Prog Metal

🟢 A stunning, genre-shifting triumph that reaches toward the cosmos with heavier riffs, sharper electronics, and an unyielding progressive vision.

— No Clean Singing

🟢 The synths, cybernetic sound design, and Julius Mauranen's pristine production lend the record an expansive, sci-fi mythic scale without ever losing its emotional vulnerability.

— Boolin Tunes

🟢 Builds a remarkably cohesive sonic universe in just forty minutes, balancing Meshuggah-weight riffs against ethereal Björk-like atmospheres and soaring baritone counterpoints.

— The Progressive Subway

🟢 Wars of Spirits // Wards of Light is a revelatory record for Dreadnought, their most daring and commanding entry in their catalog.

— Meat Mead Metal

🟡 Kelly's airy highs and Ryan's booming lows complement each other well, but the band's overall sound is lacking the warmth that came from Lauren and Emily's midrange... but the strength of the material more than makes up for it.

— Toilet ov Hell

🔴 Some passages are fascinatingly arranged but remain stuck as sound experiments, while others develop their tension much more sustainably. Compared to The Endless, there is a bit less of that intensity and idiosyncrasy that made the predecessor so compelling.

- Betreutes Proggen

🔴 The distinctive character of 'The Endless' is lacking: the impression is of an album in transition, with the new lineup still working to hit its stride.

— MetalItalia 📊 Ratings: 🟢 Metal Temple: 10 🟢 Deaf Sparrow: 9.6 🟢 Toilet ov Hell: 9 🟢 Moshpit Passion: 9 🟢 Metallerium: 9 🟢 Metal Factory: 8.8 🟢 Boolin Tunes: 8.5 🟢 Powermetal.de: 8.5 🟢 Para Ouvir Hoje: 8.5 🟢 The Progressive Subway: 8 🟢 Babyblaue-Seiten: 8 🟢 Underworld.hu: 8 🟡 Betreutes Proggen: 7.3 🟡 Metalitalia: 7 🟡 Spill Magazine: 6.5 🟢 Progscore: 8.4

◖ Band: Dreadnought ◖ Album: Wars of Spirit // Wards of Light ◖ Origin: Denver, Colorado, USA 🇺🇸 ◖ Released: September 11, 2026 ◖ Genre: Progressive/Post Black Metal ◖ Recommended Tracks: - Tiamat's Gate ✨ - The Archive - Aeonwar ◖ For Fans Of: - Myrkur - Dordeduh - Cult of Luna - Amiensus - Messa 🔗 Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

#meme

🟢 Stunning. Cathartic. Monumental.

Bandcamp Daily

🟢 Wilderness is one of the most authentic and cathartic pieces of music I've heard this year so far.

Angry Metal Guy

🟢 An exemplar of beautifully expressive introspection and rage. It's a record that offers both ethereal beauty and scathing dark aggression, delivered sometimes together, sometimes apart, but always in a complementary fashion.

Wonderbox Metal

🟢 The album explores grief, isolation, guilt, and even healing through dreamlike imagery. It is both crushingly devastating and breathtakingly cathartic at the same time. This album has to be on your list for a contender for Album of the Year.

Metal Temple

🟢 It soars and sweeps through a myriad of emotions, riding the highs and lows with an intensity rarely discovered these days. Complex passages switch from thunderous tremolo riffing through to almost folk, with all stops in between included.

MetalTalk

🟢 Cairiss bring a progressive flair to the usual repertoire of jangly riffs, wind-whipped tremolos, and stampeding blast beats. Brown's anguished blackened howls, partnered with Williams' lilting sirenic cleans, channel the primal duality of the natural world, savage and serene in equal measure.

The Progressive Subway

🟢 Offering up a stunning six-track cacophony of hauntingly gorgeous, blackened post and experimental gaze music. The vocals have both the capability to send you into a dream state and tear your face off.

GBHBL

🟢 A dreamy, masterful journey blending post-rock beauty with raw, emotional depth.

Black Metal Zine

🟢 Musically this is the Alcest end of the family, wide clean passages that break into tremolo and blast, and Cairiss are unusually good at the break itself. The dynamic range is the standout technical achievement, quiet parts left genuinely quiet, the peaks arriving with real headroom behind them.

Riff Vault

🔴 With a few themes, their debut album still has to struggle. These large, sprawling songs are hard to keep under control — a bit more tightening would have done the material good.

Vampster

🔴 If I have any complaints about Wilderness, it's that I wish that the bass lines were a bit more prominent.

Angry Metal Guy 📊 Ratings: Black Metal Zine: 10 🔥 GBHBL: 10 🔥 Metal Temple: 10 🔥 Metal Kingdom: 9.5 Musipedia of Metal: 9 Occult Black Metal Zine: 8 Angry Metal Guy: 8 Riff Vault: 8 Sputnikmusic: 7.8 Vampster: 7.5 The Progressive Subway: 7 Eternal Terror: 6.7 🟢 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞: 8.5

◖ Band: Cairiss ◖ Album: Wilderness ◖ Origin: Southampton, England 🇬🇧 ◖ Released: July 31, 2026 ◖ Genre: Atmospheric/Progressive Black Metal, Blackgaze ◖ Recommended Tracks: - Nervosa - The Guide - Wildfire ◖ For Fans Of: - Alcest - Sylvaine - Deafheaven - Altar of Plagues - (early) Dawn of Ouroboros - Constellatia - Caelestra 🔗 Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

You won't find it here Look another way #meme

🟢 Cavernous, esoteric, and terrifying.

— Angry Metal Guy

🟢 Progressive death metal at some of its most chaotic and unrelenting with nothing stopping Februus but its own imagination.

— Headbanger Reviews

🟢 If we were to define this album, calling it "progressive death metal" would be accurate; however, that description still falls short. Because Februus uses progression not for technical showmanship, but to strengthen its expression. The songs constantly shift shape, yet these changes never feel artificial or calculated. Every transition feels like a natural continuation of the idea that came before it.

- The Metal Crypt

🔴 The production is incredibly unharmonious. The guitars on this album are LOUD. Can you fathom how loud everything has to be for the drums—on a progressive/technical death metal album—to be mostly undetectable?

— Heavy Blog Is Heavy

🔴 The unpleasant rough edges of poor production, uneven instrumental mix, and intermittent sloppy execution make Construction of Conflict a challenging, unfulfilling listen.

— The Progressive Subway 📊 Ratings: 🟢 Pit Stop Metal: 9 🟢 The Metal Crypt: 8.5 🟢 Acta Infernalis: 8 🟡 Metallerium: 7.2 🟡 Headbanging Moose: 7 🟡 Metalitalia: 6.5 🔴 The Progressive Subway: 4 🟡 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞: 7.2 (Mixed reviews)

◖ Band: Februus ◖ Album: Construction of Conflict ◖ Origin: Höör, Skåne, Sweden 🇸🇪 ◖ Released: September 4, 2026 ◖ Genre: Progressive Death Metal ◖ Recommended Tracks: - Measures of Escalation - Suicide by Proxy - First Limb is Cut - Scavengers of the Forgotten Poor ◖ For Fans Of: - Immolation - Voidceremony - Ænigmatum - Demilich - Pan.Thy.Monium - Morbid Angel 🔗 Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

No way #meme