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: doom metal, progressive metal, progressive death metal, dissonant death metal, avant-garde black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tomb Mold, The Ruins of Beverast, Mournful Congregation, Ahab
Country: Norway
Release date: 25 April 2025

In the beginning was the Doom, and the Doom was with Metal, and the Doom was Metal. You all know the story: fifty-five years ago, metal was brought into existence in Birmingham by Black Sabbath. Taking psychedelic blues to previously unknown levels of distorted heaviness, the Brits’ style revolutionized rock and became the archetype of doom metal to come—slow, heavy, evil. And in the depths doom has stayed for half a century, content to drag down the stray thrash or death metal fan who seeks something even more punishing. Doom is the Charbydis of metal, and once you’ve been sucked into her grasp, escaping the sonic mass is near impossible. 

Felgrave, a one man Norwegian death/doom band, has returned after a long five years with his newest album Otherlike Darknesses, a hulking album of three beastly tracks—two eighteen-minuters and a twelver. I was ready to be painstakingly slowly crushed by the force of the tracks, have them extinguish any sense of hope or purpose like Spiine did last month. However, while at its core a doom metal record, Otherlike Darknesses claws its way upwards from the abyss and towards the stars, fighting against its own colossal weight all the way. “Winds Batter My Keep” starts by basking in grimy vulgarity like generations of doom bands have before, the riffs oozing forward like pitch. A few minutes later, the dirging doom pace speeds up to a death/doom clip, and Felgrave introduces the predominant riff style for the album: dissonant, entangled guitar lines. Their contorted bickering is a hideous aural spectacle but gripping, nonetheless. Alas, once you’ve accepted your fate of an aural beatdown, from within the distortion, an atmospheric synth creates room in the soundscape for M.L Jupe’s dramatic, heartfelt clean vocals to break through the murk. They’re a recurrent guide through Otherlike Darknesses, a beacon to follow once you get lost in the depths—which you will.

Moreover, while the guitar parts are horrifically dissonant at times—swaths of “Winds Batter My Keep” and “Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky” get close to the style of playing my Subway peers refer to as “car alarm metal”—they coalesce into melodic leads at others. Rewarding, indeed. The guitars climb ever upwards in complicated, twisting scales not unlike Thantifaxath or SkyThala, with rich tones reminiscent of funeral doom icons Mournful Congregation. When the maelstromic blackened trems break out, the riffs are transformed in a moment to dreamlike abstractions. The dynamic drumming courtesy of Robin Stone provides a dramatic levity to the sound, as well, liberating the death/doom from itself. 

The songwriting, too, is dreamlike—unpredictably stream of consciousness. There are rare reprisals, like the middle section and ominous ending of “Winds Batter My Keep,” but otherwise Otherlike Darknesses is wonderfully amorphous, the songwriting always imaginative and natural. Fans of face-scrunching riffs and cerebral dreaminess alike will be satisfied. Each track is a full saga, spanning the gamut from Warforged nightmarishness to Dessiderium-esque serenity.  

Otherlike Darknesses’ desperate climb into the heavens would carry significantly less impact were it not for Brendan Sloan’s (Convulsing, Altars) magic dissodeath fingers working the production. The bass is as equally important to Otherlike Darknesses as the wicked guitars, its vibrant, full-bodied tone another speck of brightness when the metal is at its heaviest—but the bass is also the heavy grounding when the clean vocals hog the foreground. The hazy atmosphere from the synths in “Winds Batter My Keep,” the Morningrise and Orchid inspired bits in “Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky,” the spacious, all-enveloping chords of “Otherlike Darknesses,” the spine-crushingly heavy riffs everywhere… there is no detail in Otherlike Darknesses which doesn’t sound natural, beautiful, yet twisted.  

This is the most ambitious album I’ve heard from a one-man project since, well, Keys to the Palace by Dessiderium earlier this year, but it’s damn ambitious, and M. L. Jupe nails the takeoff and landing. I’ve never heard a doom record quite like this, lifting me from Tartarus to the heavens and back down. Maintaining sharp focus through such gargantuan, meandering tracks requires the mastery of harmony and dissonance that Jupe possesses. Breaking free from the chains of its genre to land in another plane of existence, Otherlike Darknesses is surreal doom metal far removed from metal’s roots but at the same time tethered to them.

Recommended tracks: Winds Batter My Keep
You may also like: Worm, Panegyrist, Chthe’Ilist, Dream Unending, Qrixkuor, Warforged, Dessiderium
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Felgrave is:
Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards and programming by M. L. Jupe

Drums by Robin Stone (Evilyn, Norse)

The post Review: Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde black metal, progressive black metal, dissonant black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Thy Catafalque, Oranssi Pazuzu, Enslaved, Blut Aus Nord, Imperial Triumphant
Country: Netherlands
Release date: 28 March 2025

I know lots of music, literature, and visual art. I know plenty of music inspired by literature; literature inspired by art; visual art inspired by music; well all six combinations, you get it. Grey Aura’s Zwart Vierkant albums—Slotstuk is the follow-up and conceptual sequel to their 2021 album—are the first album I’ve ever heard based on a book that’s based on artwork. Slotstuk follows the second half of Ruben Wijlacker’s novel De Protodood in Zwarte Haren, in which our main character Pablo is seduced by the world of Supremist art—he follows his obsession by unveiling the void as his artwork, representative of the death of the physical realm. The concept is intense, inspired by the freakiest of the Modernists, and Grey Aura certainly have the appropriate style of music to back it up. So the question remains: is the music good enough to make me succumb to the void?

Grey Aura’s style on Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk is intense, heady, and thrilling avant-garde black metal similar to their Hungarian peers Thy Catafalque. On each non-interlude track (there are three primarily Spanish guitar interludes), Grey Aura begin with a heavy riff centered around some warped idea of a melody, using varied and punishing drumming to force the track forward at a brisk march. Rhythmically alternating between a manic groove I don’t know whether to headbang or bust a move to and voracious blast beats, Slotstuk doesn’t stay still and proves Seth van de Loo to be one of the most promising percussionists in the scene. The guitars push back against the direct attack of the rhythm, lapping around each other in increasingly complicated circles, skirting around the melody, until they’ve nowhere left to go; in these moments, the music collapses in on itself, overwhelmed by the noise (my favorite example is only a minute into the album on “Daken als Kiezen”). Exhausting but satisfying, the constantly tense songwriting and dizzying riffs are an incredible tool to build tracks around. Grey Aura display an uncanny ability to shove full-fledged crescendos into only a minute or so of time.

Backing up the prominent guitar and drum parts is a small cast of different instruments. What stood out to me on 2021’s Zwart Vierkant was Grey Aura’s use of rather eclectic instrumentation, from a range of percussion styles to horns and acoustic guitars. All of these remain on Slotstuk but in subdued fashion; the result is a potentially less gimmicky sound. However, as much as gimmicks don’t necessarily make for good songwriting, Slotstuk is a tad less interesting. It’s a shame only the shorter tracks like “Nachten Zonder Dagen” have trombone and tuba because—let’s be honest—who doesn’t want those prominent on their avant-black album? Like the prior installment in the album duology, Sylwin Cornielje’s bass is produced fantastically and is the stitch keeping the self-fraying music together. Amidst the chaos, the chunky and often contrapuntal bass lines are all one can track to keep oneself sane, like on “De Ideologische Seance” or the brutal “Waarin de Dood Haar Kust.”

Clearly, Slotstuk is not for the faint-hearted—potent and harsh even in small doses. Ruben Wijlacker’s vocals make the already hard-to-approach album all the more difficult to appreciate. When I visited our blog’s glorious founder Sam in Amsterdam last, he yelled at me in Dutch to the effect of ‘turn that nonsense off’ when I put on my favorite comfort music, Imperial Triumphant. Well, being screamed at in German is scary; being screamed at in Dutch is just sort of confusing, albeit intriguing. This is precisely what Grey Aura’s vocals are, and I don’t really know if it works because they’re neither manic enough (something like Le Grand Guignol) nor varied enough (Thy Catafalque) for the style. Wijlacker’s vocals aren’t as impressive as the instrumentation around him.  

Just like his unceasingly shouting vocal style, the music can be too intimidating for its own good. Grey Aura play with dynamics—I mentioned their mini crescendoes—and they certainly have the cutesy little interludes, but Slotstuk is constantly a bit too overwhelmingly dense. For instance, while the blast beats are admirably metronomic, I find van de Loo’s usage of extremely intricate, almost danceable grooves far more intriguing. Moreover, the grooves don’t sacrifice heaviness but transfer the massive amounts of energy Grey Aura store into a more inspired package—when they’re focused on blast beats, they sound much more like a standard dissoblack bands than when the drumming and percussion is more varied.

Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk can be as dense as a black hole and took many, many listens for me to grapple with its contents, and in that regard, it is an overwhelming success. It tears apart its own reality and internal logic as each song grows until the inevitable crumpling. The black void box is real. Although they de-emphasized several of Zwart Vierkant’s best elements, Slotstuk is a fitting conclusion to the saga of Pablo our painter, and I think I may have been driven mad trying to review this. As intended.

Recommended tracks: Daken als Kiezen, Een Uithangbord van Wanhoop, Waarin de Dood Haar Kust, Slotstuk
You may also like: Dystopia, Am I in Trouble?, Dødheimsgard, Arcturus, Hail Spirit Noir, Haar, Sigh, Schammasch, Skythala, Thantifaxath, Convulsing, Veilburner, Ὁπλίτης
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Ruben Wijlacker – Vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer
Tjebbe Broek – Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Spanish guitar
Sylwin Cornielje – Bass
Seth van de Loo – Drums, percussion

Ruben Schmidt – Cello
Alberto Pérez Jurado – Tuba, Trombone

The post Review: Grey Aura – Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde black metal, hardcore (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ὁπλίτης, Car Bomb, Blut Aus Nord, Plebeian Grandstand, Frontierer
Country: China
Release date: 7 March 2025

What is it with one-man avant-garde metal acts and creating new pseudonyms for seemingly every release? Well I have a theory: in the metal underground obscurity is gold, and there’s nothing worse than being perceived as even somewhat successful or popular. A band may manage to put out a few albums before they get noticed—say, to have more than 1,000 monthly listeners—but once enough quality music is released it’s only a matter of time until success comes beating down your door. For any mysterious avant-garde auteur of black metal mayhem, success may as well be the grim reaper. So when multi-instrumentalist J.L.’s Ὁπλίτης—that’s Hoplite(s) if you aren’t in the know—saw success with last year’s Παραμαινομένη, it was all but guaranteed that J.L. would reemerge underneath a new and unknown moniker; enter Smiqra with Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!.

Picking up right where Παραμαινομένη left off, Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! relentlessly pounds the listener with a bristling intensity unmatched by any pure black metal or hardcore act and finds in the combination of its muses unplumbed caverns of sonic exploration. Gone is the mysticism that gave Παραμαινομένη its subtle edge, and in its place is an explosive fury. Drums take center stage, discontent to ever sit in one place for more than a few seconds and constantly shifting tactus and tempo in a similar manner to fellow hardcore-tinged metallers Car Bomb. Done less tactfully, such a persistent style of metal could grow tiresome, but Smiqra is too quick on its feet for me to ever get bored of any singular riff. 

To further spice up its already overflowing pot of influences, Smiqra adds elements of jazz in the form of frenetic saxophone and synthesizer solos and breakcore with a few entirely too short moments of amen break sampling. It’s clear that even though J.L. is producing avant-garde black metal, he isn’t afraid to infuse a little lightheartedness into the mix. This sort of unabashed creative expression keeps the album fresh, particularly as it extends into its back half and starts drawing up old motifs.

The highlight of Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! is undoubtedly the seamless multi-track epic (although this could really be used to describe the entire album) that begins with “Imaginary Minotaurian academia” and ends with the ten-minute closer “qa-si-re-u!”. The epic sees Smiqra pave its way from hypnotic tribal rhythms replete with vocal ostinatos bound to get stuck in your head (“Is music for oxen?”) to meaty djent breakdowns that offer a sublime release from the album’s relentless attack. Because the individual tracks are so quick, never handling an idea for more than a few moments, and because most tracks seamlessly transition into the next, it’s easy to get washed away in the deluge of sound and ride Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! all the way to the bottom.

While a relentless approach served Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! well for its songwriting, the same approach was applied to its production to varying effect. Put simply, this album is loud, and the drums are the culprit. Each drum hit is pushed to the edge of distortion, to the point that it feels like you’re the one playing the drums, each strike rattling your very own bones. When other instruments join the fray, they have to compete with the percussion, and everything gets louder as a result. On one hand, this makes the album feel more real, and it may be a truer realization of J.L.’s artistic vision. But on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder how much more listenable the album could have been had it let off the gas. Perhaps it’s trite to lob production complaints at one-man black metal acts, but I truly feel a subtler hand on the gain knob could have gone a long way in increasing Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!’s listenability.

If J.L.’s plan is to remain obscure, releasing albums as good as Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! is certainly not the way to do it. While it doesn’t have the same mystic quality that made me really fall in love with Παραμαινομένη, Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!’s raw intensity is equally enticing and all but ensures that the album will continue to be remembered in J.L.’s ever-growing discography.

Recommended tracks: qa-si-re-u!
You may also like: Artificial Brain, Thantifaxath, Dodecahedron, Hebephrenique, Jute Gyte, Serpent Column, Red Rot, A.M.E.N., Theophonos
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: independent

Smiqra is:
– J.L. (everything)

The post Review: Smiqra – Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos

Style: Avant-Garde Black Metal (Harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Imperial Triumphant, Oranssi Pazuzu
Country: United States-AZ
Release date: 28 February 2025

Babe wake up, the new project from Cerulean mastermind Stephen Knapp just dropped! Er well, rather, it might be better not to let this one anywhere near your sleep schedule. The self-titled debut from Sleep Paralysis is a terrifying gripper of an album that is simultaneously bombastically thrilling and deeply insidious. Aptly named, Sleep Paralysis is a concept album designed to explore the themes of sleep paralysis and anxiety and does a damn good job of inducing anxiety of its own. Swirling, cacophonous guitar playing pushes forward at a frenzied pace, leaving the listener scarcely a moment to catch their breath. Strange perversions of familiar songwriting tropes from a multitude of styles inflicts a reeling confusion. 

The opener “Last Drop of Sunlight” sounds like what listening to a Chopin etude in the Backrooms might feel like, setting the tone by immediately introducing one of the mainstays of this record: programmed piano. Programmed instruments are always a gamble on whether they end up working or not, but there is a manic attention to detail that sets this particular use case apart. The music here sounds feasibly playable by a real person, the dynamics are believable, but the most impressive aspect is the artificial use of a sostenuto pedal. The way the bass notes continue to slightly ring underneath the rest of the performance is convincingly authentic, though it may just be a happy coincidence of certain production choices. At times during later tracks, subtlety is thrown to the wind and the piano is just another tool adding to the hysteria, but this just reinforces the notion that these details are intentional. “Last Drop of Sunlight” ends with some Debussy-esque arpeggios that lead into “Sleep Paralysis”, introducing a second programmed instrument: the drums. These are handled with much less subtlety, but end up working in Sleep Paralysis’ favor, adding to the frantic surrealism.

As Sleep Paralysis continues playing out its runtime it only ramps up this feeling of phantasmagoria as if—get this—you were experiencing sleep paralysis. The bold experimentation on this album pays off practically every time; the songs throw curveball after curveball, and that Sleep Paralysis never becomes grating or fatiguing is a testament to the quality of the songwriting, especially considering how maximalist the experience is. Lead single “Helplessness” sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse took too much acid, started playing a song, and then just kind of forgot what they were doing and started vamping on the intro idea. I love how this piece makes you lose track of the time feel through the constantly rising melodic pattern, making a sort of DIY shepard tone for the vocals to swirl within. 

“Sleep Paralysis” wears its influences with pride: gross (in a good way) Imperial Triumphant-esque quarter note guitar chords punch under the main riff idea, exploding with a jarring energy that feels like a rabid animal scratching against a wall. “You Can Never Run Fast Enough” has a weirdly jaunty intro that turns into a swing feel, eventually leading to a skittering piano solo with the drums just fucking blasting behind it; “Stress” is like a fucked up Joplin ragtime; and “Fever Dream II – Paranoia” sounds like the soundtrack to a cursed Nintendo game cartridge taken straight out of a bad creepypasta. The familiarity littered through all of these tracks is mangled and twisted into an alien amalgamation of what we expect these things to sound like, as if you were listening to them in an alternative mirrored world. 

Also helping along the violated feeling of familiarity is Knapp’s vocal performance, utilizing black metal vocal techniques, guttural yells, gasps and plenty of ominous whispering. Lyrics like the “HRAHHH” ten seconds into “Sleep Paralysis” or “they’re coming for you” in “Fever Dream II – Paranoia” are incredibly effective, but in general the lyrics are a bit on the nose. Subtle swelling choirs permeate the background now and again, adding a cinematic touch in the vein of a horror movie soundtrack. There is a general dreamy (read: nightmare-y) atmosphere that envelops the entire experience; notes that are held out for too long begin dripping, and are those whispers in the background or am I just hearing things? Even the interludes and more chill parts keep up a certain pace or use other compositional techniques to accelerate your heartbeat. The magic here is that all of these delicate textural choices are at war with a frantic pace and searing intensity, a dialectical force tearing open a rift out of which a delirious fever haze pours. 

Sleep Paralysis even weaves a sense of humor throughout the record—like the cartoonish glissando about a minute into “Sleep Paralysis”—but the humor does not detract from the derangement, instead feeling more like the reaction of a broken psyche trying to cope with sleep deprived hallucinations. A couple of particularly egregious sound clips on the last track threaten to push the sense of humor into the realm of eye-rolling campiness, but they’re right at the end of the record so they don’t do much to hinder the albums flow or replayability. 

“Nostalgia” works well as a climax to Sleep Paralysis, being the longest song on the record and dipping into nearly every oddity that has been on display during the previous forty minutes. Really, there are a lot of climaxes on this album, but none of them are cathartic; they just continue to build up the anxiety through smart songwriting decisions rather than relieve any of it. Sleep Paralysis leaves the listener a crumpled, sweating ball of uneasiness, shoving back the bubbling thoughts of Stockholm Syndrome as you hit play on the first track once again.

Recommended tracks: Sleep Paralysis, Fever Dream, Helplessness
You may also like: Fleshvessel, Inhumankind, Maybe That’s Why Humans Drink the Darkness That is Coffee?
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp

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

Sleep Paralysis is:
– Stephen Knapp (All Instruments, Piano and Drum Programming)
With Guest:
– Lorenzo Kemp (Solo on “Nostalgia”)

The post Review: Sleep Paralysis – Sleep Paralysis appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: experimental black metal, dissonant black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Infant Annihilator, Frontierer
Country: ?
Release date: 25 January 2025

This is it, everybody: my last review. It was fun while it lasted, but as soon as Sam reads this I will be fired¹. He started this blog to review, like, power/prog and crap, and here I am covering stuff from a goregrind label. Not only that, but I need to get into the nitty gritty of some unsavory theology. With that said, I’m sorry, Sam, for taking over the rudder of this ship and steering us aground into an area of extreme metal I know you’d rather believe does not exist.

My peers made enough fun of me for my “car alarm metal” Scarcity last year, so I dread to think what they’ll have to say about Christian Necromancy’s microtonal, off-time ten-stringed lyre fed through enough distortion and amplification to be able to pick scrape (“The Leistae”). What you can hear of the lyre over the obnoxiously loud drums switches channels at slanted times in shrieking disagreement. Not once do the channels sync up, nor do the drums relent their hailstorm: this is thirty-four minutes in the meat-grinder—you’d better be comfy with noisy dissonance. On Bandcamp, Christian Necromancy also asserts that there is a fretless bass on The Pederast, but it’s wholly lost in the mix. But despite being completely obnoxious, out of time, and out of tune, The Pederast is occasionally compelling musically to me for reasons I don’t quite understand myself. Perhaps I am a masochist or maybe I like seeing how far metal can be pushed—I mean, the idea of a distorted ten-stringed lyre is cool. Sam would tell me I’ve simply lost the plot, that my mind is too far gone. I think The Pederast is musical pornography, obscene but strangely addictive².

Christian Necromancy are (wanna-be) theologists, however, and the music is merely an oracle for them to spread their gospel. With in-depth analysis of Greek source texts including medical journals, the Septuagint, and other documents, The Pederast’s lyrics tell a classic tale in metal… sex abuse of minors in the Church… wait, what? Christian Necromancy and their scripture are alleging that Jesus Christ himself was a pederast with what they say is pure historical fact. The lyrics are upsetting, but even with claims that they use direct sources, they read as pure conspiracy theory—I say that as someone who dislikes religion. For instance, Christian Necromancy are certain that Mark 14:51-52³ are the only two verses you need to destroy the faith, but they’re just not very damning, even less so in the original Greek context from my research (I am no theological slouch, believe it or not).

The Pederast does have some undeniably banger lyrics, at least. For instance, “BEHOLD THE PENIS CHRIST” goes unreasonably hard. But actual thesis claims are harder to believe, especially since I cannot find a single primary source OR secondary source about them. I cannot find information that mystery cults venerated Christ precisely because he was proficient at trafficking child slaves (“The Leistae”). Similarly, the entire premise of “Ejaculated Antichrist” revolves around sexual drug rituals that I just cannot find any proof of existing. Similarly, who else besides Christian Necromancy has forwarded the claim that JC holds up two fingers in Christian iconography as a way to symbolize that he was ready to insert drugs into the anuses of children? Please feel free to send over your sources, Christian Necromancy, but The Pederast reads as conspiracy, grasping at straws. 

By reviewing The Pederast as I am, I’m putting myself in serious danger since Christian Necromancy claim on Bandcamp: “LET ANYONE INTERFERING WITH THE TRANSMISSION OF THIS INFORMATION BE PUNISHABLE BY A VIOLENT DEATH.” Wait, I’m undeniably aiding in transmission if anything. But it has to be said… if Christian Necromancy’s message is so urgent, why release it in such an abstruse style of black metal. Shouldn’t they perform something a bit more, y’know, marketable to spread their philosophy? I understand this is a more authentic artistic vision, but they are the ones interfering with the transmission of their information by making it impossible to listen to. 

I attempted to engage with both the music and philosophy of Christian Necromancy, and both are equally over-the-top absurd. The Pederast is a comical album despite the horrifying nature of its lyrics. Something drew me to it initially, though, and I’m intrigued by how the project will develop. With my score for this, maybe I’m safe from being fired since at least the blog will keep its prog credibility. Phew.

Recommended tracks: Let the Children Come
You may also like: Effluence, Theophonos, Jute Gyte, Scarcity, Botanist, Ὁπλίτης
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: Putrefactive Recordings – Bandcamp | Official Website

Christian Necromancy is:
– ?

1.  Or worse, my mom will read it on the blog and I’ll be excommunicated from my own family. ︎
2. Ummm please ignore that diction once you get into the next couple paragraphs… ︎
3.  “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.” ︎

The post Review: Christian Necromancy – The Pederast appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde black metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Dødheimsgard, The Ruins of Beverast, Behemoth (just the good parts of The Satanist), Imperial Triumphant, Heilung
Country:  Poland
Release date: 10 January 2025

The dawn of time. Now that I have your attention, fast forward a few billion years to the primordial soup, then a few billion more to proto-humans. Here is the origin of music, a concept so profoundly central to human culture that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. I strongly recommend reading Gary Tomlinson’s A Million Years of Music if you’re interested in the development of music by early hominids, detailing several theories about its origins in toolmaking and collective expression. This is all fascinating stuff and while Uulliata Digir don’t look quite so far back, they are deeply inspired by the ancient Sumerians, even writing in a language inspired by what linguists know of Sumerian. 

Uulliata Digir centers on an incantational energy, a hypnotic percussion that could be grounded in that ancient toolmaking. However, Krzysztof Kulis’s drumming is not simply a mechanism for tired droning; indeed, he is an animal on the kit with endless embellishments and varying patterns on top of the unchanging underlying beat. Each of the three true songs—there are two interludes—introduces a rhythm at the start and builds on it throughout, growing in magnitude and heft while vocal melodies and dissonant trumpets and guitars clash. The lengthy buildup in “Myrthys” is redolent of The Ruins of Beverast’s “Exuvia” with Uulliata Digir’s buzzing guitars and the animalistic growls of Michał Sosnowski. Providing an excellent balance to the gruffness, trumpeter Magdalena Andrys and female vocalist Julita Dąbrowska steal the show, the distinct timbre of the brassy horn cutting through the repetitious dissonant guitar parts and Dąbrowska’s mix of prayer-like melodies and shouts that sound eerily like a human truly in pain providing the main melodic contours of Uulliata Digir’s sound.

Although inspired by the ancients, Uulliata Digir adds a modern twist with that trumpet, inciting a weirdness to the band’s sound that at times reminds me of Denmark’s Dystopia and at others of New York’s skronky Imperial Triumphant as in the dueling guitar and trumpet solo of 5:45 in “Omni Dirga.” The production quality of Uulliata Digir is also quite polished, not afraid to get murky but always clear, especially bassist Bartłomiej Kerber who clacks away like a prog death musician underneath the ringing guitar parts. The whole package is like proto-industrial Germanic folk music à la Heilung but with a distorted guitar and trumpet twist, and the schtick works well. 

The strength of Uulliata Digir’s compelling ritual-ness also is the album’s pitfall, the ever-repetitive guitar and beat becoming tired by the end of the forty minute album, especially how horrible the choice of dissonant chord is; it’s ugly and sounds like the random choice of somebody picking up a guitar for the first time more than foreboding or eerie. Moreover, the project is wholly immersive to a certain point and then I lose interest around the three-quarter mark every spin. Perhaps closer “Eldrvari” is just weaker than what came before—except for a lovely a cappella bit around the middle that transitions into the heaviest moments of Uulliata Digir—but I believe it’s a similar quality as the rest, mostly because it sounds so similar to what came before. I am sure performed live this album would be an absolute trip, dancing in the fog trying to fend off Grendel or something, but I lose out on the experience of musicking¹ listening on my own. 

The brand of metal which Uulliata Digir peddles is always a treat when composed well, and I enjoy vibing out to something which feels so quintessentially human, hearkening back to our earliest ancestors (or the Sumerians). This project is forcible for a debut with strong performances behind the kit and dynamic female vocals, but it lacks the finishing touches of a project like Ershetu or The Ruins of Beverast, the repeated dissonant chord of the guitar growing flat-out annoying. Nonetheless, I can certainly recommend this as a fun start to the year for other weirdo metalheads.

Recommended tracks: Myrthys, Omni Dirga
You may also like: Amun, Dystopia, Ershetu, Dordeduh
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Uulliata Digir is:
– Krzysztof Kulis (drums)
– Marcin Tuliszkiewicz (guitars, synths)
– Bartłomiej Kerber (bass)
– Bartłomiej Kerber (bass)
– Magdalena Andrys (trumpet)
– Michał Sosnowski (vocals)
– Julita Dąbrowska (vocals)

1. Since I imagine you didn’t read all of A Million Years of Music before continuing the review, the concept of “musicking” was first introduced by Christopher Small, essentially entailing that making music is really a communal effort including the audience, the instrument-maker as well as, of course, the performer. ︎

The post Review: Uulliata Digir – Uulliata Digir appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: experimental death metal, djent, avant-garde black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Frank Zappa’s Jazz from Hell but death metal
Country: Canada
Release date: 6 December 2024

Sometimes the jokes write themselves: solo project of James Aniston Through Mists was inspired by the following quote throughout the creation of Hellscape: “if you’re going through Hell, keep going.” In only seven words, Aniston encapsulates my experience with forcing myself to listen to his seventh full length album in the past two years.  

Hellscape is a strange mix of “experimental” death metal, black’n’roll, djent, and sizable unintelligible sections I’ll just call “crap” for categorizing reasons. Through Mists never really settles into a groove (by this I mean a coherent style, but also literally because he can hardly keep time despite the drums being programmed), and the constant switching almost immediately becomes a nuisance. And yet despite trying so many things, so little works. Like many a prolific one-man-band, I think the first big problem is a lack of somebody else to hold the artist accountable. Four months to churn out a complete experimental work worth listening to is a tall task, and the ideas across this collection of songs are spread thin, and most of the ideas do not work together at all. Only one moment really sticks out as a riff that would survive the cutting board if I were an honest friend—the main riff in “Footsteps in the Dark”—but its coolness is a byproduct of nailing the thin line between maniacally unhinged and nonsense; I think he was as lucky to stumble into it as a flipping a coin and having it land on its side.

If poor attempts at djent in your death metal weren’t enough of a deterrent, the most offensive aspect of Through Mists is Aniston’s vocal performance. I’ve heard more charming vocals in pornogrind albums. His rasps, growls, and shrieks are all woefully out of time and produced annoyingly loudly—just as loud as the poorly programmed drums which mostly play in a tremendously bland 4/4 Lars tempo. But really the vocals drag a merely completely incompetent instrumental performance down to the bottom of the death metal barrel with acts like Spacefog and Enigmatist. Seeking out good experimental metal and then enduring this Hellscape is like contracting an STD from splinters in said barrel and then having the infected pus squirt up into my eye. It’s an assault to my ears. 

On top of all of this, it’s produced terribly with a MIDI-core base that sounds cheap and amateur. The instrument which suffers most from this particular aspect of the sound is the piano, which I unfortunately hoped could be a saving grace; instead, the horrific keys push Through Mists into tartarus, deeper than hell. They are so goddamn annoying, quirky like Frore 5 Four’s tedious circus music prog metal, disgustingly obnoxious like Frank Zappa’s Jazz from Hell, and awkwardly failing to be experimental like a worse version of the free jazz death metal outfit Effluence, the end product insufferably cacophonous and grating. Aniston should throw away his keyboard to focus on the guitar which he at least has a couple passable riffs using. Then he should find a friend to help balance out his varied ideas into something more palatable. 

Hellscape is hell to listen to, and I would only wish it upon my worst enemies. As always, I respect the hustle and misguided love for music that a fertile solo artist produces, but if you truly love the medium, take some more pride in what you produce. This is a bad bedroom demo, not something that should have seen the light of day. I’d rather have suffered the classic fire and brimstone.

Recommended tracks: Footsteps in the Dark
You may also like: Effluence, Enigmatist, Spacefog, Pagan Rites, Enopolis, Void of Nothingness
Final verdict: 2/10

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

Label: independent

Through Mists is:
– James Aniston (everything)

The post Review: Through Mists – Hellscape appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde black metal, totalism, dissonant black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Glenn Branca, Imperial Triumphant, The Dillinger Escape Plan
Country: United States-NY
Release date: 12 July 2024

Earlier this month, I made the trek out to Death Valley: it was 130° (54° for Celsius users). Standing in the middle of a massive desert bowl surrounded on all sides by craggy peaks and the air itself practically on fire was an awesome display of powers outside of human control—the dearth of water, glut of sunlight, paucity of humanity. Yet unlike my previous pilgrimage to Death Valley, I did not go to face the wrath of the Earth but to look heavenward. Designated one of seven gold-tier Dark Sky Parks in the United States by the International Dark-Sky Association, Death Valley offers a view of the galaxy I’d never seen as a city kid, and this month I saw the Milky Way for the first time, more stars than I’d seen in my life combined unfurled as a glowing band of light illuminating the moonless sky. 

Forceful vocalist and lyricist Doug Moore (Pyrrhon) was similarly inspired by a trip to the deserts of southern Utah in the poetics underpinning The Promise of Rain. Survival requires adaptation and transformation; the desert demands abnegation. Through catarrhic wails, monstrous growls, and emotional barks, Moore spits his arid poetry with sincerity. Among the harrowing lines throughout, opener “In the Basin of Alkaline Grief” concludes with two short stanzas: “Here, in the basin of alkaline grief / Loom the wounds in your soul, arrayed / Beneath the heavens’ desiccant gaze / I will make this waste our home / Beloved, you will never be alone.” Scarcity and Moore find grace in the desert and its searing power through the grief and fear of loss and abstinence. It’s a stunning progression from Moore’s grappling with death during covid on Aveilut, a focus on what comes after.

As a band, Scarcity have continued to evolve, transitioning from the work of mastermind and composer Brendon Randall-Myers and Moore to a full five-piece band. With Tristan Kasten-Krause (Sigur Ros, Steve Reich) on bass, Dylan Dilella (Pyrrhon) on guitar and Lev Weinstein (Krallice) behind the kit, the band have experienced an ignigenic rebirth through desert and through a new togetherness. While I miss the orchestral buildups of seemingly hundreds of microtonal guitars in a single cohesive piece from Aveilut, the new band opt to capture the energy of a live performance, to wield the power of five people in a room, and their force is virulent and unquestionable like Imperial Triumphant’s Live at the Slipper Room or John Coltrane’s Ascension. Reportedly captured in one or two takes, the fraught energy of The Promise of Rain is horrifying and raw, a dizzying heatstroke like on Kostnatěni’s Úpal. Scarcity create noise that breathes on its own with screaming microtonal guitars, absolutely pummeling bass, and drums which presage an imminent flash flood with their meteoric intensity. 

Still endowed with sweeping range, the compositions on The Promise of Rain lack some of the ingenious climaxes of Aveilut due to their shorter nature, yet Scarcity still play with the same overwhelming precision and flow in the tighter forms. A Totalist ensemble to their core—Randall Myers’ Glenn Branca influence shines brightly—the group fight their way through offbeat, microtonal songwriting, only rarely veering into more recognizably “metal” riffs such as at 2:45 in “Scorched Vision” or the thumping, heart-stopping power of the drums and bass at 4:00 into “Venom & Cadmium” just before the album’s only traditional guitar solo. The Promise of Rain is deft but wears violence on their sleeve driving between The Dillinger Escape Plan’s chaos and a far more sinister black metal side. Only halted once in its entirety on “Subduction,” The Promise of Rain is relentless and stabs its hooks deep, a desert thistle’s barb. 

On The Promise of Rain, Randall-Myers and crew have successfully captured the energy of a live performance, an exhausting listen like a trip through the literal desert. Black metal is the perfect vessel for the intensity that Scarcity conceptually need, and they utilize the medium perfectly with their writhing tremeloes and acrid blast beats. The album is as sublime for me as it must have been cathartic to record, an apotheosis of expressiveness through art. Back to my own journey, and it was impossible to deny a presence, a togetherness, not just with my mom and the other people who gazed starward, but with the universe I’m in and the stereotypical realization there’s no way we—humanity—are alone. Contemplating a hundred billion stars in one of a trillion galaxies one quickly forgets it’s a hundred and ten degrees out at midnight. The Promise of Rain captures that: complicated truths of what it feels like to experience being human.

Recommended tracks: In the Basin of Alkaline Grief, Scorched Vision, Venom & Cadmium, The Promise of Rain
You may also like: Pyrrhon, Thantifaxath, Dodecahedron, Meth., Kostnatěni
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: The Flenser – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Scarcity is:
Brendon Randall-Myers: guitar, synths
Doug Moore: vocals
Tristan Kasten-Krause: bass
Dylan DiLella: guitar
Lev Weinstein: drums

The post Review: Scarcity – The Promise of Rain appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde black metal, brutal prog, zeuhl, third stream, blackgaze (I swear it’s instrumental despite having published lyrics)
Recommended for fans of: Liturgy, Magma, Sadness
Country: United States-TX
Release date: 21 June 2024

To name one’s band after a Xenakis ballet places critical pressure and expectation on oneself. Xenakis’s Kraanerg (meaning accomplished action in Greek) marries his stochastic, electroacoustic music with his orchestral works, interspersed with twenty-two periods of silence—all set to dance in the original performances. Like all his compositions, it’s dense, mathematical, and intellectually challenging, at the vanguard of 20th century art music. As far as “popular” musics go, black metal is undoubtedly among the most progressive, yet for Kraanerg to draw explicit comparisons to Xenakis on a debut album should set an expectation for compositional, performative, and conceptual brilliance that few metal acts have ever achieved. 

Strikingly, before hearing a note Kraanerg makes their ambitious name seem reasonable by enlisting D.L. (of Kostnatěni, my 2023 Prog Subway album of the year) on guitar duties and the legendary Markov Soroka (Tchornobog, Aureole, Drown) handling production, bringing together two of the most creative minds in the metalsphere. Yet despite the inclusion of this black metal guitar deity, it is Nat Bergrin’s piano and synths along with Danny Kamins’s saxophone which dominate the sound, a cacophonous duo who Soroka fills the entire acoustic space with. Heart of a Cherry Pit Sun is built with Bergrin’s piano as a foundation, similar to acts like Bríi, Wreche, or Liturgy, leaving only the blast beats to make the album a “metal” one; however, the piano’s timbre naturally takes Kraanerg just as much through the worlds of third stream and brutal prog as through metal, brimming with a simultaneous intensity and laid-back haziness. The sounds emanating from their keys are mysterious and magical—a nostalgic, gorgeous emotional intensity with the tone and chord progressions.

The successes of Kraanerg lie in the overwhelming sections where layers of distortion, eerily beautiful keyboards, drums, and sax raucously meet. The title of track two, “The Deluge (Pipes Burst from Joy Alone),” succinctly describes its emotional and musical weight, the recording nearly unable to contain all the noise the band create in a euphoric transcendence. The blast beats provide a feeling of ascension as described in the manifesto of Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy), and the piece colorfully explodes. The saxophone leads also provide a creative edge to Kraanerg with a glowing tone that feels natural as the melodic figurehead of Kraanerg’s subtly volatile style, adding the jazzy zeuhlishness which makes the project so strange. 

All the piano and sax prevents me from hearing much of D.L.’s guitar playing which seems only to add a distorted texture throughout the entirety of Heart of a Cherry Pit Sun. And disappointingly, I can’t pinpoint any notable violin parts despite Daniel Cho being credited with a performance, and, confusingly, all three tracks have lyrics yet I can’t figure out where the vocals are except for in an unnecessary spoken whisper section in “Here the Ground Is a Spandrel.” I don’t doubt Soroka as a producer—he has far too much pedigree in this style and others—and the production perfectly encapsulates the album and its odd glamor, yet it also stifles the album into a maddening wall of pretty noise, drowning out as many layers of instrumentation as I can parse. Moreover, while always pleasant and slightly strange, the melodies still manage to be a tad trite, full of blackgaze cliches—I definitely hear influence from Sadness or Trhä. Even with Heart of a Cherry Pit Sun’s successful capacity for occasional transcendence, the journey it meanders through detaches me, and I can’t quite figure out how to stick with the music. I am no stranger to weird music and Kraanerg’s aesthetic choices are for-the-most-part convincing, but something is slightly off with the album in addition to the intentional weirdness: my best bet is a lack of focused songwriting. While that occasionally works, I think it hinders Kraanerg from making an impression in its oppressive noise. 

Kraanerg certainly push forward what I’ve heard in the strangeness of acts like Trhä with the jazziness and production quality, but they haven’t hit a masterpiece yet. Bergrin’s vision is impressive, and as always I respect their ambition, but Heart of a Cherry Pit Sun frustrated me more than I’d like to admit for a genre I’m quite comfortable in, but less in the fun abstruse way and more in the this is almost the next-best-thing-since-sliced-bread way. Perhaps in a follow up, a tad more Xenakis influence could be the key.

Recommended tracks: The Deluge (Pipes Burst from Joy Alone)
You may also like: Kostnatěni, Tchornobog, Cicada the Burrower, Wreche, Papangu, Botanist, El Mantis, Bríi, Trhä
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Not Music – Bandcamp | Facebook

Kraanerg is:
– Nat Bergrin (composition, piano, synths, electronics, additional guitars)
– Angel Garcia (drums, vocals)
– D.L. (guitars)
– Danny Kamins (saxophone)
– Daniel Cho (violin)

The post Review: Kraanerg – Heart of a Cherry Pit Sun appeared first on The Progressive Subway.