Agabas - Hard Anger: Deluxe Edition (Mascot Records) [Matt Bladen]
Deathjazz? Yeah ok, I mean they are Norwegian so if there was one musical scene that will happily donate weirdest thing you've ever heard it's them.
Originally self released in June 2025, Agabas have now signed to Mascot Records to release a Deluxe Edition of their most recent album Hard Anger. It features the original nine tracks plus three bonus cuts not on the original release, so it is worth it if you've heard the record before, but if you haven't then, what do should you expect from Agabas?
Well the Trondheim six piece of Sondre Sørensen Brønstad (vocals), Oskar Myrseth (guitar), Jarand Aga Baas (guitar), Johan Jamtfall Eriksen (bass), Alexander Dellerhagen (saxophone) and Bjørn André Syverinsen (drums) all hold jazz performance master’s degrees bachelor’s degrees in music technology and musicology.
So they mean business and know exactly what they're doing and what rules they're breaking with their intense, savage, mind bending style, blending influences from all over the place and inviting 'Saxpits' when they play live. Agabas do something that's unique, a hard feat to achieve in the music industry, a lot of bands use sax but they don't put it with crushing modern tech metal, filled with hardcore ferocity.
Clad in paisley and with a eye for the absurd or the ironic, their music isn't to be taken lightly, not only is it as heavy as a safe full of anvils, with strong experimental tendencies, it's got a strong political ideology in the lyrics creating an inclusive space against the tyranny, war and genocide we find ourselves surrounded by.
This Deluxe Edition closes with a cover of The Wizard by Black Sabbath, showcasing that even the old school can be re-written with the virtuosity on offer here. If you've not heard Agabas before then I suggest you pick up this Deluxe Edition of their debut album and experience Deathjazz for yourself. 8/10
What The Fire Left – What The Fire Left (Independent) [Spike]
Knoxville, Tennessee, isn't usually the first place you look for the sound of systemic collapse, but Aspen, the multi-instrumentalist architect behind Laang and Abyssius, has managed to bottle the specific humidity of a life under pressure. The debut self-titled effort from What The Fire Left is a documented study in atmospheric sludge that trades overt political rhetoric for something far more unsettling: the quiet, cumulative weight of psychological decay.
It is a record that understands that the real damage isn't the fire itself, but what happens to the foundations in the aftermath.
The experience starts with Ash, and immediately, the Fall Of Efrafa DNA is evident. There is a down-tuned, brooding restraint to the guitars that feels heavy-set rather than just loud, joined in their dissonance by a bowed cello. It’s a sub-three-minute preamble that establishes a soundscape of attrition, leading directly into the frantic, heart-attack pulse of Refusal. Here, the "metallic" storm peaks, showcasing a technical dexterity that survives the high-velocity churn of the low-end. It’s a rhythmic defiance that feels properly, painfully human.
One of the record's most sophisticated moments arrives with Silence. In a genre that often fears the quiet, Aspen uses these two minutes to create a sense of genuine claustrophobia. It isn't an "interlude"; it’s a physical representation of the "psychological decay" mentioned in the band’s manifesto, the sound of the walls closing in when the noise stops. It provides a stark, necessary counterweight to Hope, which, true to the record's cynical core, feels more like a desperate, clawing survival instinct than any kind of optimism.
Musically, the production maintains a lean, "no safety net" honesty. You can hear the grit under the fingernails of the tracks, particularly on the finale, Bone. At nearly four minutes, it’s the record's longest and most architectural movement. The guitars and the cello stop playing riffs and start creating weather systems, building a massive, tectonic pressure that eventually just... peters out.
By the time the final vibration of Bone disappears into the silence, you’re left sitting in a room that feels significantly more haunted than it did forty minutes ago. Aspen has managed to take the misery of the modern world and turn it into an atmospheric weight that stays with you, a heavy and necessary reminder that sometimes the most powerful noise is the one that forces you to face the quiet. 8/10
Eye Of Melian - Forest Of Forgetting (Napalm Records) [Matt Bladen]
A Tolkien themed album from Delain's Martijn Westerholt and Auri's Johanna Kurkela? It's going to be dramatic, spectral and ethereal, invoking the singing spirit from Tolkien's works. Martijn Westerholt shares keys and orchestrations with Mikko P Mustonen while Johanna Kurkela brings the brilliantly ghostly vocals and violin you will have heard in the Auri project as Robin La Joy provides backing vocals.
Stylistically there's much here that sounds like Auri, the orchestrations taking the place of the folk additions that come from Troy Donockley in Auri, making it a more cinematic affair all round. That being said Troy's brilliant uilleann pipes and flute appear here alongside Patty Gurdy's hurdy gurdy on Dawn Of Avatars and Elixir Of Night, these folk touches joining Johanna's violin for added beauty.
Now there is a lack of 'metal' on this record, it's keys and orchestrations that take the lead here but it is a dense and complex record that also features a cover of Bruce Dickinson's Tears Of A Dragon from his Balls To Picasso album, showing that all the participants are still very aware of their metal roots. A record full of stories and soundscapes you will definitely remember Forest Of Forgetting. 8/10
Irreversible – Vessel (Dipterid Records) [Spike]
Ok, so this is an album, right. It’s got one track per side, used to call that a single. And that’s where my narrow thinking brain started this review from.
Most bands spend their careers trying to write a three-minute hook that sticks. Atlanta’s Irreversible have decided to go the other way entirely, releasing a self-produced document in Vessel that consists of just two twenty-minute tracks. It is a bold, arguably reckless move that pushes the constraints of the format until they snap. Esus and Thoth aren't just songs; they are a pair of "metallic storms" that move through distinct movements like a grand opera, if that opera was designed specifically to punch you straight in the face.
The experience is a cinematic descent into what the band calls "postmodern absurdism" and mass psychosis. It doesn't just use film samples as a gimmick; it weaves snippets from Blue Velvet, Memoria, and The Beast into the very fabric of the noise. It creates a dense, disorienting texture where the "shimmer" of a dream state is constantly being interrupted by the "shove" of their sludge-heavy roots.
The first movement, Esus, is a masterclass in building a "terrific elegance" out of total chaos. It begins with a deceptive, atmospheric drift, a shimmering, hazy preamble that suggests a more cerebral, ambient record before the bottom falls out and the sludge takes over. The transition into the heavier sections is handled with a sophisticated, almost orchestral precision. It took me a few listens to properly "get it," but once the internal logic of the movements settles in, the forty-minute runtime feels less like an endurance test and more like a documented descent.
The flip side, Thoth, doubles down on the "mass psychosis" theme. It’s a rhythmic, stuttering ache of a track that utilizes filmic silence just as effectively as it uses the low-end churn of the guitars. The production which is handled by the band themselves maintains a high-fidelity clarity that allows the samples to sit perfectly within the mix. You aren't just listening to a record; you’re inhabiting a space where the boundaries between a dream and a nightmare have been entirely erased.
Is it an easy listen? Don't be daft. Vessel is an exhausting, demanding bit of work that requires you to do a fair amount of the heavy lifting yourself. But for those willing to commit to the pace, Irreversible has delivered something genuinely interesting. They’ve proven that you can take the raw, bruised-rib honesty of noise-metal and apply it to a canvas large enough to hold the end of the world. By the time the final vibration of Thoth eventually dissipates into the silence, you’re left with the realization that the best art shouldn't just entertain you, it should challenge your right to be comfortable in the first place. 8/10
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