Style: Dissonant death metal, technical death metal (harsh vocals)
For fans of: Artificial Brain, Ulcerate, Gorguts
Country: California, United States
Release date: 21 March 2025

Dearest Chairman Christopher,

It has once again come to my attention that the Subway’s Division of Psychological Warfare has received its quarterly budget of six pesos. This, as I’m sure you are well aware, is down from last quarter’s nine pesos. You speak of misappropriation of research funds, yet I distinctly recall the commissioning of a statue of Garm in our new headquarters. Which we still have not found.. Furthermore, I find your incessant demand to “not continue research on IQ-dropping dissonant death metal” to be more than insulting. As such, I will be handing this in as a response to the research on 4/4-time signatures and major scales, a treatise on a hive-mind entity called Burning Palace and its byproduct known as Effigy. Please see the tape enclosed and listen to its contents as you read this letter. I give this to you not as a gift, but in hopes that you hate it so much, I can be free of this prison known as The Progressive Subway, and my talents in IQ-dropping phenomena can be appreciated elsewhere.

My co-researcher Andy promptly gave this to me after your vile letter of demands, and mumbled something about how “the British hate dissonant chords”. I must be honest, I don’t know what he says most of the time. After the incident last week, he merely sits and stares at the wall, occasionally making cooing sounds when he hears a nice riff. Fortunately, for both him and me, the most recent transmission on our docket had plenty. Its name: Elegy, and rest assured, you will hate this.

Allow me to explain this phenomenon to your soft, malleable brain. Burning Palace occupies the space of their aural brethren, Artificial Brain, with dashes of influence from the transmitters known as Sunless. This aural oddity has effected our test subjects in similar ways to the mighty Replicant, sending our unwilling participants into a blind, frenzied rage upon listening. Chairman, you do not understand the freedom that comes with hearing a riff like the one that starts ‘Birthing Uncertainty’. The absolute bliss of unlocking that primal state of man is something you and your “pop sensibilities” could never understand. You hear screeching guitar, gurgling and banging drums, but what I hear in this opening song is a knack for song structure.

Burning Palace are akin to Ulcerate in that structure and atmosphere triumph over all in dissodeath. Too often do these bands find themselves tangled in a web of their own minor intervals and tritones, forgetting that sometimes, a headbanging riff solves all. ‘Transversing the Black Arc’ gave our test subjects seven straight minutes of headbanging, arpeggiated riffing and blackened, foggy atmosphere. At approximately four-and-a-half minutes, one test subject burst into flames from the song’s title drop and the godly riff that’s underneath it. The transmission’s blackened atmosphere is on full display here, recalling barren technological hellscapes not unlike what the intern Justin’s office looked like after his first day. Despite the more cerebral nature of the seven-minute opus, Burning Palace proceed with ‘Suspended in Emptiness’ which rid our subjects’ brains of any wrinkles they may have had left. What starts as a jaunty bass riff becomes a rampaging, blast-beat laden verse that evolves into lead work that I’d dare to call catchy and melodic.

There is little fat nor filler to be found on Elegy, with the transmission being a tight forty-four minutes long. The only flaw I can possibly find is the sheer primal aggression of our subjects began to wane at the closing title-track, which may either be from exhaustion or recovery from the four-hit combo prior. ‘Sunken Veil’ is sure to leave you convulsing and bleeding from the eyes with its sprawling, heavy chugs and bass-tapping, so perhaps ‘Elegy’ is there as a means to attempt to recover one’s sanity at the end of this transmission. If you’ve made it that far and not lost your mind, dear Chairman, then perhaps you are stronger than I perceived.

Consider this my letter of emancipation from your clutches and “genre diversity”. You will rue the day you asked me to research anything but the most brutal music possible, and I hope this is a lesson to you and your kin. The Progressive Subway has made itself an arch-nemesis in my name, one who understands the inner complexities of transmission such as Burning Palace. You must understand, though you may hate this immensely, I find it to be a mark of what happens when your IQ drops low enough. You sit and talk of “no more metal”, but I then ask you, what would your world look like without chugs or screams? Think on it, Chairman.

Your slave and enemy,

Head Researcher Zacharius

Recommended tracks: Traversing the Black Arc, Suspended in Emptiness, Awakening Extinction (Eternal Eclipse), Sunken Veil
You may also like: Afterbirth, Wormhole, Replicant, Anachronism
Final verdict: 8/10

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

Label: Violence in the Veins – Bandcamp | Facebook

Burning Palace is:
– Chris Derico (bass)
– James Royston (drums)
– Josh Kerston (guitars, vocals)
– Ian Andrew (guitars, vocals, keyboards)

The post Review: Burning Palace – Elegy appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Aaron Pinto

Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Devin Townsend, Morbid Angel, Yes
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 April, 2025

When Yes released Tales From Topographic Oceans in 1973, it proved that progressive rock could progress no further. With an even more difficult recording process than Close to the Edge, Tales saw Yes try to make lightning strike twice, and became tangled within Anderson and Howe’s grand vision of an entire album full of epics. Problem was, everyone could only hear a four-minute Hammond organ solo so many times before it got stale. The genre had been swallowed up by its own ambition, ever gluttonous to add more runtime and weird instruments to their songs. Once the kings of prog rock fell, it wasn’t long before everyone got with the times and became more accessible, or died off. Tales is ambitious to say the least, and ambition can be a double-edged sword. Without proper balancing, or some central idea to keep things grounded, concepts can very easily spiral out of control. 

Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger is responsible for Obscura’s most ambitious effort. The fifteen-minute ‘Weltseele’ sees the band at by far their most experimental, adding in Eastern influences and a string quintet, closing out the album Akroasis in classic prog style. Now, he makes his triumphant return to the scene almost ten years later with Changeling. The band’s self-titled debut promises all the shredding solos, double-stopped riffs, and batshit insane virtuosity Fountainhead is known for. Realistically, I knew a musician as prolific as he would have no trouble navigating such a massive project (just look at the Bandcamp credits!), but part of me did wonder about an hour-long tech-death album becoming cursed by its own sprawl and ambition. What I didn’t know was that Fountainhead had a secret weapon up his sleeve, one I never thought the fretless guitar shredder would be so keen to exercise on his path to success: restraint.

Allow me to detour for just a moment to let you in on a little secret. Archspire, the band known for writing songs at 400 BPM, exercise excessive restraint. Rhythmically, they write simple riffs and play them inhumanly fast eighty percent of the time, which then allows them to blast off and legato-tap all around the fretboard when the need arises, making it all the more impactful. Conceptually similar, Changeling employs another kind of restraint: letting sections repeat, progress, and evolve patiently, until a track feels epic and monumental. Complexity comes through evolution rather than the incessant sweep-picking and shredding one might expect from such a strong tech-death cast. 

Like an ever-changing alien species, Changeling’s song structure always begins at a larval phase. The simple, four-note guitar riff that starts ‘Instant Results’ is brought back as screams from a woman’s choir during the song’s climactic drop. One highlight of my many listens, ‘World? What World?’ is almost entirely based around the acoustic riff that starts it off. It evolves throughout the song’s runtime, bridging distorted guitars and becoming part of the undergird horn section right before each chorus. Similarly, the masterful, pant-shittingly heavy chorus of ‘Abyss’ follows much of the same structure, adding a higher harmony the second time around, and letting vocalist Morean produce the lowest note of his career on the last. It’s the subtle changes in repeating motifs and ideas that set Changeling apart from its peers. Not only is it great to catch a repeated line upon first listen, but subsequent listens reveal those larval forms each song has grown from. Even ‘Anathema’, in all its seventeen-minute glory, is composed of a mere few sections that are repurposed throughout. As Morean’s shouts of “Forever!” close the track with an increasingly heavy breakdown, I can’t believe the song is as long as it is. The track never plods in one place, and like everything else on the album, it finds a way to make reprisals work and flow without sounding like Fountainhead was running out of ideas.

Despite the massive amount of guest credits on this album, I’d be hard pressed to call it “symphonic”. The orchestral elements are ever-present, but provide more of a textural padding until the last two songs. Instead of being shoved in my face à la Wilderun, they’re low-key and usually underneath the many layers each song holds. This showing of restraint makes the moments the orchestral elements appear all the more special, like when ‘Abdication’ begins more like a Joe Hisashi piece than it does a death metal song. Even the fretless guitar, Fountainhead’s signature, doesn’t take center stage for most of the album. As a composer, he realizes there can be too much of a good thing, and having a wanky, fretless guitar solo on every song would cheapen the effect; the same is true of using symphonic elements with too heavy of a hand. The metal parts themselves can stand just fine without an orchestral backing to make them interesting, with sections like the tribal break in ‘Changeling’ feeling naturally interwoven for the song’s benefit, having been reprised from the song’s choral lines.

Likewise, the songs don’t feel fluffy. At one hour, Changeling is practically devoid of filler, with even the interludes being interesting segues into their following pieces. The four core members alone seemingly provide endless layers to uncover in each track. Arran McSporran (Virvum) is a well-known monster on the fart bass, and even he knows when to stop shredding and follow the rhythms beset by kit-master Mike Heller (ex-Fear Factory, Malignancy). The two execute rhythmic precision in tandem, with Heller backing many of the orchestral sections with jazz-infused beats and McSporran allowing these moments to shine just before yet another tasteful bass solo. The ending of ‘Abyss’ sees the two almost completely drop out, with the drums playing a simple two-note beat as distorted, doom metal guitars take hold and devour. Special mention goes to Morean, with his harshes being the most intelligible I’ve heard since Mikael Åkerfeldt in his prime. I came away from my first listen with so many of his vocal lines stuck firmly in my head, and I was shocked by how many I remembered upon the second. The chorus on ‘Anathema’ has been practically drilled into my brain, only helped by the short reprisal about five minutes in with a backing horn ensemble. This is all wrapped up tightly in Fountainhead’s fantastic production job, with every instrument remaining audible even when the entire band is blasting off at 300 BPM. The distorted guitars cut like a dagger, and McSporran’s bass sits comfortably between them along with Heller’s thunderous, jackhammer drums. 

The one small nitpick I can give is that some of the transitions feel a little strange. ‘Instant Results’ ends on a fadeout just as guest guitarist Jason Goebel (ex-Cynic) is getting jazzy, and the intro to ‘Changeling’ is almost intentionally jarring coming from ‘Metanoia Interlude’. These are, of course, rather small in the grand scheme of how the album plays out. There isn’t a major complaint I can make about Changeling other than the fact that it ends.

Prog, despite everything, seems to still have places to go. Changeling is unlike any of its peers, skirting the obvious Alkaloid and Obscura comparisons by injecting clever, restrained songwriting into its DNA. The first minute of ‘Instant Results’ fools you into thinking this is run-of-the-mill, space-y tech death, and then proceeds to backhand you with forward-thinking compositions for the rest of its runtime. Every moment of Changeling left me wowed by its genuine creativity. Akin to Orgone’s Pleroma, my AOTY of 2024, this feels like an album that took years of blood, sweat, and tears to create. The compositions, like the tendrils of some unknowable Outer God, snake their way through section after section, all while keeping the listeners grounded with grand choruses and reprisals that feel earned. Changeling have avoided the trappings of prog stereotypes every step of the way and come out victorious, paragons of what the genre in its purest form was meant to be. A testament to human innovation and skill, Changeling is the merging of multiple musical worlds to see one unified vision.

Recommended tracks: Instant Results, World? What World?, Falling in Circles, Abyss, Changeling, Anathema, Abdication
You may also like: Obsidious, Afterbirth, Horrendous, Tómárum, Dessiderium, An Abstract Illusion
Final verdict: 9.5/10

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

Seasons of Mist: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Changeling is:
– Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger (guitars, oud, keyboard)
– Mike Heller (Drums)
– Arran McSporran (Fretless bass)

– Morean (Vocals)

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

Art by Erskine Designs

Style: Progressive metal, death metal, black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Insomnium, the usual suspects of prog death
Country: Canada
Release date: 28 March, 2025

To have flaws is to be human. The pursuit of a perfect art is fruitless and always ends in frustration (see Wintersun). Every one of my favorite pieces of art has flaws, whether it be written, recorded, or programmed, and sometimes, especially in the case of the masterwork of cinema that is Kung Pow! Enter The Fist, its flaws elevate. The pursuit of perfection brought on by automation and the proliferation of AI is a futile one that will end with safe, squeaky clean art. No risk means no reward, after all, and starting a progressive death metal band amidst a million others is for sure a risk in and of itself. You either need to be an established name or work your ass off, honing your craft every step of the way to rise above the Bandcamp wastes. Or, you could just be picked up by a blog run by weirdos.

Symbiotic Growth are still children in this field. Their first full length, released in 2020, showcased a trio whose game placed an emphasis on atmosphere. The self-titled LP sounds like its album cover. Ethereal in nature, murky riffs and atmospherics,  a strange, slightly muffled production choice that I can only chalk up to inexperience. However, it showcases a trio with a fair share of talent and ambition, creating sprawling songs that only overstay their welcome by a minute or so. Despite the slightly ridiculous song lengths on their self-titled, it’s a fairly breezy, forty-minute experience. A neat and concise package, serving as their way of elbowing competitors out of the way. But now, five years later, they’ve decided to go wild with it. Beyond the Sleepless Aether exceeds an hour in length, but will Symbiotic Growth crumble under that pressure? 

The good news for Symbiotic Growth is that, mostly, they succeed. Courtesy of producer Tom MacLean (ex-Haken), Beyond sounds much better than its predecessor. The guitars sound fuller and the ever-prominent bass of Aaron Barriault sits nicely in the mix, popping out when it feels the need. The drums sound far less fake and triggered than most prog-death but unfortunately tend to get lost in the mix beneath the layers of guitar when things start getting crazy. That being said, ‘Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights’ paints a lovely sonic palette in the song’s latter half, with the band building on one central progression, adding some blast beats and noodly keyboards.  

Like their undoubted inspirations Opeth and Ne Obliviscaris, Symbiotic Growth structure most of their songs around central progressions, and reprise them when needed. While this helps ground the record, it also means most songs tend to drag on a bit more than they should. The riff that begins ‘Spires of The Boundless Sunset’ stays present for the first minute and a half of the song, and it’s just too simplistic to justify without a changeup. Thankfully, the band takes a note from Tómarúm’s book and begin a black metal-styled ascent soon after, complete with audible bass whines and clean vocals. The record needs more of these changeups, which are used too sparingly. When the same progression comes back after a minute of electronic buildup, I instead wished for a different section to add some variety. Repurposing sections can feel rewarding, especially in epics such as these, but they take up most songs on the album. ‘Painted Skies’ makes sure that riff stays in your head five of its seven-minute runtime, and 

Ironically, my complaints are subverted in the longer songs. ‘The Architects of Annihilation’ shows the band weave through Citadel-era NeO arpeggios and put their own spin on a nasty, Decapitated-like triplet riff. Closer ‘Trading Thoughts for Sleep’ is a welcome contrast, a doomy crawl toward the record’s finish line, sporting an absolutely wicked solo near the end. The song itself feels like the epic journey straight from the minds of the band members, exuding confidence in not only their compositional skills, but a clear vision of what they want a song to sound like. When the sections are reprised, they have enough changeups to make it feel interesting. Though, to detract, the clean vocals are not the greatest, especially on ‘Architects’. I’m unsure which vocalist is on cleans duty, but it sometimes feels like he is limited by trying to go higher than he needs to. His low register feels throaty and flat already, but the higher-ish notes come across as strained and weak, leading to some of the more triumphant moments falling flat.

Beyond the Sleepless Aether is a flawed record, and I’m sure even the band themselves are privy to admit it. Glimmers of brilliance, particularly in the epics and performances, shine through across the record, untouched by occasional patches of off cleans and songs that stick to their guns a little too tightly. As a result, Symbiotic Growth have made a fine record, and one that shows an incredible amount of maturity and growth from their debut. In just a few years, they’ve leveled themselves up a considerable amount, and perhaps the symbiotic relationship between this reviewer and these musicians will help their growth into something special. 

Recommended tracks: The Architects of Annihilation, Trading Thoughts for Sleep
You may also like: Tómarúm , Kardashev, Dessiderium
Final verdict: : 6/10

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

Label: Independent

Symbiotic Growth is:
– Dan Favot (drums)
– Aaron Barriault (guitars, bass.,vocals)
– Devin “Azerate” McQueen (guitars)

The post Review: Symbiotic Growth – Beyond the Sleepless Aether appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Shad Mouais

Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals))
Recommended for fans of: Obscura, Alkaloid, Black Dahlia Murder, Gorod
Country: France
Release date: 4 April, 2025

Watching real life character development before your eyes is always interesting. Artists rarely show their true forms right out of the gate; whatever insanely ambitious project they may have brewing might just not match their current level of talent. It takes years, maybe decades of honing that craft to see a vision like that through. The early works of George R.R Martin don’t even hold a candle to how efficiently his epic A Song of Ice and Fire series is written, nor do the pre-Dickinson Iron Maiden albums have anything on their legendary mid-80s discography run. Gorguts didn’t create their dissodeath empire in a day, and even the mighty Archspire shot out of the gate with a misstep.

Fractal Universe didn’t quite get the memo, and released Engram of Decline, which is to this day, a masterclass in tech-death riffing and song structure. Sure, it’s a bit bloated, and the vocals weren’t quite there yet, but it’s a record full of face-melting riffs, jazzy solos, and just the right amount of sax. The prog influences, breakneck tempo changes, and spacy ambiance cemented Fractal Universe as a band who quickly rose to power in the tech-death pantheon. Then, they dipped further into prog and further away from tech, and any worry I had of them losing identity quickly faded with releases two and three. Rhizomes of Insanity and The Impassable Horizon are somehow even better releases than the debut, showing a band who’ve matured far faster than most. Surely, on the Great Filters, fortune favors this band over the massive amount of tech-death bloat we’ve experienced in recent years?

The Great Filters starts strongly enough, with a signature spidery riff pattern before quickly changing to the clean vocals we’ve come to know and love on their last two releases. But, something’s off—almost immediately. Vince Wilquin’s cleans sound a touch whiny here, and continue to sound that way for the rest of the album. The powerful rasps and delicate, Morean-like (Alkaloid, Noneuclid) vocal patterns have been completely eschewed in favor of something nasal, and they’re not at all pleasant to listen to. The growls are secondary on the whole record, added beforehand to make the soaring, clean chorus on every song feel like it has some semblance of dynamics. There’s a blandness to this record that hasn’t been found on any of the band’s prior releases, complete with the same spacey clean guitar that needs to be used during the clean verses. Every song follows nearly the exact same formula, feeling like better pieces of other Fractal Universe songs shoved where they don’t belong. 

Even the production sounds off, not in the typical, plastic-y way that tech-death normally does. The Great Filters tip-toes between sounding clinically clean and overwhelmingly compressed, with both the softer and heavier sections being lifeless and hollow as a result. There’s an oomph to The Impassable Horizon’s glassy, grunting, audible bass and incredible guitar tones, all while remaining crystal clear in the dynamics. The drums are mixed horribly here, with a nearly inaudible snare and nonexistent kicks meekly driving most of the songs. Not to mention the overuse of sax, which is the only instrument that seems to be mixed correctly. Vince Wilquin’s skills are nothing to scoff at, but having it showcased in almost every song for the sake of padding ruins the gimmick as early as ‘Causality’s Grip,’ and by the time the sax appears on ‘Specific Obsolescence’, I was rolling my eyes and experiencing what can only be described as aural pain from the oppressively generic solo that followed.

‘The Equation of Abundance’ sees the band dip into an almost ballad-like territory, and it reaffirms that The Great Filters’ songwriting is all over the place. Gone are the face-melting riffs and solos, instead replaced with generic, odd-timed chugs. Each song has the standard, massive chorus where the vocals are belted out and the chords are huge, but just like the rest of the record, they feel more like ticks off a playbook than the band actually experimenting with their songwriting chops. There isn’t an ounce of memorability on this record, yet I can still sing the amazing chorus of ‘Flashes of Potentialities’ from Rhizomes, because that record didn’t write the same song nine times.

I can’t be the slightest bit forgiving, because this isn’t some no-name band. This is a band that is near and dear to my heart, and I’ve just watched them miss the pool and dive headfirst into concrete. As I write this, the outro of ‘A New Cycle’ plays, offering a reprisal of the intro chugs and lead-line. Instead of feeling that my soul has ascended and my palette sated, I can only feel that I’ve looked upon something empty. This serves as a shining example of playing to a formula, and forgetting what made the band so outlandish and unusual in the first place. Instead of progressing, everything here is regressing, back to the very antithesis of what a genre like progressive death metal is all about. I guess regression is a type of character development too, right? 

Recommended tracks: The Void Above
You may also like: Carnosus, Synaptic, Retromorphosis
Final verdict: 4/10

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

Label: M-Theory Audio – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Fractal Universe is:
– Vince Wilquin (vocals, guitar, saxiphone)
– Valentin Pelletier (bass)
– Clement Denys (drums)

– Yohan Dully (guitar)

The post Review: Fractal Universe – The Great Filters appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Ai-lan Metzger

Style: Symphonic death metal, progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Fleshgod Apocalypse, Gorgon, Haggard, Septicflesh
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 14 March, 2025

My girlfriend and I, as two creative people, are in staunch agreement on why most creatives don’t make it. Hell, it can even be extended to a reason why most people don’t make it: self-reflection. Creating and releasing a piece of music is bearing a piece of your soul to the world, and in the age of the internet, it’s swimming along with all ten-trillion other minnows in the same pond. The internet is ruthless when it comes to criticism, and it can drive a lot of artists to feel that their work isn’t the problem, but themselves. How could you not? To have something you’ve worked so hard on be torn to shreds can’t be easy, hence why if I find a band with actual talent, I express disappointment rather than disgust.

I’ve rarely thought of the symphonic swirls and meat-headed riffing of Kerberos. My review of their incredibly mediocre debut, Of Dismay and Mayhem, wasn’t one I’m especially proud of, nor did the album provide a very memorable experience overall. But like every mildly talented band who make mediocre albums, I give them a challenge at the end of my review. I expected more from Kerberos, especially with an actual choir and obvious classical composition experience under their belt. So, like the arbiter of music that I am, I threw my mediocre score in their faces, looked down from my throne with an expression of mild pity, and asked them to try harder. Never did I expect them to actually follow up with an improvement.  

Kerberos took that Dismay review personally. Not by sending us piles of hate mail or threatening to blow up our secret underwater headquarters, but by possibly not paying attention to my review at all, and getting their asses to work. I’m going to give praise where praise is due, with the first bit of it focused on clean vocalist Ai-lan Metzger. I was incredibly critical of her cleans on Of Dismay and Mayhem, and rightfully so. Hearing her operatically harmonize with harsh vocals in ‘Near-Violence Experience’ made me do a double take. Instead of crashing into the song as she did last time around, she gracefully weaves her way through string-quartet accented riffs. The contrast between seventh string chugs, vocal acrobatics between her and bassist/guitarist Felicien Burkhard, and all the grandeur that their debut was missing was enough to make me sit my ass down and hear Kerberos out for the rest of this unfortunately brief EP.

Apostle is a mere 25 minutes long, half the length of its predecessor and all the better for it. It’s much better to be left wanting more than wanting the record to be over. With only two songs over 5  minutes, the EP blows past in a flurry of furious riffing and graceful symphonics. There’s less “paint-by-numbers” songwriting than there was on the debut, and by making things a bit more adventurous and prog-leaning this time around, it helps the case that Kerberos have genuinely improved as a band. The neoclassical elements, like in intro track ‘Praeludium in H Moli’, speak volumes in the band’s newfound sense of identity. The band as a whole seem more confident, having a clear vision of what they want the album to sound like, rather than trying to jam symphonic elements where they shouldn’t be.

‘Alpine Sea’ adds an even larger layer of neoclassical elements. Beginning with thundering drums over recorder and strings, the band brings in their “Kerberos Choir”, conducted by Burkhard himself. Once again, the contrast between Metzger’s far-improved cleans and all-male choir accents makes this band unrecognizable from their debut. It’s not just the vocals that are improved this time around either. Burkhard’s wizardry with a fretless bass is on full display here, heard with the insane, Obscura-esque shredding on ‘Near-Violence Experience’, but he knows when to let the rest of the band speak for themselves. He adds a slight Chuck Schuldiner spin to his performance.

 There are a lot of layers on Apostle to the Malevolent, and while I love to see them all on full display, there’s still one major roadblock Kerberos continues to face on their musical journey: the production. The mastering of this record is lacking, though there are improvements from the debut. I’m kind of shocked that this is the same producer behind Virvum’s Illuminance, as that’s one of the few tech-death albums that averts the plastic-y, overproduced sound commonly found in the genre. The drums and guitar are way too thin, and when the band get their dramatics going, they tend to get lost within the busy mix. The guitar tone is muddy, and only tends to clear up when the whole band is present. However, I’ll give credit where credit’s due—the bass is ever-present, and I can hear Burkhard’s noodling most of the time.

Productional quibbles aside, Kerberos‘ improvement on Apostle to the Malevolent is not something I expected on my 2025 bingo card, but it’s certainly a welcome inclusion. Through a contrast in vocal acrobatics and riffage along with a tasteful layering of virtuosic performances, the band has taken several measures to improve their sound. Though the production is still a little rough to the point of detriment and Apostle is too short to really sink into its ideas, Kerberos‘ new direction has me eager to see how they expand on and evolve their new-and-improved sound.

Recommended tracks: Near-Violence Experience, Alpine Sea
You may also like: Sentire
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Independent

Kerberos is:
– Felicien Burkard (Guitars, bass, vocals)
– Nicolas Kaser (Drums)
– Ai-lan Metzger (Vocals)

– Diego Lanzendorfer (Guitars)

The post Review: Kerberos – Apostle to the Malevolent appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

No artist credited

Style: darkwave, singer-songwriter (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oceans of Slumber, Dead Can Dance
Country: Texas, United States
Release date: 21 February, 2025

With each release, Oceans of Slumber continue to be possibly the most frustrating band in all of the prog sphere for me. On paper, their sound should be incredible, and every member of the band has more than enough talent to make masterpieces, Between ever-shifting genre conventions, production that toes the line between mediocre and outright bad, and albums that are far too long for their own good, I just can’t seem to make them stick. They have moments of fleeting brilliance, like ‘Decay of Disregard’ from 2020’s The Banished Heart and the title track of Where Gods Fear To Speak, where I feel an incredible band just waiting to poke through. This all being said, why do I have such a fixation and frustration with them in particular? There are plenty of middling prog bands I could furrow my brow at, so why them?

The reason is Cammie Beverly has a voice that can reduce even the manliest of metal dudes to tears. She is, indisputably—and even with the reputation OoS holds in my book—one of my favorite clean vocalists in the entire scene. She adds a soulfulness that I don’t often find in prog cleans, and her band knows that well. The Banished Heart continues to be my favorite effort due to the sheer number of songs that let Cammie shine, combined with the band’s most varied and creative song selection, even if the album is overly long.

Since I’m trying to expand my horizons a bit (see, I’m not reviewing prog death!), I figured this would be the perfect album to sink my teeth into. At a measly twenty-eight minutes, House of Grief is dwarfed by even the shortest OoS album, and to me, that’s a big plus in its favor. Another positive is every song is chock full of the siren-like croons and soulful musings Cammie Beverly is known for. I can’t knock the vocals on this album, even if I tried my very hardest to find a flaw, but House of Grief suffers from the exact same problem as every Oceans of Slumber album.

Take the album’s title track and opener for example: a very pretty song in its own right, yet completely propped up by a vocal powerhouse to a fault. A melancholic piano and simple drum beat drive the song, save for the strings near the middle, but it all floats around in limbo, and before I know it, most songs are over before I feel they’ve started. ‘For the Sake of Being’ dashes this fault for most of its four-minute runtime, the track arguably the album’s standout, with an electronic drone and string plucking eliciting as much Dead Can Dance as it does a calmer Massive Attack. However, the building crescendo towards the song’s back half builds to nothing, leaving me feeling as though this was a repurposed OoS clean section.

This album has no through line, just like every OoS album. All twenty-eight minutes of this album glide by, with varying standout moments in between, but nothing holds it all together. A collection of incredibly pretty songs, melancholic atmosphere, all riding on Beverly’s vocal talent and that alone. The choral refrains of ‘House of Grief’ and ‘Paraffin’ sound undeniably similar, with the latter adding a bit more dramatic flair; but by the time I’ve reached that point, I’ve already found that the album lacked the variance or creativity that make certain Oceans of Slumber songs click.

‘Another Room’ is yet another standout, mixing up the tempo near the beginning before letting Cammie unleash the bluesy wails that every fan of hers loves. But it falls right back into the same beginning section right after, making the entire song feel half-baked and unfinished, especially given the short runtime. There’s nothing that makes me want to come back to this album, which would be less frustrating if this were someone with a fraction of the talent, but Beverly could command so much more attention. I find the standout moments fleeting between even more moments of sullen plodding, which I shouldn’t be saying about the driving force of an incredibly popular and well-respected prog band.

Like I’ve said this entire review, I can only walk away from this with a sigh of disappointment. I was hoping that Cammie Beverly had a project I could hold up high in the musical archives of my brain. Her voice continues to be one of the best in the scene—and continues to be wasted on albums that have little to no overall vision. A clear display of vocal talent, which is basically her on every Oceans album, isn’t enough to win me over. Without anything else to truly talk about, this record feels mostly empty to me. 28-minutes of music that floats along without much of a highlight anywhere to be found. With the sheer weight of Beverly’s voice, and her many, many years composing music, all I can remain is indifferent to this album. 

Recommended tracks: For the Sake of Being, Paraffin, Another Room
You may also like: Marjana Semkina, Ophelia Sullivan, Exploring Birdsong
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Cammie Beverly is:
– Cammie Beverly (everything)

The post Review: Cammie Beverly – House of Grief appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

It’s worth noting that this was more conversational than the interviews we’ve done in the past. As such, I will do my very best to translate our conversation into questions and answers. If anything gets lost in translation, Alex has my email to send hate mail to.

Hey Alex! Keys to the Palace comes out next week. How are you feeling on the record’s release?

Good, man! It’s kinda trippy, like the music is quite old. I wrote this stuff when I first moved to Arizona, which was ten years ago. So, the fact that it’s coming out now is kinda relieving, I’d say.

I’m sure it is. How’d you know what to keep rolling with these past ten years?

With these songs specifically? I would say it’s the first material where it feels like I’m offering something unique. Everything before this album, when I was writing in high school, was much more…just any band I was in love with at the time. The stuff I write would sound like them. With Keys to the Palace, I felt like I was stumbling upon something original sounding. I never doubted that it was going to come out one day. Initially, I’d planned for it to come out before Aria, before Shadow Burn was even a thing. You know? Life just happens and things change. When I finished Aria I said, “OK, time to finally record this album.” I’m always writing music all the time. So, if I love something, I always plan on releasing it. There are songs that are just as old that I want to put on an album one day. Not so much cutting stuff, just preserving it and waiting until the time is right.

I’ve had Keys to the Palace for a few months now, the day ‘Dover Hendrix’ came out, and I was taken aback at how different it sounded. It had a completely different sound to Aria and Shadow Burn, and a lot cheerier. I remember you saying something about “summertime metal” or something like that—

Summertime soul metal.

Yeah! Why the sudden change?

It’s funny to talk about, with the music being older than both the last two releases. So, I just have to think about what I was listening to at the time. I was coming off a two-year binge of everything Devin Townsend. Strapping Young Lad and all of his solo stuff I was obsessed with. Really, the only other artist I’ve been like that with is Opeth, which is more in Aria. I never got too into the instrumental djent thing, but I remember being in love with a project called Chimp Spanner. I liked Cloudkicker at the time, Animals as Leaders, Joy of Motion came out and just blew my mind. It was a lot of the stuff that was a little bit brighter sounding stuff I was listening to. I was also channeling a lot of my older melodeath influences, Children of Bodom, Wintersun and Ensiferum. It’s kind of a mix of all that more triumphant sound.

The first thing I noticed was Keys is more maximalist than Aria and Shadow Burn, to the point where I was almost waiting for those slower sections to kick in. While the songs do have those, I feel that everything is firing off at all cylinders.

More explosive.

Way more explosive! I find the Strapping Young Lad comparisons interesting, because while this record is cheery, I find that it’s got a lot of your heaviest riffing.

Yeah! Groove wise and everything, it’s less of the last two albums, which was embracing my love of black metal, shoegaze and creating a schmear of sound. This one’s more riffy. More of a riff-fest, I think.

How’d you balance those heavy riffs and cheery atmosphere?

I guess that’s where Devin Townsned’s always been such a huge influence on me. His sense of harmony isn’t what you typically associate with death metal, at all. He always says he feels like Enya mixed with metal, and I’ve always been inspired by that. Ultimately, I don’t relate much to evil sounding metal harmony. I like some of it, but the first thing I loved about death metal, and hearing ‘Hammer Smashed Face’ for the first time was the rhythms. Just how heavy it is, the parts that make you want to windmill. I love that aspect of metal but when I’m talking harmony, I’m inspired by stuff that doesn’t have to do with metal at all. It’s just marrying the two together.

What about non-metal influences on Dessiderium?

Video game soundtracks. I could never say that enough, always a huge influence. Legend of Zelda soundtrack, Final Fantasy, Xenogears, all this stuff.

I hear a lot of Nobuo Uematsu.

Yeah, I love a lot of his soundtracks, all of it’s huge. I love a lot of soul and R&B type music; I’m not like a collector of albums but all the Spotify playlists I listen to are all that stuff. I’m very into rich harmonies that come from that whole world. More romantic sounding stuff, really.

Shadow Burn and Aria are very much channeling that evil sound. I guess that style of songwriting lends itself to a build-up and release approach, but there’s not much of that on Keys to the Palace. There’s a whole lot of “go”. Did those soul and R&B rhythm influences bleed into the riff-writing process?

I’d say more so that style influences the sense of harmonies and chord progressions that I build. The vocal harmonies, and that kind of thing. There’s way more clean singing on this album, and it comes from the fact that I love singing along to that kind of music in my car, and I wanted to do more of that. I felt like this music called for more singing in general, because it’s not as sinister sounding. I like harsh vocals, but there’s a lot more room to be creative with singing for this album.

One of the big things I noticed was that your clean vocals seem to be projected a lot more on this album, as opposed to those last two where they sort of blend into the background. Even the production sounds less murky, hazy, black metal-y. Was that you sort of stumbling around trying to figure something new out?

That’s a good question! I’m not going to say the production was against my will, because that’s not the case. I’m kind of a noob when it comes to audio production. The guy who mixed and mastered it, Mendel, did the last two albums, and I’ve learned to trust his process and what he pictures for it. When he sent the first mix, though, it felt too “in my face” in a way. I’m used to having the singing more blended, but when I showed a bunch of friends they said the style of singing calls for it to be in front of the mix. That’s taken me a lot to get used to, because I’m not that confident of a singer. I sometimes think it could’ve been more blended at times, but overall I’m happy that it’s a different sound, rather than just repeating what we did with the last two.

You still used Brody Smith as a drum programmer. I’m not sure if you write the drums and send them to him, or if he writes and programs them for you.

I have ideas of how I want the drums to sound. So, I send him a rough track, and then he goes crazy with it, and I tell him what I want to keep or what he can go farther with.

So, why programmed drums?

The project is such a “bedroom project”, I haven’t had many opportunities to take it on the road. There’s not a lot of return financially for it, so I value the fact that we can do something budget-friendly. Honestly, I hate giving this as an excuse, but a lot of bands will just resample their drums, even when they do perform them live in the studio. So, to have that option to work with someone like Brody who can make it sound as if—he confuses a lot of people, a lot of people don’t even think they’re programmed.

I didn’t know. I had no idea initially.

That’s a luxury of today’s tech that I take advantage of. For the next album, we’re talking about him playing live drums. Because there’s something special about that too, of course. It’s just been convenience, really.

Despite you saying that it’s a bedroom project, you now have a live band. How was that whole process of figuring out these humongous songs live?

I had to find people who I knew could play them! Everything we’ve done has been with a different drummer. Jay, who plays bass, was going to fill in for Arkaik, but that never happened. I knew he was an amazing bass player, so I remembered him. I discovered his brother, Ben, from Instagram. I was like, “Dude, is that your brother? He shreds really hard!” The guy who I share harsh vocals with, his name is Cameron, and him and I have been doing a project for ten years now called Nullingroots, and he’s had a project called Light Dweller. He’s really showcasing how crazy of a vocalist he is.

You’ve got Nullingroots, Arkaik, and a ton of other projects. Did any of those outside influences bleed into the album in a way?

No, just because I’ve been doing Dessiderium for so much longer. That’s my heart and soul, and with Arkaik and Nullingroots it’s been joining a band and trying to fit my way into that sound. I’m playing in Atheist now, too, so that’s got a whole legacy behind it that I’m trying to fit into. But Dessiderium is me in my most musical, pure form.

You’ve been talking about re-releasing your debut album, Life was a Blur for a while now. Tell me about that.

Yeah, I hate how that album sounds. It’s a constant reminder that I didn’t know what I was doing back then, but I still like the music. It’s not music I’d write anymore, but I have a lot of nostalgia with those songs. I just want them to exist where people can actually enjoy listening to them, because the music’s pretty cool. I started that back when COVID hit and quarantine was happening, and I thought it’d be a nice little project, but then I started writing Shadow Burn and that took all my energy. It’s almost done! I just need to redo vocals for it, maybe have Brody redo the drums. There’s just so much other stuff happening that it’s easy to put on the backburner. I do plan on releasing it one day.

Not sure if you know them, Lykathea Aflame?

Yeah!

They’re one of the only death metal bands I’ve heard that use major scale riffing, and one of the things I noted in my review of Aria was there was a lot of major scale stuff in that album. There’s even more in Keys. Can you talk a little bit about going against the conventional metal riff-writing vein and how that fits into writing death metal songs?

Keys to the Palace is almost entirely in major key, the entire time. I think that major key has a stereotype of sounding happy, and I think that’s an insult because harmony’s way more complex than that! To me, writing emotional stuff in a major key creates that bittersweet feeling, which is my favorite feeling to capture in music. You can do that in minor, of course, but I feel that harmony in major key is really beautiful. Especially practicing some dissonance in that too. It’s that weird distortion of happy feelings that I’m attracted to.

There’s a lot of dissonance on Keys, and I really don’t understand how you make major key sound so heavy, but I guess that’s just the magic of it.

It’s not something I’ve thought too much about. I have my metal influences, and they can come through rhythmically and groove-wise, and dissonance wise even. But you apply that to a major key and it’s got a foreign feel for metal music.

You’ve been very outspoken about Opeth, and how much you love them. There’s a lot of Opeth influence on the older music, but there’s basically none on the new album. It seems that you, more or less, took the reins and went in blind. A lot of the prog-death stuff takes Opeth as the holy grail for a reason, but aside from the song lengths, I didn’t find Keys to sound like Opeth at all. What changed in the formula to make it sound a little less Opeth?

I have to remember, I’m writing a lot of this stuff back in 2014. Wintersun, one of my favorite bands, had just put out Time I. I think it came out in 2012? Hearing the three songs on that album, these massive epic songs. Especially track two, ‘Suns of Winter and Stars’, just like an epic multi-movement song. Still riffs super hard, without being in the Opeth way of repeating a chord progression for a while—which I love—but that inspired me and compounded with my love for old prog rock. That can be very riffy as well, but hearing those power metal riffs in the context of these almost fifteen minute songs…I think I’d be lying if I said that album wasn’t a part of my DNA when writing Keys.

It’s been fifteen years since you started Dessiderium. What has changed as far as going from that first demo tape you released—that I had to scour the internet for—

Is it there somewhere?

It’s on Youtube, if you wanna go find it.

No thanks.

How has the music evolved since that first demo and full-length to now?

When that demo came out, I actually had a live lineup at the time. I was obsessed with the idea of making a band out of it, touring, doing all the band things. It never really panned out the way I wanted it to. Also, a huge thing is I finally finished the first album, and I saw a few people commenting on it, even people who like it said I needed to find a mixing engineer. Suddenly, I went “Oh my god, I’m hearing it with their ears”, and I was disappointed by how it came out. It was right when I finished high school and I was going to university right after, so I stepped away from music for a little bit. I tuned in to other things in life. I was such a hermit with music in high school, and I missed a lot of experiences. So, I was trying to make up for that in college. But I ended up writing a shit-ton of music all throughout college. When I finished, I had to get back into it. Joining Arkaik also thrust me back into it, playing music, and learning from how those guys recorded, I applied it to my own music and made a good sounding album.

With the music evolving, there’s also been more symphonics added each album. There’s layers of MIDI instrumentals going on in the album, despite a real piano being used on ‘Dover Hendrix’ and ‘Pollen ForThe Bees’. Is this tapping into the video game OST influence, or is it merely for cost and time efficiency? 

Yeah, you nailed it. Both of those things are true. I would really like to get into making orchestrations, because you can make them sound real. Some of the future stuff I’m working on is going to dip into that. Doing four or five albums with the same kind of MIDI sounds is getting a little…I don’t want to say stale, but predictable. I’ve always leaned into the fact that it sounds more video game-like if I use the MIDI instruments, and if I don’t mess with them that much. I just let a fake synth sound like a fake synth, or the strings sound super not realistic. Not like Septicflesh where it sounds like a huge orchestra, kind of lean into that cheaper, fake sound.

What other video game composers can you say influenced you on the album?

I always have to shout out Stewart Copeland for his Spyro soundtrack. That’s so huge for me, specifically the level Lofty Castle. The music in that level is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. Just really whimsical piano melodies, where all the intervals are spread apart, and it’s one of those things that I think about all the time. Especially when I program piano parts.

Are you drawn to a lot of these composers because of the more maximalist approach of how the Japanese composers tend to write their music?

Yeah, yeah. As opposed to the dungeon synth-y stuff. JRPGs feel very inspired by old prog rock, with those beautiful, magical flute melodies over string movements. I’m addicted to the formula, and I think they’re unmatched in terms of how well they match the atmosphere of whatever part of the game you’re at. That whole relationship of music and listening to these soundtracks while I’m not playing the game, I feel like I’m part of the world, and that’s the beautiful, escapist part of music to me. Those composers do that the best for me.

You have a lot more of a poetic approach to lyrical writing. It seems like it’s less standard metal lyric writing, and it almost feels like something that you’ve written in stream of consciousness and you stick it in songs where you think it fits. What about literary influences?

I’m way more inspired by that than a lot of other bands. There’s been certain big books for me…Vladimir Nabokov is one of my favorite writers, so his style I feel like I straight up copied for a while. Very inspired by his writing. Even guys like David Foster Wallace, that brutally transparent kind of writing. Whatever I’m reading at the time that I’m touched by has found a way into my writing style. I’ve also always been into writing, I like journaling. I’m more into a transparent, vulnerable kind of writing style. To me, I can’t write like a sci-fi thing, because I don’t see the point of doing it. It’s typically when I’m down in the dumps that I write well, because momentarily I don’t care about people reading it and can just be real. It’s funny that you said stream of consciousness, because I have vocal patterns in mind that I get really attached to, so it’s like filling in the blanks. Oftentimes, I’ll keep cutting it down until I can fit the vocal patterns.

Do you ever find great ideas for a lyric while you’re journaling?

Uh, no, not really. If I’m like, in my feels and listening to a song I made, I’ll just get the urge to put pen to paper and see if something comes out that adequately represents what the song is making me feel.

You worked with Adam Burke for the past two albums now, and this was the first commissioned piece from him. Tell me about the process.

For Aria, he already had the piece done. I saw it, and I was just like, “That’s the front cover, that’s perfect”. I bought that one, but with this one, I wanted the art to resemble a park I grew up near called Dover Hendrix. It’s kind of like a big symbol for the album. I sent him a picture that I took and he recreated it. I wanted the sewage gate tunnel, instead of being a sewage gate, to be a portal into the future. A different world. It’s about the sunny area that’s completely based off that park.

Like Aria, this is a concept album, and you seem to be very explicit in mentioning Dover Hendrix. This seems to have a recurring theme of childhood and a more hopeful or uplifting message than Aria does. I’m not the greatest at analyzing lyrical concepts, so could you tell me a little about the concept?

Initially, when I was writing it, those ten years ago when I was new to Arizona, the first song I wrote was ‘Dover Hendrix’. That song just conjured up so many nostalgic feelings for me, and it was the first time I lived in a new place away from where I grew up. I was writing all the music as a tribute to all the happy memories I had during childhood. I had a very fortunate childhood, I almost view it as a heaven on earth thing, a time of serenity. But now that I’m finally doing the album closer to age thirty, it felt weird talking about childhood, I’m a little far removed from that. It became this concept where it’s like the child self and the adult self meet, and the adult self relearns the value of life from his child self, but also the child self gets to peer into the future and get that first sense of anxiety. Dark things to come. That tension between the two.

I feel that the album’s central message is along the lines of “it’s going to be a struggle, but it’ll all be ok in the end”.

Yeah, I’d say the album ends on a neutral note. The end of the last song gets pretty dark, and musically it’s pretty bright, but the last line is “What did you do to me?”, which is supposed to be the child self asking the adult self how things went wrong. There’s no clear victory, it’s just “OK that’s what we talked about for this album and now it’s done”. Just acceptance of everything.

Lighting round! Any favorite smaller bands that you want to shout out?

Oh, man. I’d have to think. A few of them aren’t even active anymore, I think. One of them is a band called Bal-Sagoth. They haven’t been active for a while, but I listen to them all the time! I discovered them back in 2018-2019. If you’re into fantasy metal, power metal, melodeath, check them out. Best use of keyboards I’ve ever heard. Another band called Lunar Aurora, another band I’ve spent so much time with that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I think they disbanded too. There’s gonna be a million others that I’m gonna remember and be upset I didn’t shout them out.

Favorite Final Fantasy game and character?

Favorite game is FF7, I know it’s a generic answer. It’s the first one I played, and I got into JRPGs kinda late. All those games were really overwhelming when I was six or seven, with all the reading. They’re huge! Towards the end of high school, I revisited my collection and that’s when I got into them. Favorite character? The knight from FF9, the big dude, Steiner. He just cracks me up. But also, Aerith from 7, powerful storyline.

If you could be transported into one fictional world, where would it be and why?

Oh, dude, damn. The obvious one would be Lofty Castle from Spyro 2. It’s responsible for the reason I love the color pink. The skies are all this beautiful pink. That whole world, Dreamweavers, from Spyro 1, that’s been a magical place for me for a long time. Any others would probably be from Zelda. Maybe Lake Hylia from Twilight Princess or the Fields of Hyrule.

What are some of the albums that have been on heavy rotation for you recently?

I’ve been slacking on music recently, if I’m being honest. I’ve listened to Time II a ton. I bought the whole package because I’m a die hard nerd for that band, and I’ve been listening to the battle album, I think that’s what it’s called? [Fantasy Metal Project by Jari Mäenpää] It feels like where Ensiferum left off. The new Opeth album, I’ve been listening to that. I’m not in love with it, but it’s some of the best stuff I’ve heard from them in years. Classical, post-romantic stuff. Arnold Schoenberg. Not a whole lot of albums.

My thanks to Alex for his time and taking part in this interview. Keys to the Palace drops March 14th on Willowtip Records, and you can go read the review now! I, and everyone else at the Subway, wish him a very happy release day and thank him for the amazing music he’s put out!

Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | | Metal-Archives Page

The post Interview: Alex Haddad (Dessiderium) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Adam Burke

Style: Progressive death metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium, Disillusion, Kardashev, Wintersun, Wilderun
Country: Arizona, United States
Release date: 14 March 2025

“Hope is a stupid concept” – Andy, 2025

Dune, by Frank Herbert, is in my humble opinion, the greatest book ever written. A story of a young boy turned chosen one messiah is played so painfully realistic that Herbert then had to write a whole sequel book for those who missed the arguably blatant point. Hope is dangerous, and do not put blind faith in those who sell it to you. It’s what makes Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation all the more perfect, complete with people who, again, clearly missed the point. In an age of unparalleled growth for all forms of media, the art of catharsis has been lost in the doldrums of “content”. Dune puts characters through the wringer, and by the end, Paul Atreides is not the character you started with, having lost all that made him human in the pursuit of revenge. Paul, like the audience, wants catharsis.

Dune is not a happy story, and like all good science fiction, serves as a warning. It should make you upset, despite an incredibly satisfying endpoint. Dessiderium—and by extension, its one-man member Alex Haddad—is no stranger to the concept of catharsis, being as familiar as he is with literary devices. The one man project, despite the usual symphonic/prog-death flair, has become an outlet for Haddad to write music set to poetry and poetry set to huge riffs. Sounding as pretentious as I am, Dessiderium tends to be a lot more literary than other bands of the same nature. This material is a reflection of Haddad’s ten-year journey, with a lot of it written far prior to masterpieces Shadow Burn and Aria. Hence why I’m going to be treating Keys to the Palace as a third part in his (possibly unintentional) thematic trilogy.

The aforementioned two, the latter of which became my AOTY in 2021, are bleak albums. The former is conceptually about flirting with suicide and seemingly unimaginable despair, while Aria is the story of a man who retreats into his dreams to escape the real world. While Aria ends on the protagonist’s self-reflection of all he has become, his implied mental state seems to be less than functional. Haddad has been candid that these albums were inspired by life events, and Keys to the Palace is now a reflection of how he sees the world in his current state. I think this context, and listening to the past two albums, not only enhances the experience of listening to Keys but is essential to grasping the full concept.

The word I’d use to describe this album is frolic, which is just as odd as it sounds for an album in the prog-death subgenre. Aria was incredibly unique with its use of the major scale riffing to conceptually convey fleeting happiness, but almost all of Keys is in major. From the first chugging notes of ‘In the Midst of May’, and even between Haddad’s vicious growls, there’s a conceptual optimism to the record that hasn’t been found on Dessiderium prior. Speaking of Haddad’s vocals, his cleans are much more forward this time around, having been purposefully drenched in reverb and murk on the last albums. He projects his triumphant cleans with the album’s first bit of explosive, sing-songy nature after its first blast beat. I’ll be completely honest and say some of the changes outright baffled me upon first listen. The black metal sections that made Shadow Burn and Aria special are all but eschewed, as well as the distinctly Opethian songwriting. Instead, Keys sounds distinctly like Yes as much as it does Wintersun in the way it flourishes, with every song firing at all cylinders and never stopping to take a breather.

This makes Keys an overwhelming first, second, and thirteenth listen. The atmospheric tricks and undeniably perfect pacing of Aria are what made the album special to me, but little did I know Keys is very intentional with its nature. The album, at its core, is about childhood whimsy. Alex Haddad, now a big adult with big adult responsibilities, reminisces on the times when the world seemed a little less scary. He—in this case, the narrator—meets his adult self, who shows him a vision of the future. The very last line of the album, “What have you done to me?”, is the child narrator responding in abject horror at the world he’s been shown. Keys to the Palace is not as overly joyous and frolicking as it first appears—it’s still a Dessiderium album, after all. However, Alex Haddad has had a cathartic moment, scattering dissonance within major scale riffing, symbolizing his union of fond childhood memories with facing his future head-on. Even the very first notes of the album are a dissonant cacophony of MIDI instruments, hinting of the messaging to come.

‘Pollen for the Bees’, quite possibly my favorite Dessiderium song to date, is an exemplary showing of Haddad’s sprawling songwriting. Instrumentally, it’s the heaviest and most grandiose on Keys, while also showcasing the perfect blending of black metal a la blog favorite, Hands of Despair. ‘Pollen for the Bees’ is a perfect midpoint following two songs that showcase Haddad at some of his most complex and challenging riffing, and a great example of dissonance in the major scale that’s all over the album. After practically breaking through the sound barrier with relentless drumming and riffs, ‘A Dream That Wants Me Dead’ is a welcome slower piece, as the narrative begins to reach its thematic climax. It and ‘Magenta’ serve as a calm before the storm, with the narrator desperately trying desperately to keep his childhood innocence intact. The latter only begins to ramp up towards the end, with an infectious lyrical refrain and trem-picked riff sending out the song in style. 

The sixteen minute epic title track is where this album should collapse under its own weight. Beginning with a slow, ascending and descending guitar backed by MIDI strings, the song evokes a similar feel to Aria’s ‘White Morning in a World She Knows’, appearing to start and stop at a moment’s notice, expertly building atmosphere over the lyricless first four minutes. The sing-song section nine minutes in should seem silly, yet it’s executed incredibly. Alex Haddad knows ending on an epic is a gamble, especially after such a long album, and ensures that each section is as memorable as it is unique. The shredding guitar solo that comes two minutes after should seem over-indulgent, but it’s done with grace and never overstays its welcome. The section that dominates the last three minutes sounds like an overly happy ‘One-Winged Angel’ homage, and I couldn’t think of anything better to end on, especially with regard to the final bit of juxtaposing lyricism. 

Keys to the Palace serves as a warning not to get lost in thoughts of hope and better times. It is the story of a boy shown the future and trying his very hardest to fight against what is to come, only to eventually succumb to the perils of adulthood, as we all do. While the narrator does not end up becoming a genocidal emperor, nor a man who is too far gone in his own dream world, we can only conclude that the experience will have a permanent effect on him. He’s forced to experience his own cathartic moment, realizing that he will grow up one day and become an imperfect adult. Haddad doesn’t ask the listener to stay in their own world, but to experience their own catharsis through discomfort. This is a different beast than Aria, and despite the same creator, they set out to do very different things and succeed. Keys to the Palace has cemented Haddad not just as someone who knows the Opeth formula, but as someone who has created his own. He looked back in time, to material written nearly ten years ago, and finally found the place for an overdue emotional release. His mind didn’t stay put, and he was confident enough that one day, this would find its place within his own expression. If the Key to his catharsis was looking backwards in time, and warning against such things in the album itself, then I hope he keeps looking to the horizon. 

Recommended tracks: Dover Hendrix, Pollen for the Bees, Keys to the Palace, Magenta
You may also like: An Abstract Illusion, Orgone, Hands of Despair, Epiphanie, Cormorant
Final verdict: 9/10

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

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Dessiderium is:
– Alex Haddad (Guitar, bass, vocals, strings, MIDI)
– Brody Smith (drum programming)

The post Review: Dessiderium – Keys to the Palace appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Album art by unknown

Style: Post-metal, hardcore, progressive metal, alternative metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ocean, Cult of Luna, A Perfect Circle
Country: Germany
Release date: 24 January, 2025

I’m about to admit a cardinal sin that will strip me of all metal cred: I really fucking love alternative metal, especially when it’s good. Any day of the week, I can get down with A Perfect Circle, Tool, and System of a Down more than most of my reviewer compatriots can. I make fun of our glorious leader Sam for listening to Breaking Benjamin, but it’s because I too wished to find my place in ‘The Diary of Jane’ once upon a time. However, when I take a risk on alt metal, I end up with trash ninety-nine percent of the time. That one percent nets me something like Chevelle’s NIRATIAS, but that’s few and far between—especially when we’re dealing with the underground.

But why do I like the horrendous subgenre known as alternative metal? Despite being the de-facto tech/prog-death guy of the Subway, simplicity gets me sometimes. A catchy, anthemic chorus against a backdrop of screamed verses gets the neurons firing more than I care to confess, and that’s exactly what ‘Idol’, the opener of Causes did for me. The sudden shift from screams to a chorus that sounds just like A Perfect Circle driven by guest female vocalist Hannah Zieziula was enough to sell me on the album, but was it enough to net it within that one percent of, dare I say, good alt metal?

Like practically the entire subgenre, Causes is junk food metal, and while that could sound like an insult, they’re leagues ahead of their contemporaries Sleep Token and Jinjer. Unfortunately, Causes plays it incredibly safe. There aren’t any “riffs” as much as there are chugging rhythms backed by simple lead lines. There isn’t any crazy rhythmic fuckery in the drums, and I’m not even sure the bassist showed up to the studio. The real star of the show is the vocalist, who like the rest of the band, isn’t credited anywhere on the internet. He shifts from growls reminiscent of a gravellier Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates) to the silky cleans I’d expect of a hardcore/alt metal act.

Causes never tries to reinvent the wheel, and Haven wouldn’t need to if the album wasn’t so plain. ‘Leash’ is about the furthest the band veers into the post-metal-tinged sound they’ve promoted for themselves, and I’d only say so because of the breakdown and buildup that follows. But even after listening to Causes multiple times now, I struggle to remember much of anything besides the choruses of the first two songs and much of the third. Everything after these first three relatively cohesive pieces falls apart under the weight of subsequent tracks.. There are only so many tricks that can keep my attention from waning, and Haven use them all up in the first 18 minutes of the album.

This isn’t to say Causes is bad, more that Haven is just having a bit of an identity crisis. Bands rarely fuse the pummeling, brisk nature of hardcore and prog to great success because the two styles are constantly at odds with each other, and it’s exemplified here. ‘Wesen’, coming hot off the heels of ‘Leash’, may as well have been left on the cutting floor, as should’ve interlude track ‘Theia’. The former only serves as a foray into electronica to give the album a tad bit of eclecticism, the latter simply a poor buildup into the closer. The last two real songs on the album have all but run out of steam, and in an attempt to drag along its runtime, end up feeling bloated and unnecessary. ‘Rue’ should build into a fist-bumping chorus a la A Perfect Circle’s ‘Pet’, but seems to lack any direction in its overlong seven-minute runtime. Its singular string chug of a main riff began to grate on me by minute three, and by the time its screamed refrain came once more, I found my attention elsewhere. Meanwhile, closer ‘Ankou’ nearly captures that energy the first half of the album had, but flows through too many glacial repeated sections to keep it up.

I’ve ragged a lot on Causes because I hear a band who’ve just nearly got it. It, in this case, being a cohesive and enjoyable sound. Haven are pulled between the post-metal leanings of Hippotraktor and alt metal stylings, and once they’ve figured this tug-of-war out, they can then focus on capturing that lighting in a bottle they had going in Causes’ first few songs. The aggression and skill at building to a chorus is there, but the songwriting suffers as a lack of identity rears its ugly head early on. I can only give a disappointing verdict, and a bunch of well wishes to Haven in the future.

Recommended tracks: Idol, Causes, Leash
You may also like: Hippotraktor, Seyr
Final verdict: 5.5/10

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

Label: Argonauta Records – Official Website

Haven is:
– I can’t find credits anywhere on the internet. Haven please DM us on Instagram so I can add them!

The post Review: Haven – Causes appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Art by Andrej Eternal

Style: melodic black metal, post-metal, post-black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, Havukrunu, Moonsorrow, Kardashev, heavier Alcest, MØL
Country: Slovakia
Release date: 16 January, 2025

Black metal and atmosphere go together like prog fans and pretension. The very first cry of the genre evokes harsh Norwegian winters and the very antithesis of light itself. Black metal, for all intents and purposes, is rarely  the genre to turn to for joy or happiness, but in the ever-growing incestuous orgy that each metal subgenre has with one another, Alcest decided it was time to dip their fingers into a little bit of shoegaze and post-rock-isms on top of a black metal atmosphere to evoke something that wasn’t just doom and gloom. While Besna has basically nothing in common with Alcest, at least on the surface, I feel like placing the two together serves a much greater purpose than even I realized at first.

The first song and a half of Krásno pretty much goes exactly as I expected. ‘Zmráka sa’ follows basic black metal intro track protocol. The distant sound of birds give way to a simple, clean guitar part, building to a triumphant, explosive wall of chugging riffs, but that’s far from the song (and album’s) highlight. Guitarist and vocalist Samuel Dudlák’s incredible harsh vocals practically barrel their way through Krásno’s short runtime. If there is one thing I cannot compliment highly enough, it’s his ability to enunciate without losing any of the force and monstrous, throaty tone. Despite the barreling and dramatic performance of ‘‘Zmráka sa’, complete with a reprisal of the clean guitar intro section as a trem picked riff, I was left wanting just a step further from the album’s tone setter. Perhaps another blast-beat laden chorus or yet another dramatic, building riff. 

On the flip side, the album’s title track—and to that extent, the rest of the album—gave me exactly what I needed. About halfway through ‘Krásno’, the song shifts from bludgeoning drums and vocals to an incredibly tasteful, almost jazzy solo, courtesy of guest musician Jakub Tirco. From there, Besna slowly build back into the uplifting leads that made me draw the Alcest comparison. With reverb-laden clean vocals instead of brutal harshes, the very final section could very easily find its place on Écailles de Lune.

Krásno is an incredibly well-written album, even further cemented by the infectious lead-line and pummeling breakdown on ‘Hranice’, the frenzy of ‘Bezhviezdna obloha’, and the sweeping, Emperor-esque nature of ‘Mesto spi’. However, good writing does not equate to something that’s diverse enough to hold my interest for more than a few listens. Everything on Krásno is well-performed, and well-produced to boot, but every song sounds a bit too similar. Besna choose not to branch out from the established formula they made on the first few tracks, and Krásno suffers as a result.

Much of Krásno’s sameness is mitigated by the complete lack of any fat. While I’m all for self-editing and the need for shorter prog albums (looking at you, Alkaloid), I don’t think that 30 minutes of the same is enough to do this band justice. ‘Mesto spi’ is an explosive ending, completely befitting of the quality of the six songs that came before, but when Krásno ended, all I could feel was that I listened to the same song six times, sans the atmospheric interlude ‘Ocean prachu’. It was a good same song six times, but it detracts majorly from the overall picture.

I had much of the same problem with blog darling Massen’s debut album. While competently written and performed, there wasn’t enough meat left on the bone by the time the album finished for me to have any chance at a return listen. Besna expertly combine atmosphere and aggressive trem-picking, but throwing in a few more tricks of the trade would do them no harm.

While Écailles de Lune this is not, I am incredibly happy that a band such as Besna have an offering such as this in the beginning of the year. Usually, we need to wait a few months for things to begin heating up, but this has done a fantastic job of keeping my attention. With just about everything I like, barring the use of mixed vocals, Krásno insisted upon itself being one of the definitive highlights of a slow start to my reviewing year. And while the deluge of new music to review may keep me from returning to Krásno with frequency, I am grateful to start off the year with such a positive and uplifting take on black metal that I can safely say won’t be forgotten about

Recommended tracks: Mesto spi, Krásno, Hranice, Bezhviezdna obloha
You may also like: Malokarpatan, Esoctrilihum, Massen, Show Me a Dinosaur
Final verdict: 6.5/10

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

Label: Unsigned

Besna is:
– Timotej Jurášek (bass)
– Samuel Dudlák (guitars, vocals)
– Martin Pinter (guitars)
– Anton Samokhvalov (drums)

The post Review: Besna – Krásno appeared first on The Progressive Subway.