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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

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

The post Review: Bruit ≤ – The Age of Ephemerality appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

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

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

Style: progressive metal, post-metal, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Meshuggah, Dvne, The Ocean, Uneven Structure, later Fit for an Autopsy
Country: Belgium
Release date: 5 June, 2024

Opeth’s ‘The Leper Affinity’ is quite possibly my favorite opening to an album, ever. Now, before you say “Zach, please stop dragging prog-death into everything you bastard,” let me explain myself. It comes out of the gate swinging with an incredible riff and pummels you to death until about the 4-minute mark. It’s then when a beautiful, somber melody takes over just before transitioning to Mikael Akerfeldt’s incredible cleans and acoustic guitar. within this song Opeth set the tone for Blackwater Park, and highlighted the creative, dynamic nature of their songwriting.

An opening mission statement is so important in an album. While it seems to be cliché for a prog band opening their album with some kind of gentle piano, clean guitars, or MIDI strings, it’s because it’s easy and effective when done well. But I have to have respect for an album that bats me straight in the face without a hint of mercy. No lead in, if this first riff sucks, it sucks hard and you’ve practically lost any chance at recovery.

‘Descent’ wastes no time getting right back to where we left off with Hippotraktor, combining djent-y grooves with the buildup and payoff sensibilities of a post-metal band. You’re thrown into something that sounds Mick Gordon would write before throwing the nastiest low-tuned groove you’re gonna hear all year your way. The syncopated Meshuggah grooves are far more creative here than their debut, and this album does such a fantastic job at highlighting the riff writing ability of guitarist Chiaran Verheyden. He is one of the few guitarists I know of who seem to be able to make low chugs interesting, even after the oversaturation of djent bands we prog reviewers deal with.

Stefan de Graaf has quickly become one of my favorite vocalists, and he sounds absolutely incredible here. His harshes are some of the strongest I’ve ever heard, and his cleans seem to be getting consistently better. ‘Echoes’ is probably one of the biggest departures from Hippotraktor’s core sound, with alt-metal-like sensibilities interwoven into its DjeNtA. The chorus sounds something almost metalcore-like, but somehow remaining very true to the band’s core sound.

Something that I admire about Hippotraktor is they understand the beauty of simplicity. They could shred just as fast as anyone, as evident by the title track’s solo (the only solo on the whole album), but instead, they would rather pummel you with the layers of low-tuned riffs and beautiful electronic melodies. Hippotraktor play around with dynamics even more on this, using crystalline guitar lines when they need to calm it down before blasting you straight in the face.

This entire album is like having a ten-ton weight dropped on you, only intensified by the incredible production. Every chug and bass pick is weighty enough to shake your eardrums, and if the final drop of ‘Renegade’ doesn’t give you immediate stank face, then you need to get your hearing checked. One would figure that the constant onslaught of chugs would get gimmicky and annoying, and while I do agree I’d like just a bit more dynamics in the guitar and bass, I am amazed at the creativity on this album.

Hippotraktor truly lack identity, and I think it works in their favor. Not quite regular-joe prog, not quite djent, and not quite -core friendly either. Meridien had a sound that I’d never quite heard before, but it was still cooking in the oven. Stasis is the nigh-perfect result, even at the cost of a (dare I say), less heavy sound. Even as ‘The Reckoning’ ends, it does so on a beautiful guitar melody, not a crushing breakdown. Good of Hippotraktor to give the listener some time to catch their breath after blowing them away.

Recommended tracks: Descent, Echoes, Renegade, The Indifferent Human Eye
You may also like: Psychonaut
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Facebook | Official Website

Hippotraktor is:
– Stefan de Graaf (percussion, vocals)
– Chiaran Verheyden (guitars)
– Jakob Fiszer (bass)

– Lander de Nyn (drums)

– Sander Rom (guitars, vocals)

The post Review: Hippotraktor – Stasis appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Art rock, trip-hop, alternative folk, dark folk, dark ambient, alternative rock (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Chelsea Wolfe, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Portishead, Björk, Emma Ruth Rundle, Anna von Hausswolff. And some comparisons more specific to this blog: Steven Wilson’s arty/electronic works, Lunatic Soul, later Ulver, The Black Queen, iamthemorning
Country: UK
Release date: February 16th 2024 (Part One); May 17th 2024 (Part Two)

If I have a specific love outside of progressive metal, it’s arty, rocky, electronica-tinged, trip-hoppy… stuff. I don’t know what to call it exactly, it’s more a vibe than a genre, but if you look at the bands in the “recommended” section above then you’ll know the ballpark I’m in; the not-so-mainstream music that forefronts complex instrumentation, emotional sincerity and strange sonic textures. There’s been some good examples as of late, from the new Beth Gibbons and St Vincent albums to Steven Wilson’s foray into electro-prog last year, but what I didn’t expect was that I’d find one of the best groups in this realm repped by Pelagic Records, the label founded by Robin Staps of progressive metal band The Ocean, better known for doom, sludge and post-metal¹.

i Häxa is comprised of vocalist and visual artist Rebecca Need-Menear (one half of alternative rock group Anavae), and instrumentalist and producer Peter Miles (producer for We Are The Ocean and Architects, and co-producer on Tesseract’s latest album), and these two EPs Part One and Part Two form the first half of their audacious audiovisual project. Part One (From the Earth) has been released with an accompanying short film while Part Two (Fire) comes with a live studio performance. A giddy concoction of trip-hop, art pop, folk, and dark ambient flavours form the bulk of this genre-defying brew which relies on exquisite production, hauntingly rich vocals, and an intense dichotomy of tension and release, softness and abrasiveness. Both EPs run to just over fifteen minutes and each feature four tracks that flow together like one long suite. 

Need-Menear’s honeyed voice oozes threat and vulnerability in equal measure, and she modulates exquisitely: on “The Well” (Part Two) she starts out husky, sinuous, and just a little caustic, ultimately crescendoing with a belting, cathartic vocal solo over chaotic strings and ambient layers straight out of Radiohead’s most raucous work—the track also gambles on gradually slowing the feel during the climax, the drums reducing from half time to quarter, etc, while the energy of the vocals and strings increases, which pays off beautifully. A handful of songs—”Inferno” (Part One), “We Three”, and “Fog of War” (both Part Two) feature prominent spoken word pieces, also by Need-Menear, who narrates with a deft feel for rhythm, enunciation, and intensity. On “Inferno”, the ambient textures and pulsating drumwork slowly build to an unbearable maelstorm, trapping her voice in labyrinthine layers of sound, while “Fog of War”, which closes Part Two in hair-raising fashion, ends with some of her best apocalyptic prose: “It didn’t occur to me how helpless we are/walking, organic containers/at the mercy of circumstance/I am too afraid to cry/eyes glued to the hues of my southern hemisphere/ablaze/a borealis of flame”—your move, Yeats. All too often, spoken word in music is ill-conceived and lacklustre, but for i Häxa it’s a vital and chilling component within the overall composition.  

Miles, meanwhile, is the perfect instrumental partner, combining folk-tinged guitar and elegant piano with intense layers of synths and complex trip-hop inspired drum work; an entente between analogue and digital. “Underworld” explodes into a filthy electronica beat reminiscent of Massive Attack’s “Angel” but with an even greater sense of heft and menace; the looping background vocals underlying “Sapling” sit amid gorgeous piano, and ominously percussive ticking with a 3/4 feel, all of which form the perfect bedrock for one of Need-Menear’s most emotive performances; and the two drum lines played in counterpoint on “We Three” confer an unsettling energy. The verses of “Eight Eyes”, meanwhile, unfold in 5/4 with a possible bar of 7/4 here and there², before the polyrhythmic chorus, and on “Inferno” Miles sojourns over the piano in free form, a gentle fluttering beneath growing tension. All these subtleties are nestled within an enormous wall of sound, and yet are distinct within that immense totality, demonstrating Miles’s profound intuition for balancing every sonic element.

As this is an audiovisual experience, it’s worth delving into the accompanying film pieces. Part One’s EP-length music video has fantastic production values, creative costumes, and dynamic camerawork, borrowing from the visual language of folk horror, with Dantean symbols of hell, and themes of death and rebirth. Violently contorting forest spirits paw at Need-Menear who plays the nameless protagonist, and as Miles’ synths intensify under her tortured narration during “Inferno”, we see her trapped in a claustrophobic prison of human flesh, somewhere on the Botticelli to NBC’s Hannibal spectrum. The imagery conjured here is striking: Need-Menear wreathed in red light watching herself cradled in the arms of a forest spirit, breaking free from a fabric amniotic sac, a bewebbed sapling ablaze in a clearing. If a pop artist with millions of dollars and a professional director at their disposal put out this exact film we’d be hailing it as one of the best music videos ever made.

You might think the live in studio video for Part Two would struggle to reach up to the expectations set by Part One’s feature. And while Need-Menear, Miles and company aren’t pushing the limits of cinematic performance art this time, the vibes are impeccable nonetheless, reflecting the more darkly intimate tone of these songs. With the studio draped in bloodred velveteen and a deer skull chandelier looming menacingly overhead, the performance becomes increasingly claustrophobic. By the time spoken word piece “Fog of War” comes to close proceedings, the camera’s flitting around in panicked circles like a trapped moth, tortured screams emanate amid the performers wringing pandemonium from their instruments (this performance goes a little harder than the EP version), and Need-Menear’s knelt down amidst it all intoning dread premonitions from some infernal tome—you’ll find few studio performances that go harder. Both of these visual components add new dimensionality to the music, and prove rewarding and worthwhile companion pieces, little artworks in their own right.

With a Part Three and Part Four of this solstice-guided work set for release by November³, I’m very excited to complete this journey given the excellence of the first two instalments. Suffice to say, that i Häxa is an extraordinarily bold and audacious project of musical and visual artistry, an addictive, arresting and cathartic listen that I’ve had on repeat since discovering it. Everyone involved, both the main duo, the guest musicians, and all those involved in bringing the visuals to life, should be incredibly proud of themselves—kudos to Pelagic Records, too, who continue to impress with their open-minded signings. Existential, intimate, pagan, and utterly sublime, i Häxa looks set to be one of 2024’s strangest and most rewarding musical experiences..

Recommended tracks: Underworld, Sapling; Eight Eyes, The Well (but really I suggest you sit down and take half an hour to watch both video pieces in full)
You may also like: Ophelia Sullivan, Courtney Swain, Dreadnought, Suldusk, Marjana Semkina, White Moth Black Butterfly, Meer, Exploring Birdsong
Final verdict: 9/10

1.  The Ocean’s last album, Holocene, introduced electronica influences to their sound, and Pelagic rep a few other artists who play with trip-hop, drone and electronica, such as Playgrounded, BRUIT≤, and SHRVL, but i Häxa nevertheless rank among their most out-there signings. 
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2.  Counting above four is hard so I might have this wrong. Suffice to say, there’s weird time signatures happening.
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3.  Rest assured I’ll be reviewing those two EPs after they’ve both come out, and to assess the project in its entirety. 
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Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

i Häxa is:
– Rebecca Need-Menear (vocals)
– Peter Miles (instruments, production and mixing)

The post Review: i Häxa – Part One & Part Two appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-Metal, Post-Rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Lost in Kiev, God Is An Astronaut, If These Trees Could Talk
Country: Virginia, United States
Release date: 26 May, 2023

Since joining the blog, I haven’t gotten to write much about post-metal (and especially not in a positive context), which is a damn shame. In the absence of a uniquely standout instrumental post-rock or -metal release in 2023 (or the year prior, to be honest), I can at least take a little time to call attention to this strong EP from the punctuationally challenging band Shy, Low. I hope you’ll forgive my latency in doing so. In comparison to Snake Behind The Sun, their debut with Pelagic Records in 2021, this EP may not be quite so complex in composition and instrumentation, nor so progressive in its presentation, but the quality of musicianship remains undiminished.

Shy, Low fall pretty much exactly into the tonal sweet spot between post-rock and post-metal that I so love, with enough metal substance to their music that you won’t find yourself falling asleep in the first half of a song while waiting for the infamous crescendo to kick in, but also still holding on to that crystalline, echoey quality that exemplifies post-rock. The delicious, crunchy tone of the lower, more metal guitar parts offers a contrast against those light reverberations, surrounding and adorning them with delightfully bristly and fuzzy insulation. In the fusion of those two disciplines, Shy, Low achieve aesthetic harmony, an enticing and entrancing hybrid sound to satisfy the needs for both intensity and reflection. One minor potential criticism is that I can find little to distinguish between the two main tracks, “The Salix” and “Instinctual Estrangement.” Both are excellent, and their uniformity benefits the Babylonica’s cohesive feeling, but I can’t easily tell you what aspects each one excels at or which is the stronger piece. With only three tracks to begin with, the middle one being a much less substantial interlude, this leaves the EP feeling shorter than it is, even if that limited time gets spent efficiently on compelling music.

With post-rock, where emptiness and sparsity are sort of the end goal, it’s all too common for a track’s development to flounder and stagnate while keeping the audience waiting for the ultimate climax to hit. For Shy, Low, this is no issue: they easily sidestep such structural issues and direct the flow of energy within their compositions better than most bands I can think of, with never a dull moment nor a halt in their forward progression. Whether keeping quiet and subtle or bursting out into hefty, driving phrases, their music never stops feeling lively, while likewise not becoming overbearing. Babylonica also falls into that hallowed category of instrumental music that doesn’t just feel like the vocalist missed the studio dates and got left off the record. The equivalent primary melodies have instead been handed out to the lead guitar parts, supported by percussion working overtime to fill the background spaces in ways that are interesting in and of themselves.

Despite the short runtime, Babylonica packs itself with emotive moments, skillfully weaving the bleak yet expressive soundscapes of post-metal into memorable scenes that make the most of their brief time in the spotlight. I admit I felt some small disappointment at the EP not including any of the brass features which made Snake Behind The Sun feel so unique among post-metal albums. I should not have worried, as this follow-up nevertheless upholds Shy, Low’s legacy for expert blending of distinct post-whatever sensibilities into texturally pleasing instrumental music.

Recommended tracks: The ones that aren’t just an inscrutable set of geographic coordinates
You may also like: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster, Catacombe, Molecules to Minds, jeffk
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook | YouTube

Shy, Low is:
– Dylan Partridge (drums)
– Gregg Peterson (guitars)
– Drew Storcks (bass)
– Zak Bryant (guitars)

The post Missed Album Review: Shy, Low – Babylonica appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Sludge Metal, Post-Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, Gojira, Vildhjarta
Review by: Cooper
Country: France
Release date: 24 February, 2023

Ever since I first was hypnotized by the 2016 masterpiece that was Hypno5e’s Shores of the Abstract Line, I have been something of a fanatic for the boundary-pushing Frenchmen. Formed in 2003 by Emmanual Jessua, now the only remaining original member, Hypno5e’s studio outputs tell a story of gradual, ever-upwards progression. After their debut release of Des deux l’une est l’autre in 2007, they found what I would consider to be their core sound on their third release Acid Mist Tomorrow: a mix of post-metal-esque exercises in tension and release, utterly inventive breakdowns that just edge towards djent (perhaps as a result of convergent evolution as opposed to direct inspiration, though), and haunting spoken word samples. After the release of AMT, Hypno5e entered what I would consider to be their golden period with the releases of the already mentioned Shores of the Abstract Line, the acoustic tinged soundtrack of Alba – Les ombres errantes, and my personal favorite album of theirs, A Distant (Dark) Source.

After the release of AD(D)S, though, Hypno5e was shaken by a lineup change that saw the exit of long term bassist Cédric “Gredin” Pages and drummer Théo Begue who had both been with the band through many albums. As a result, Charles Villanueva and Pierre Rettien were taken on, and they now comprise the rhythm section we hear on Sheol, the band’s most recent release. To many the lineup change will be unnoticeable, after all the main creative force behind Hypno5e, vocalist/guitarist Emmanual Jessua, is still doing his thing, but to the more astute the changes are obvious, especially on the drums.

Where Begue was a drummer characterized by his liberal use of double bass drumming that could elevate heavy moments to stratospheric levels of intensity, Rettien seems to have a couple more tricks up his sleeve. The blisteringly heavy and complex moments are still there during the breakdowns of tracks like “Lava from the Sky”, “The Dreamer and his Dream”, and the utterly magnificent title track, but these moments are juxtaposed against things like the wide open drum “solo” during the second half of “Sheol, Pt. II” and the mesmerizing beats that bring home the intro section of “Bone Dust”. At some points, I find myself reminded of marching band drum lines and the fragmented drum fills that can seemingly only be performed by ten or so musicians, yet are performed here by just one man and his drum kit. Sheol, simply put is masterclass in progressive metal drumming.

As for the other elements of Sheol, they are exactly what I have come to expect from Hypno5e. The multitudinous guitar tracks of acoustic and electric variety provide ample texture to both the heavier and lighter moments on this album with “Tauca” especially being a great example of gorgeous acoustic guitar textures despite being a generally weaker track overall. Additionally, as a gear nerd myself, I must commend the ample, yet still subtle, use of guitar effects from the shimmering delay that accentuates the album’s opening guitar lines to the detuned, warped vinyl sound that we hear on the closer’s first part. The vocals, which may be a turn off for some first time listeners due to their unique inflections when clean and their mushiness when harsh, are–at least by Hypno5e standards–solid; Jessua is no songbird, but he brings enough emotion and melodic hooks to get by. The spoken word samples, while much rarer on Sheol than previous releases and often in English as well, always hit their mark, and the orchestral elements, be it the the strings often used in the introductions or the occasional reed instrument such as found on “The Dreamer and His Dream”, are all quite engrossing, especially thanks to their powerful production. In fact, the production in general on this album is quite well done; at several moments over the course of my many listens, I found myself holding my breath as the song was pared down to its core elements before my very ears, each layer removed revealing more complexities that were hidden beneath. I just wish that the dynamic range was larger so that these moments could have been even more poignant.

I said earlier that the story of Hypno5e was one of gradual, ever-upwards progression ultimately culminating in the band’s previous three releases which I have referred to as their golden period. As I have listened to Sheol over the course of this past year, I have considered carefully where I would place it amongst the band’s gleaming back catalog. On one hand it remains true to the core sound established by its predecessors, but on the other–primarily thanks to the addition of new members–it is the freshest Hypno5e album in about ten years. So while I still think A Distant (Dark) Source is their magnum opus, Sheol certainly ranks amongst the other top golden period albums. For fans of Hypno5e there will be moments on this album that you adore, and there may be others which you despise. Ultimately though, it is the next gradual step Hypno5e has taken on their evolutionary journey, and I know that I will keep listening, in wait for whatever they have in store for us next.

Recommended tracks: Sheol, Lava from the Sky
You may also like: Psychonaut, The Salt Pale Collective
Final verdict: 8.5/10

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Hypno5e is:
– Emmanuel Jessua (vocals, guitars)
– Jonathan Maurois (guitars)
– Pierre Rettien (drums)
– Charles Villanueva (bass)

The post Missed Album Review: Hypno5e – Sheol appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Progressive Metal, Metalcore, Technical Groove Metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Meshuggah, Textures, Gojira, Car Bomb
Review by: Christopher
Country: Missouri, USA
Release date: 28 July, 2023

So there’s this band in the metal scene, they’re called Meshuggah—you might’ve heard of them. I cannot stand them. Don’t get me wrong, Meshuggah are incredibly technically impressive; Swiss watch levels of intricacy, a level of ability and meticulousness that borders on awe-inspiring. But nothing bores me more than the monotonous polyrhythmic thunder of a Meshuggah album, the relentless assault of riffs in 69/420 continuing unabated for around sixty whole minutes. I am immovable in the face of Immutable. I feel nothing for Nothing. Koloss? More like colossal piece of [Editor’s note: this bit went on for two more paragraphs so we just cut it out].

Anyway, having already alienated half of our readers, I’m going to take on another technically-minded, Meshuggah influenced band. The fourth album from The Gorge sees the Missourian quartet refreshed after a seven year break, taking their complex brand of progressive metalcore to new extremes. Balancing the instrumental intricacy of Meshuggah with the catchier metalcore of bands like Textures, lead singer and guitarist Phil Ring—who’s based as hell on the grounds that he’s wearing a Steely Dan t-shirt in their Bandcamp photo—lends a hardcore sensibility with his punishing growls, and there’s a soupçon of jazz influence in the mix, too. At a well-paced forty-five minutes, Mechanical Fiction does everything you want from this sort of complexity focused record without overstaying its welcome.

An overfocus on polyrhythms and time signatures can push a band’s sound into the realms of solipsism. Fortunately, The Gorge always centre songwriting, finessing the compositions with some mind-bending rhythms throughout. Some of these are simpler in nature, as on “Beneath the Crust” where an abrupt bar of 3/4 wrongfoots the punky 4/4 riff, others more overtly mathematical, as on “Remnants of Grief” which cycles through a bunch of uncountable (for me) riffs, eventually hitting upon some more melodic veins. Naturally, the MVP on this album is Jerry Mazzuca, whose kit mastery is vital to the intricacy of all these changes in metre and feel, and his contribution has a real sense of personality meaning that Mechanical Fiction has plenty to satisfy both the clockwork brained tech heads and the cavemen who just wanna headbang to phat grooves. 

Like their aforementioned forebears, The Gorge will occasionally overwork a great riff, and the reliance on the low-end does mean that some of the tremolo riffs (“Presence”, “Beneath the Crust”) feel a little too similar to one another, but I’m the heathen that thinks Meshuggah are a soup of sameyness so this is clearly pretty varied for this stripe of prog. Similarly, Ring’s growls, though powerful, are a little monotonous—standard for the genre, but sometimes I want a little injection of variety, of melody. Moments like the chant and lead guitar that close “Beneath the Crust” offer some euphonic relief amid the more oppressive heaviness. 

None of that is to suggest that The Gorge punish the listener with colourless riffage; in fact, they know when to let the compositions breathe. “Earthly Decay” plays with a set of calmer chords, throwing in psychedelic lead lines, and ramping up the intensity to a powerful crescendo to create a compelling experiment in varying an ostensibly simple four-chord phrase; the finale “Wraith” conducts similarly post-metal influenced climactic inquiries. Meanwhile, the sojourning 7/4 tapping rhythm that orients “A Decision Was Made” and the short instrumental title track, which sees the band get their Tosin on with an Animals as Leaders style groove, both have a pleasing sense of melody underlying their complexity. 

I made my biases clear early on and while The Gorge are a little out of my usual reviewing scope, they’ve produced something so interestingly composed and genuinely fresh that I knew I had to help shine a light on it. If I, a simple Devin Townsend-loving melody-seeker, can find a lot to love here, then this should blow the fans of this sound out of the water. Meshuggah fans, I’m sorry for the things I said, but we have more in common than that which divides us, and so I present to you Mechanical Fiction as a peace offering; we can all agree it’s cool as hell.

Recommended tracks: Remnants of Grief, Beneath the Crust, Earthly Decay
You may also like: Hippotraktor, Ahasver, Hypnagone, Polars Collide
Final verdict: 7.5/10

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

The Gorge is:
– Phil Ring (guitars, vocals)
– Joe Bowers (guitars)
– Chris Turnbaugh (bass)
– Jerry Mazzuca (drums)

The post Missed Album: The Gorge – Mechanical Fiction appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-Metal, Post-Hardcore, Sludge (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Conjurer, The Ocean, Skeletonwitch, Ashenspire
Review by: Cooper
Country: Australia
Release date: 7 April, 2023

Historically, “to glean” meant to gather leftover grain after a harvest. It was associated with peasantry and it was most certainly demeaning being allowed by one’s lord to sift through the muck of a field in hopes of finding forgotten sustenance. With The Gleaners, though, Lo! have taken the term and all its connotations and turned them on their head. Within the grim world painted by this album, to be a Gleaner is to be one who seeks the truth, slowly piecing it together despite the muck of modern society.

In order to best convey this message, Lo! have dialed down on the sludge influences found in their previous albums and have instead let their post-metal and post-hardcore influences – with emphasis on “post” – take center stage. It isn’t a complete style change from their previous albums, but the refinement better suits the more focused concept on The Gleaners, especially in moments like the devastatingly heavy breakdowns in “Salting the Earth”, “Rat King”, and the title track as well as the incredibly well done moments of atmosphere on songs like “Kleptoparasite” and “Mammons Horn.” The bass especially makes this combination of styles successful, bringing subterranean growls for the heavier sections and more delicate, rhythmically interesting ideas in the quieter sections. For fans of bands like Conjurer, I wholeheartedly recommend this album.

For more discerning prog metal fans, however, The Gleaners will probably not cut it. For one, it becomes quite repetitive, especially on repeat listens, with multiple songs featuring similar structures and three songs going as far as having nearly the exact same style of lyrical ostinatos. I recognize that this is a concept album and lyrical and musical callbacks should be expected, but due to the lack of sonic variety across songs, the moments of seeming repetition represent a lack of ideas more to me than any sort of careful planning. Additionally, because The Gleaners is such a heavy album released via Pelagic Records, I can’t help but compare it to recent releases from bands like Hypno5e, Psychonaut, and LLNN, and I inevitably find The Gleaners falling short. If there’s one thing, though, that the sophisticated prog fan will enjoy in this album, it’s the lyrics. Very much in the same vein as Ashenspire’s recent Hostile Architecture, The Gleaners weaves a complex narrative of political and social strife entrenched in metaphor and mysticism. It’s an intellectual treat reading along to the lyrics as the album plays.

When I turn off my prog metal brain and embrace the caveman, the heaviness of The Gleaners more than carries its weight, but I am no longer able to appreciate the nuance of the lyrics. It seems as though no matter what mindset I take, I am only ever able to appreciate one aspect of this album at a time. There are moments, like in “Mammons Horn” and the title track, where Lo! replaces their usual low chugging style with more melodic chord work and I find myself more stimulated by the emotional content of the music as opposed to its headiness/heaviness, and these moments are undoubtedly the highpoints of the album for me. I am still able to enjoy the rest of the album, but nothing compares to the emotional resonance achieved at just a few key points on The Gleaners. Still, it’s a good album if only in one way at a time.

Recommended tracks: Rat King, Kleptoparasite, Mammons Horn
You may also like: LLNN
Final verdict: 6/10

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Lo! is:
– Sam Dillon (vocals)
– Carl Whitbread (guitars)
– Adrian Shapiro (bass)
– Adrian Griffin (drums)

The post Review: Lo! – Gleaners appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-Metal, Djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Uneven Structure, The Ocean, Dvne
Review by: Sabrina
Release date: 15 October, 2021

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the “Albums We Missed in 2021” Issue of The Progressive Subway]

I was not expecting an album like Meridian to come out last year. This is a pleasant surprise to me as I am a big fan of the modern Belgium post-metal scene, especially for bands labeled under Pelagic Records. To back this sentiment, I would go as far as to say Phanerozoic II was my 2020 album of the year along with Novena, it is a damn near flawless album. Antithetical to usual post/sludge metal, the general sound that comes out of the Pelagic Records material is usually quite polished, well-mastered progressive post-metal. They focus on accessibility, hence allowing for new fans to get into the genre, which is something I can appreciate. This leads us to Hippotraktor, a band that put two heavy things together in their name to show that they mean business.

Reading more into the band’s members I found out that three of them are also members of the acclaimed underground progressive post-metal band: Psychonaut. To be honest, having this constantly in mind might have inflated my expectations of this album to unrealistic proportions as I am quite often comparing the two. However, Hippotraktor does indeed separate itself from its sister band by honing their songwriting down to many short songs rather than the variety we get on Unfold the God Man. This would ideally make the listener more conscious of the riffs and melodies that the album presents. 

Oh, did I forget to mention that this band is djent? Yeah, they combine elements of their post-metal roots with very modern-sounding, groovy, down-tuned, high gain riffs. This makes for something that has been done before but is a lot rarer than plain progressive post-metal. We get the djenty palm-muted riffs from the rhythm guitar, over the blaring reverb from their sludge influences, this is along with the lead guitar often playing mathy, staccato chords. This makes for a sound that sounds dark, clean, and industrial; kind of like an urban construction site.

The album art does well to drill this point in, that this is an album about complex, intelligent design, and the modern human world. The theme of this is somewhat new for the band as their two other projects Pothamus and Psychonaut were ones that focused a lot more on Zen Buddhism rather than western theism, and on ancient civilizations rather than modern city-scapes. In my opinion, they can do both pretty well and I appreciate the philosophical implications to their work; it might be a bit nicer if some of the hard-hitting lyrics of this were less screamy and more discernable.

The drum performance on this album is really good and the mix does it a lot of justice. There are plenty of moments where all of the instruments synergize together in a vibey groove and the drums wind up being the most standout instrument. That is not to say that the bass and guitars do not do their job, slowly crushing you like a rolling pin on dough. When the heavy djent parts hit, they hit hard. But I will say, the overall riffs on this album are not as interesting as on Unfold the God Man which was maybe something I was looking forward to seeing from the members of Psychonaut. Additionally, I will say that this album is a lot more straightforward than Unfold the God Man as there are not as many really stand-out experimental sections; with the exception of the mathy, staccato breakdown in the middle of “God is in Slumber” which is my favorite part of the album.

Other than being just a bit disappointing to me, this is a very good progressive post album. I would say this is a good primer for a new fan to get into the other Pelagic Records albums. Or for fans of djent that want to get into more sludge and post metal; I think the modern cleanliness and dynamics of this album would appeal a lot to fans of Periphery, even though this is something entirely different. This is really a sound that one doesn’t come across all too often and I would still recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the bands stated above.

Recommended tracks: God is in the Slumber, Mover of Skies
You may also like: Psychonaut, Pull Down the Sun, LLNN, Yakuza
Final Verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | YouTube | Facebook

Hippotraktor is:
– Stefan De Graef (vocals, percussion)
– Sander Rom (vocals, guitar)
– Chiaran Verheyden (guitar)
– Jakob Fiszer (bass)
– Lander De Nyn (drums)

The post Review: Hippotraktor – Meridian appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-metal/Sludge (Instrumental)
Review by: Callum
Country: Belgium
Release date: October 2, 2020

Particularly for underground bands, there is a fine line between having unique peculiarities that separate one from the herd and being gimmicky. Briqueville exhibits three ‘peculiarities’ at least. First, technically this band’s true moniker is B R I Q U E V I L L E, capital letters and spaces included. Aside from being awkward (but thankfully unnecessary) to google, this branding unquestionably catches the eye. Second, they are an anonymous collective of musicians based in Belgium who have so far only been seen live wearing black robes and golden-beaked masks. Using costume and theatrics to preserve anonymity is not an unfamiliar concept, especially in the metal scene (see GWAR, Ghost, Sleep Token, Slipknot etc.). At a live performance, this can be effective in removing the fallible human faces from the band, and allowing the audience to focus solely on the music and atmosphere being generated. Finally, each track on Quelle is titled as an individual ‘Akte’. It’s a direct continuation of their previous two releases in that it begins with “Akte VIII” right where II left off. This method of track labelling encourages the thought that all of these releases combined create a monolithic body of work designed to be listened to chronologically. However, this also creates the risk of tracks losing their identity in the mix, and making it difficult to find and revisit memorable moments.

Peculiarities aside, Quelle is a heavy hitting instrumental record dripping with sludge and doom elements. Out of the gate, “Akte VIII” opens with a dark synthesised drone that extends throughout most of the song before a pounding drum rhythm and a sludgy guitar riff kick in. The following ‘Akte’ continues building a sense of dread with doom-style riffs reminiscent of Electric Wizard without the fuzz, or a slowed down Crack the Skye à la Mastodon. Sound effects also play a large part in creating the uneasy atmosphere, especially notable in “Akte X” the record’s longest track at almost 15 minutes. The first three minutes are dedicated to an uneasy soundscape of inhuman noises that slowly mellow into a singular drone and an ISIS-like groove between drums and guitars. Giving this track plenty of time to breathe was justified, as the inevitable heavy section (at 10 minutes in) feels like it drops in from a significant height. Bonus points are awarded for the impeccable use of a hammered dulcimer.

Similarities to The Ocean are noticeable here and there, particularly in Aktes X, XII, and XIV, which is perhaps not coincidental as Quelle was also released on Pelagic Records. It is worth mentioning that this record is claimed to be the first from the label recorded and released during the current global pandemic. Tracking and mixing for individual instruments was done separately in various home studios. This is a feat in itself, and the record generally sounds very well produced, achieving the towering rises and crushing falls that suit an atmospheric metal album. Unfortunately, there are moments where the production suffers that can be distracting. Transitions from XI to XII, and XII to XIII, for example, sound slightly clumsy. At 3:21 in XIII, the transition to the heavy riff sounds as if the slider for the distorted guitar was pushed just a hair too early. Again in XIII, at 5:30 there is an extremely subtle bump to the volume. I’m nit-picking here, but subtle or not, several of these small irregularities shook me out of the trance that Briqueville otherwise lulls me into.

Recommended tracks: Akte X, Akte XII, Akte XIV
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, ISIS, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook | Twitter

BRIQUEVILLE is:
– Anonymous

The post Review: BRIQUEVILLE – Quelle appeared first on The Progressive Subway.