éons. While I do find it a pleasure to listen to on occasion, at three disks long and about two hours of free jazz/drone metal/ritual ambient, simply considering another listen sometimes feels nauseating. But removed from the plane of subjectivities like taste (preferring to listen to a shorter album, for instance), Éons is genre redefining, taking drone metal to the zenith of its creativity and then some. With several engaging and trippy live releases since then, the collective have released their newest live-ish work, La Sacre du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI). Listening to LSDSI is practically a spiritual experience. NNMM lived in St John’s on Bethnal Green church in London for four days to integrate themselves within the space, to meld with its architecture and energy. Over the course of that stay, LSDSI was born. While it’s guaranteed to be a difficult listen, does LSDSI reach the objectively amazing heights NNMM attained in 2020?

Like Éons, LSDSI is an intimidating triple album comprised of three classical Hindustani ragas¹: Marwa, Todi, and Bairagi, interpreted by NNMM as “Dusk,” “Arcana,” and “Dawn,” respectively. Its music is ecstatic, thrumming with an indescribable energy; that NNMM were divinely inspired by their sanctuarial sojourn is clear, yet unlike Éons, LSDSI doesn’t wield a chaotic, primordial energy with brusque free jazz and tribal ambient. In place of the power of nature—Éons details an apocalyptic event—is the power of a deity (or deities). The Church-setting of the recording is translated by the Hindustani overtones—music for the soul. Meditative classical passages such as at the first movement of “Arcana” are not merely imitations of traditional Indian music; project supervisor Sundip Balraj Singh Aujla as well as the instrumental masterminds behind NNMM all have experience with the medium—I’d recommend Czlt, Hindustani drone metal project of NNMM’s guitarist, vocalist, trumpeter, and zurna and surbahar player, Guillaume Cazalet. He is a true student of the tradition.

Along with the Hindustani classical music sections, heavy guitar drones reverberating through the Church form the base of NNMM’s sound, upon which the collective painstakingly layer a variety of other instruments to perfect their sonic tapestry, including a diverse collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian instruments: electric saz, daf, zurna, and surbahar. LSDSI is improvisational, too, letting whatever divine muse resides in St John’s on Bethnal Green use them as a mouthpiece, yet NNMM always remain grounded in the ragas. 

Starting with “At Dusk : Raag Marwa,” the plot of all three tracks is unveiled—slowly. While the larger-than-life, rapturous crescendos, such as the vocals seven minutes into “Vilambit Laya Alaap” or the faster-paced metal in the second movement “Drut Laya, Chaotic Polyphonic Taan Combinations” in “Arcana” are divine, so many of the album’s hundred minutes are vacuous buildups serving only as a way to set the stage. It’s difficult to call them pointless; they have meditative power and are clearly integral to NNMM’s experience of the Church and the live performance. However, the length of time between noteworthy sections grows tedious almost immediately. The guitar tones are your average drone, and drone they do, typically without accompaniment from enough of the ensemble to maintain my attention more than a Sunn O))) album would. Even when the rest of the collective joins the fray, the result can still be incredibly arduous to get through, the longform compositions a bit too challenging. The second and third movements of “At Dawn” are incredibly satisfying when they hit, the grumbling electric bass and stoner-y guitar parts giving way to rapturous vocal parts; but I can’t help but compare these moments to Wyatt E.’s stellar tribal drone release from January which accomplished as much spiritually captivating drone… in a third of the time commitment of LSDSI. The highs on LSDSI match any drone release ever—listen to the buildup of “At Dawn” culminating in “Sthayi & Antara Composition”—but with so much empty space as a fan not present in the Church during the recording, the album seems impossible to approach. 

I don’t think that LSDSI is an objective masterpiece like Éons, and it’s certainly also a difficult album to turn on unless you like meditating to distortion—in which case, LSDSI is right for you. However, LSDSI is still worth listening to, capturing the energy and power of a spiritual place and only further cementing the group at the top of my bucket-list of bands to see live. NNMM are clearly one of the most forward-thinking groups in metal, and I look forward to what they offer us next, even if it’ll certainly be a hefty time commitment of ambitious and challenging music.

Recommended tracks: Arcana, At Dawn
You may also like: Wyatt E., Zaaar, Czlt, Sol
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

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

Neptunian Maximalism is:
Stephane Fedele : Drums, Gong
Didié Nietzsch : Synthetiser, iPads
Romain Martini : Rythm Electric Guitar
Reshma Goolamy : Electric Bass Guitar, Vocals
Joaquin Bermudez : Electric Saz, Ebowed Electric Guitar, Daf
Guillaume Cazalet : Lead Electric Guitar, Vocals, Trumpet, Zurna, Surbahar

1. A raga is the underlying structure of Hindustani classical music, each one containing specific motifs allowing the musician to improvise on a provided melodic framework. The theory behind Indian classical music is vastly different from Western classical but extremely interesting. Please feel free to read up on it here! ︎

The post Review: Neptunian Maximalism – Le Sacre du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by Derek Setzer

Style: doom metal, drone, experimental (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Krallice, Sunn O))), Earth
Country: United States
Release date: 28 March 2025

Hey, are you a big fuckin’ weirdo? Yeah, me too.

Did you enjoy Krallice‘s 2017 release Go Be Forgotten? Me too.

Because you’re a big fuckin’ weirdo, did you get stuck on “Outro” and wish that there was an entire album that sounded like it? Well first of all, if you answered yes to this question please reach out to me because boy that is an extremely niche group we both belong to. Second of all, I have some great news for you!

The Overmold is an experimental doom/drone duo featuring Mick Barr (Krallice) and Tim Wyskida (Khanate), who have come together under the I, Voidhanger banner to present their collaborative efforts to big fuckin’ weirdos like you and me. Barr’s unique, ambiguous harmonic guitar stylings are at the forefront of the sound on The Overmold, and are perfectly complemented by Wyskinda’s freeform drum performance, which propels the compositions forward and breathes life into them. The compositions themselves range from sprawling labyrinthian soundscapes to more structured evocative vignettes, but the interplay between Barr and Wyskinda is always the focal point from which these structures take shape. While the compositional prowess on display is nothing to sneer at, The Overmold is distinctive in its reliance on performance and technique to effectively extract every last drop of meaning from its songs. 

The bulk of The Overmold is comprised of “The Overmold” (written by The Overmold, in case you forgot), a semi-improvisational, thirty-five-minute foray into sinister, tension-building atmosphere. Barr’s guitar playing is akin to a lighthouse lamp cutting through thick fog, utilizing repeated motifs around which bass and vocal harmonies dance in and out. Wyskinda’s drumming is strikingly delicate; even his kick drum is barely audible at times. Freeform fills and agile cymbal work builds and releases tension, adding motion to an otherwise glacial pace. Monotone choral/whispered vocals subtly weave in and out of the background, adding emotional depth without distracting from the main performances, equally pacifying and paralyzing. All of these performance techniques on their own already build a compelling, uneasy ambience, but there is an acute attention to the small details that pushes “The Overmold” from good to great. 

Barr and Wyskida are frighteningly in sync and are able to pull off a massive range of dynamics that are not often heard in metal or metal-adjacent music, at least to the extent explored on The Overmold. Deeply intimate moments build into explosive crescendos and die back down again like an undulating vista of rolling hills. Even more rare is the gratuitous use of rubato; phrases swell in and out, trailing off in ritardandos that catch back up at the start of the next phrase. During more structured moments the dynamics or tempo remain constantly in flux, as if we were not listening to a piece of music but to a massive living, breathing organism. Even the song structure adheres to this conceit, with the most brazen moments of movement and overwhelming climaxes appearing in the middle of the track. Equal attention is given to both the music and the empty space that surrounds it, resulting in an extremely intimate experience. 

The production from Colin Marston perfectly captures all of the intricacies held within “The Overmold”. Every tiny detail of the performances are given space to breathe, and it is a joy to be able to hear the reverberations of a kick drum or the overtones of a held note so regularly. There is even a subtle use of panning that only revealed itself to me around my third listen. Marston’s attention to detail rivals that of the compositions themselves, and both in conjunction result in a truly special listening experience. 

The remaining three tracks are shorter, more structured explorations of The Overmold’s sound. “Songs of the Beyonder” starts with a sixteenth note hi-hat against a triplet eighth note strumming riff that is instantly engaging. The main motif is astoundingly pretty and very reminiscent of Krallice, and I love how it comes back at the end with added harmonies and a more bravado performance. “Buildings of Skin” starts out continuing the prettiness, but becomes much more harmonically antagonistic as the song goes on, ending in a jarringly dissonant sung interval. “Withering Other” acts as a sort of palate cleanser and is the most harmonically vague of the three shorter tracks, a “dark unfocused fog of clarity”, and the perfect way to ruminate on the sheer weight of The Overmold’s experience.

Over the course of the past week or two, The Overmold has turned into an experience that I look forward to engaging with every night. I am constantly finding small details that I had missed in previous listening sessions, and the atmosphere is an addictive ambrosia that is a perfect way to wind down at the end of a long day. A good pair of headphones and an hour or so of time to spend really focusing is practically demanded of the listener, but quickly becomes completely justified. The result is that The Overmold has become my favorite listening experience of the year so far, and is a record that I will be habitually returning to for a long while.

Recommended tracks: The Overmold
You may also like: Khanate, Ocrilim, Blind Idiot God
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: I, Voidhanger Records – Bandcamp | Facebook

The Overmold is:
– Mick Barr (guitars, bass, vocals)
– Tim Wyskida (drumset, percussion)

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

Style: prog black metal, symphonic black metal, opera (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Imperial Triumphant, Fleshgod Apocalypse, 1914, Myrkur, Diablo Swing Orchestra
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 19 April 2024

Lots of music seeks to elicit pleasure and so do Folterkammer (“torture chamber” in German). Naturally, metal seeks to beat you down sonically, but Folterkammer are your mistress who employs a whip for this purpose (“Das Peitschengedicht”) while you forcefully lick her (…ass, as I believe “Leck Mich!” is a direct reference to the Mozart piece) and kiss her feet (“Leck Mich!” and “Küss mir die Füsse!”). Just look at that album cover: she’s not riding him like that for nothing [Editor’s note: how else do you think a human broom is powered?]. Weibermacht (“Female Power”), the sophomore album by these New York experimentalists, is a “celebratory hymn to the practices of BDSM, particularly, Femdom.” This one is for all you freaks out there who wanted more kinky metal after Obsidious’s masterpiece “Sense of Lust.” Pleasure through punishment.

Folterkammer play fairly standard black metal, but vocalist Andromeda Anarchia completes the band, a true opera singer in metal. Her perfectly controlled vocal agility spans the gamut from dizzyingly high notes which are far beyond the typical scope of metal to slides into snarls and wailing shrieks. Weibermacht’s highlight “Algolagnia” excels because of Anarchia’s vocals, demonstrating mind-fellating range: manic ramblings, horrifying shrieks, and soprano operatics. Centering Weibermacht around Anarchia’s vocals pays its dividends and she is clearly the lifeblood of Folterkammer.

Instrumentally, Weibermacht isn’t quite as gloriously impressive, playing mid-paced black metal that simply sets the stage for Anarchia to sing about her sexcapades. Mixed by Steve Blanco (Imperial Triumphant) and mastered by the master himself Colin Marston, you can safely bet that Weibermacht sounds amazing; all the performances shine, even the bass as rare as that is in black metal. Zachary Ezrin’s (Imperial Triumphant) twisted neoclassical riffs sound like a mix between Fleshgod Apocalypse and 1914 while bassist and main composer Darren Hanson provides a solid low-range counterpoint for the soprano. However, all across the album the band loses the neoclassical aspect of the riffs, turning them into slightly bland second-wave worship with a standout vocalist. Twice on Weibermacht—in opener “Anno Domina” and closer “Das Peitschengedicht”—Folterkammer experiment with excellently composed harpsichord, and I wish the band leaned further into this because those sections feel like a more complete integration of classical opera and metal. Weibermacht is tight, but with more experimentation it could be even stronger. 

Of course, the lyrics, sung entirely in German, are kinky as hell as previously alluded to (thanks Google Translate!), taking an angle of feminine empowerment through sexual domination of their masculine counterparts. Whips become calligraphy pens for writing poetry in blood (as stated by the band about lead single “Das Peitschengedicht,” feet are smelt, and asses are licked. This is a contentious angle for feminism—many contemporary scholars view sadomasochism as a tool weaponized by the patriarchy against women—but I feel Folterkammer effectively pull it off, thanks to Anarchia’s powerful vocals, no doubt. 

Weibermacht suffers in two fashions—and I don’t mean suffers from perverse sexual acts: nearly every track ends with Anarchia chanting the same phrase ad nauseam and the band rarely creeps past allegretto. The counts of the whips on “Anno Domina” are so absurd they crack me up, but the section is far too cheesy for a largely serious album, and the repetitive track endings are frustrating when the band have such dynamic song structures for the majority of each track; the problem is exacerbated by Anarchia’s chants being completely harsh for these endings when her clean vocals are what makes the project as unique as it is. Finally, some faster pacing would go a long way toward caulking up any cracks in Weibermacht [Editor’s note: this is not a sexy turn of phrase and clitorises shriveled up and died when you wrote this], but that’s personal preference.

Folterkammer’s debut was refreshing, and the band has drastically refined themselves since 2020—particularly Hanson’s compositional skills. Despite the minor shortcomings, Weibermacht is one of the most exciting projects in contemporary black metal, excelling in their creativity and Anarchia’s stellar vocal performance. In the best year for symphonic black metal ever with the likes of Ihsahn, Lamentari, and Aquilus, Folterkammer has little problem sticking with the big guns, and their trajectory is surely only upwards.

Recommended tracks: Anno Domina, Die Unterwerfung, Algolagnia, Das Peitschengedicht
You may also like: Véhémence, Passeisme, Obsequiae, La Suspendida, SkyThala, Thy Darkened Shade
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Century Media – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Folterkammer is:
Andromeda Anarchia – Vocals
Zachary Ezrin – Guitars
Brendan McGowan – Drums
Darren Hanson – Guitars
Laurent David – Bass

The post Review: Folterkammer – Weibermacht appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post Rock, Progressive Rock, Trip Hop, Experimental, Avant-pop, Electronica (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Steven Wilson’s art rock/trip-hop/electronica focused albums, Massive Attack, Bjork, Portishead, Anna von Hausswolff 
Review by: Christopher
Country: Germany
Release date: 30 October, 2023

We try to keep our readers on their toes. It can’t all be masturbatory Nospūn noodling solo spam and The World is Quiet Here style Frankensteinian riffs stitched together to create an affront to god. You can’t keep listening to the same six bands, we have to push you out of your comfort zones and make you listen to something that’s, y’know, different. 

To that effect: Ophelia Sullivan is a composer, producer and musician based in Germany and Disposable Identity is their debut solo album, although they’ve previously produced electronica and experimental music under the monikers Ecstasphere and Aphexia, as well as composition for film and theater (and, interestingly for the purposes of a prog metal site, Sullivan has also provided live guest vocals for fellow Germans Soulsplitter who I reviewed last year—we’ve come full circle!) With this new solo project, Sullivan has hired a busload of guest musicians, including a string quartet and a small orchestra, to fulfill their musical vision.

Sullivan’s sense of arrangement recalls Steven Wilson on albums like Insurgentes and this year’s The Harmony Codex: neoclassical strings and piano often provide a driving force with occasion coups from heavier guitar riffs, while the percussion ranges from trip hop to rockier climes, and Sullivan’s vocals provide the melodic throughline. Opener “Hourglass” sets the tone, Sullivan’s vulnerable yet defiant vocals with a deftly dynamic softness, an eerie chiming microtonal motif, thick metal riffs and a rather nifty guitar solo, doomy percussion, and ending with lone layered vocal harmonies and mournful neoclassical strings—a progressive flow through a variety of soundscapes that feel united in purpose.

There are so many cool compositional ideas here: “Rest Your Trigger on My Finger” wields menacing neoclassical strings over intricate beats, all held together by Sullivan’s haunted melodies. “Blue” eerie guitar motif fades out gracefully… until a hard drum and bass groove powers the song back up, Sullivan’s glitching in the melee—and yet that guitar motif remains in the background, anchoring this more manic segue to the track’s overall disturbed vibe. Meanwhile the combination of The Cure-esque reverb-laden clean guitar and Massive Attack style strings over a trip hop beat on “The Game” make for a languid, immersively psychedelic vibe, teetering constantly upon the verge of an emotional precipice.

Sullivan characterises Disposable Identity as focused on biographical themes of mental health, otherness, sexuality and queerness, and while there’s a metaphorical opacity to the lyrics, one can nevertheless detect how those deeply personal themes are being evoked. There’s a sense of turmoil, of fracturing, of yearning. When Sullivan lets out a cry of “I’m just as formless as you, you won’t remember my voice, disposable identity” you feel something; an inarticulable thing buried deep inside, but it taps into something real. There’s a rich authenticity here, the feeling that not only is the music beautifully composed but that the lyrics come from somewhere profoundly relatable and sincere.

Sullivan plays with time signatures and polyrhythms: most of “Blue” alternates between a bar of 4/4 followed by a 5/4, that extra bar conferring nail biting tension, and most of “The Key” is in 7/4 and I think the bridge might be a bar of 4/4 followed by 6/4… how should I know, I’m a music reviewer, not a musician. At any rate, the prog credentials are certainly here both in complexity and genre-blending, and metal rears its head at times, too, as in the syncopated, almost djent-like riff that closes “The Key” or the riff redolent of In Absentia-era Porcupine Tree that bifurcates “Core.” Add to the mix those haunting strings and Daniel Gräupner’s vital piano work and the result is a rather potent chemical brew. 

Disposable Identity is a deeply promising debut, beautifully produced and composed, and with an astonishingly expansive and dynamic sound. Ophelia Sullivan’s experience with other musical ventures clearly laid solid foundations, and here they show themselves to be a consummate artist in absolute control of their vision, weaving a tapestry of influences into an effortlessly brilliant release.

Recommended tracks: Hourglass, Rest Your Trigger on My Finger, Blue
You may also like: Meer, Evan Carson, Oak, Lack the Low
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Independent

Ophelia Sullivan is:
– Ophelia Sullivan (vocals, programming, composer, producer, mixer)

The post Review: Ophelia Sullivan – Disposable Identity appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Avant-Garde, Prog Metal, Experimental
Recommended for Fans of: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Native Construct, Subterranean Masquerade, The Dear Hunter, Pain of Salvation, Igorrr
Review by: Ryan
Country: Israel
Release date: September 1, 2013

Shame on you. Shame on all of you. How this incredible piece of music has flown under the radar for ten years is irreconcilably ridiculous. What should be the gold standard of experimental progressive music has instead found itself as a footnote. Even worse, OMB has never released a follow-up to their debut album, SwineSong. Imagine a world where this band had found its audience and subsequently influenced our modern prog scene. Maybe the world we live in would be a greater place for us all, but instead, we have only fifty minutes of their collective genius and may never see anything on par with it again.

Israeli collective OMB  (Of Marble’s Black) unleashed their only album SwineSong in September of 2013, and a decade later, SwineSong is still one of my absolute favorite pieces of music. Over the years I’ve watched their Spotify monthly listeners fluctuate from one monthly listener (me) to currently fifty-one, which may be the highest I’ve ever seen it. People throw around phrases like “ahead of its time” constantly, but I don’t know how else to describe SwineSong. OMB set a precedent with this album that I’ve yet to see surpassed or even matched when it comes to avant-garde prog metal. You may recognize the vocals of Davidavi Dolev from his more recent work with Reign of the Architect, Seventh Station, Gunned Down Horses, and Subterranean Masquerade. Despite being a fan of all of the aforementioned acts, I’ve yet to have the same itch scratched achieved here on SwineSong with its passion for over-the-top experimentation.

Genre-bending tends to be a tricky mistress, but OMB has created an incredibly fluid piece of music here that flows seamlessly through muddy waters. To quote Chris Parnell in Walk Hard, “It’s like some kinda concerto,” and SwineSong is better for it. OMB takes the listener on an unrelenting and surreal journey through a beautiful demented world—structure, be damned! OMB rarely repeats themselves, instead opting to keep moving forward with their abstract art. 

Genre barriers are brutally ripped apart limb by limb throughout SwineSong. With a firm avant-garde and progressive metal basis, OMB incorporates elements of musical theater, flamenco, black metal, virtuoso, jazz, bossa nova, traditional percussion, psychedelia, thrash, djent, post-rock, and on and on—they’re all here wrapped In a firm but comfy prog metal blanket. On first listen, it may seem disjointed and random, but given time, the music becomes incredibly clear just how impeccably planned this record actually is. Every moment serves its purpose and flows directly into the next section. Even when the changes sound sudden, every piece Tetris-es its way into an obscure myriad of moving pieces. From horns to violins to sitar, OMB continuously challenges the listener to keep up with them as they travel through a strange auditory universe. If ever an acid-induced fever dream was put to music this is it; SwineSong is simultaneously a terrifying bad trip and the most enlightening beautiful journey ever recorded. 

I find it extremely difficult to do justice to SwineSong with mere words. It is beyond a simple music review and can only be absorbed properly as an auditory experience. There has never been anything like this record and the genius herein may never be seen again. It may be humanity’s greatest shame that SwineSong never managed to find its audience and instead was birthed into obscurity and ten years later still orbits that same ghostly veil. 

SwineSong is a piece of high art. Its heartbreaking finale “The Cricket’s Broken Violin” ends with the lyric “Through all my life, through all my times, I try to write my next creation.” Yet, this ending vocalism was the nail in the OMB coffin. If only we could pry open that casket and find good old Stan S. Stanman inside offering to sell us a brand new OMB record. I, for one, would solve a litany of obscure and punny puzzles to finally unearth that treasure.

Recommended Tracks: These Walls…, An Ordinary Caveman Sings Ode to Obsession, Someday My Prince Will Come, The Cricket’s Broken Violin

You May Also Like: Vulture Industries, Schizoid Lloyd, Gunned Down Horses

Related Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook
Label: Ward7 Group

OMB is:
Davidavi Dolev – Vocals
Yuval Kramer – Guitars
Or Rozenfeld – Bass, Contrabass
Yuval Tamir – Drums, Percussion

The post Lost in Time: OMB – SwineSong appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Mathcore, Modernist Classical, Experimental (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Dmitri Shostakovich quartets, Krzysztof Penderecki, Mica Levi, Apocalyptica I guess but this might give you a nosebleed
Review by: Christopher
Country: New York, USA
Release date: 15 29 September, 2023

“One of Us is the Killer, I’m sure I’ve heard that name before…” You’d be right: it’s the title of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s fifth—and, in my opinion, best—album! Released ten years ago (yes, my bones ache too), this release by the ingenious mathcore legends was one of many tour de forces. Their complex, discordant, jazz-inflected sonic chaos garnered the New Jersey quintet an unlikely following, becoming one of the foremost experimental metal bands of their day. However, one question I’d be willing to bet few fans have ever asked themselves is “what if a string quartet covered Dillinger?” because what sort of insanity would ever compel anyone to ask that?¹ I’m not sure I believe it could work. 

Well, to quote the great band themselves: “fuck you, now try to disbelieve it”. New York-based string quartet Seven)Suns have covered this legendary release by a band whose style—according to their own guitarist, Ben Weinman—sounds like “garbage cans falling down stairs”. Seven)Suns have worked with Dillinger before, notably providing strings on the title track from Dissociation, but that’s accompaniment, not arrangement. To what degree can a string quartet—two violinists, a violist, and a cellist—really capture the mathematical clattering that is The Dillinger Escape Plan? 

In the skillful hands of Seven)Suns, One of Us is the Killer sounds more like modernist classical: think Stravinsky, Penderecki, or Shostakovich (indeed, the comparison I kept coming back to was the second movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.8—the same relationship between dissonance and melody, between harshness and sublimity). In the hands of Seven)Suns, the crowing synth that opens “Understanding Decay” sounds more like the bloodcurdling strings from Psycho’s infamous shower scene. On the original “Prancer”, the climactic ending is the best part, but in Seven)Suns’ interpretation the chaotic swooping of the bridge section becomes the track’s defining moment, a much-needed melodic counterpoint to the atonality of the rest of the song. Meanwhile, their renditions of “Nothing’s Funny” and the title track prioritise the vocal melody as their throughlines, the former shifting into Pendereckian plucked anxiety for the bridge section, the latter’s scratchy rhythm part bestowing an almost folky flavour. 

As a fan, one already knows these songs intimately; to hear them transformed is a compelling and rewarding experience. Of course, without drums and vocals every instrument is being represented by strings and Seven)Suns somehow manage to capture those elements with the violin and the viola often carrying Puciato’s clean vocal melodies, and the cello attack providing a percussive energy. What’s interesting is that my favourites change too: the act of reinterpretation is one of transformation, and so while I sing the praises of “Prancer”, “Crossburner” and “The Threat of Nuclear Weapons” on the original album, I find Seven)Suns’ versions of “Understanding Decay”, “Paranoia Shields”, and “Magic That I Held You Prisoner” the most intriguing, strings having transformed—perhaps even elevated—those tracks. The heaviest sections of Dillinger aren’t as easily replicable as the melodic sections, relying more heavily on dissonance than on distortion; Seven)Suns truly shine on the eerie, clean harmonies. 

The translator Mireille Gansel declared translation “as risk-taking and as continual re-examination, of even a single word”; the same goes for even a single note. Seven)Suns demonstrate that rearrangement is itself an art form, a deconstruction of sound to its constituent parts only to build it up anew after risky reexamination. Dillinger’s original album is an untouchable masterpiece, but Seven)Suns’ alchemical reimagining is a completely different beast, totally familiar and yet irrevocably transformed. In rearranging One of Us is the Killer for strings, something new has been created, a masterwork in a different medium.

1.  A Ben Weinman level of insanity, as a matter of fact. After hearing Seven)Suns’ cover of “43% Burnt”, the Dillinger guitarist contacted the quartet about the anniversary project. Weinman and Seven)Suns violinist Earl Maneein discuss the intricacies of arranging mathcore for strings in this interview. 
   ︎

Recommended tracks: Understanding Decay, Paranoia Shields, Crossburner (or whichever track from this album you’re most excited to hear interpreted by a string quartet)
You may also like: Harry Stafylakis, Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Gleb Kolyadin, Daniel O’Sullivan
Final verdict: 8.5/10 (5/10 to Silent Pendulum Records for putting the wrong release date on Bandcamp)

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

Label: Silent Pendulum Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Seven)Suns is:
– Earl Maneein (violin)
– Adda Kridler (violin)
– Fung Chern Hwei (viola)
– Jennifer DeVore (cello)

The post Review: Seven)Suns – One of Us is the Killer appeared first on The Progressive Subway.