THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

(Andy Synn isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to 2024 just yet)

Well, here we are. It’s 2025 and time to start looking towards what this new year has to bring.

Or, should I say, almost time… because first I want to highlight a quartet of releases which – for various reasons (namely that either they hadn’t actually come out, or I hadn’t stumbled across them yet) – I didn’t have chance to include in my annual “List Week”, but which all definitely deserve some extra attention before we finally consign 2024 to the gaping maw of history.

CAELESTRA – BASTION

Let me tell you something… if this had come out a little earlier it would definitely have been in my Personal Top Ten (with apologies to Machukha, who it would then have pushed out).

You see, as much as I enjoyed 2020’s Black Widow Nebula this one is simply – and undeniably – head-and-shoulders above its predecessor, combining powerful, proggy riffage reminiscent of early 2000s Devin Townsend and the best of Ihsahn‘s solo-work with the effervescent energy of Astronoid and the melancholy melodicism of Amiensus to create a soul-stirring, genre-blending hybrid which defies easy categorisation but demands (and rewards) your full attention from start to finish.

It begins with a dreamy, yet densely-layered, introduction (in the form of opener “Halcyon”) which then transitions into the massive metallic guitars and captivating cosmic synths of “Soteria”, whose surging storms of blastbeats and thundering kick drums are interspersed with shimmering passages of mood-drenched soundscapes, leading in turn into the rivetingly hooky riffs and intricately proggy note patterns of “Finisterre” (a song made up of two cleverly complementary halves, marrying light and dark in equal measure).

The centrepiece of the album is the terrific ten minute (and twenty-one second) “Lightbringer”, whose weighty – yet oddly wistful – guitar work and shining, soaring synths are overlain with a mix of absolutely gorgeous clean vocals and heart-wrenching harsh screams (frequently layered atop one another to enhance their impact) which together serve to further expand the record’s expressive emotional palette, after which the moody intensity of pushes the needle deeper into the Prog/Post Black Metal side of the scale by combining some seriously heavy riffs and pounding blastbeats with striking moments of sombre, subtly introspective melody.

It all climaxes with eleven minute closer “Eos”, where Caelestra really go for broke with their cathartic, crystalline clean vocals, seething screams, and elemental instrumental intensity, all of which builds towards the album’s absolutely majestic, hauntingly melodic, finale that firmly establishes Bastion as not only one of the best albums of 2024 but an album you’re going to want to keep coming back to again and again (and again).

DOLA – TABERNAKULUM

Dola’s last album, 2021’s Czasy, was a fascinating (and frequently fantastic) piece of unashamedly progressive Black Metal infused with sequences of sludgy groove, passages of doom-laden drone, and darkly jazzy, noir-ish elements which inspired some extremely favourable comparisons to the likes of Oranssi Pazuzu, Grey Arua, and Imperial Triumphant (while still maintaining its own distinct dynamic flow and artfully organic sense of genre-splicing fluidity).

On Tabernakulum the band have taken the next natural step, combining gritty aggression and gloomy introspection – as demonstrated on the Prog-Black meets Black-Jazz meets Sludge-Doom melange of the title-track – in a way which keeps the listener firmly on their toes (with the unconventional, blast-beat driven cabaret of “Tysiąc Razy” only pushing the envelope even further in an even wilder, even weirder, direction).

The slower, darker, and doomier strains of “Chimera” – which serves as a fantastic showcase for the proggy percussive talents of drummer Mateusz Stempski – put me in mind of Névoa‘s stunning (yet sadly underrated) 2020 album, Towards Belief with its heavy emphasis on haunting ambience and harsh atmospherics, while “Oszust” is an avant-garde amalgam of Post-Punk, Black Metal, and Drone/Noise which dances along the thin line between genius and madness.

It’s an unusual and unorthodox album, that’s for sure… and it’s not finished yet, with the taunting trumpet and jangling bass lines of “I Nawet Nie Usłyszysz, Kiedy To Się Stanie” setting the stage for the gargantuan, sludge-soaked grooves of the song’s mid-section, before the track’s shadowy, black and white, brood ‘n’ blast climax makes way for the mesmerising melodic proggery of “A Swiatłem Jest Gniew” which allows all three members of the band to show off their slinky skills as the record reaches its thrilling climax!

DRUPARIA – THE RIVER ABOVE

Originality is overrated… ok, not really, but it’s definitely not the be-all and end-all of making music, and sometimes all you really want – all you really need – is a band who brings the righteous riffage with a vengeance… and while Druparia may owe about 75% of their sound to Darkest Hour (a comparison further reinforced by the fact that vocalist Dylan Moran’s delivery is pretty much a dead ringer for DH‘s John Henry) and the other 25% of their identity to Dark Tranquillity that doesn’t mean you should just dismiss them out of hand!

After all, there’s always time for some high-energy, riff-centric Melodeath, especially when – as is the case with the early triptych of in-your-face opener “Voiceless Regret”, spitfire second track “Under the Shade of Sand”, and the bitingly melodic “Bereavement” – the music has more than enough hooks and intensity to spare.

Sure, it’s pretty obvious that the band are not just “standing on the shoulders of giants” but actively clinging to them as hard as they can (for the moment, anyway), and at a little under fifty minutes (a little over if you include the bonus cover track) there’s definitely room for some trimming and/or tightening (you could, in fact, possibly lose a whole track or two and still maintain the album’s momentum without it feeling like you were missing anything) but it’s early days for Druparia still, and there’s ample time (as well as some notable potential) for them to improve even further going forwards.

This is especially apparent when you take a moment to consider just how good the band already are at what they do, as while it may not be massively original they do it so well – both the brilliantly melodic “Sever the Roots” and the stripped-down, blast-powered “Bled for Comfort” are pure ass-kicking aggression and neck-wrecking hooks, while the outstanding title-track and killer closer “When Cranes Return” hint at some even more majestic, and melodic, ambitions welling up just beneath the surface – that it’s hard not to just get swept up in the sheer energy and enthusiasm of it all!

MIND PRISONER – THE COLOR OF RUIN

Mixing and matching an array of Black Metal, Post-Black Metal, and Blackened Doom influences – the band cite Fearing, None, and Leviathan as major inspirations, but I can also hear just as much (if not more) of the likes of Nachtmystium, Fell Ruin and The Accuser-era Abigail Williams in their sound – Oregon’s Mind Prisoner made one hell of an impression on me once I finally got around to hearing their debut album, The Color of Ruin, several weeks after its initial December 03rd release date.

Dark and desolate, yet laced with threads of sinuous, slithering melody – and also possessing a hefty, heaving bottom-end which gives the album’s thick, sludgy grooves an even more menacing and monstrous sense of weight – songs like the sinister, simmering title-track, the bleak yet beautiful “Forever” (whose solemn, sullen clean vocals provide an extra hit of raw emotion) and the grim, hypnotic grooves and blistering blastbeats of “Phantom Dreams” swiftly marked the band out as “ones to watch” going forwards, as the duo clearly have a keen grasp of just where, and how, to hit the listener in order to properly strike a nerve (not to mention the importance of crafting a bevy of bitter, biting riffs to keep their audience on the edge of their proverbial seats).

But it’s the climactic pairing of “3.33” and “Nothing Comes After” – the former a seven-and-a-half minute torrent of terrifying blastbeats and tormented vocals, interwoven with layers of ghostly synths and ghastly ambience, the latter a six minute and forty-six second hymn of sludgy, slow-burning desolation and doom (replete with some of the moodiest cleans and most malevolent screams on the entire album) – which suggest that Mind Prisoner haven’t even reached the peak of their powers yet, and we should all make sure to watch this Portland-based pair very closely in the future!