#apr26 — Public Fediverse posts

Aliens offer to take you away and give you a perfect—albeit short—life: do you say yes? According to Italian cosmic prog metal band Vanderlust, many of you would. “So, a bunch of people everywhere on Earth gave themselves” to the Coelacanths for that same offer, so opens The Human Farm. Several generations later, a human uprising leads to an escape from slavery and the discovery that the Coelacanths were all along harvesting Humans for their emotions. This isn’t meant to be funny. Vanderlust were deadset on telling a compelling sci-fi adventure in The Human Farm, enlisting guest keyboardist Francesco Londino (S91) and vocalist Martina Barreca (Mass Excess) to play the role of the Coelacanths. But did Vanderlust give us a sci-fi adventure for the ages with The Human Farm?

The gooey earnestness with which Vanderlust spill their adventure on The Human Farm is often matched by skill and musical vision. Vanderlust tear through speed-demonic numbers like “Viral Escape” or “Golden Shackles” with acerbically hooky, Vektor-gone-power-metal riffage while creating respite between the narrative beats with moody clean guitars and skittering drums on “The Turning Point” and “Connection Failed.” Guitarist Francesco Romeggini solos like mad on The Human Farm, shredding Megadethly over Blind Guardian riffs on the almost-instrumental “From the Cave – Fuga” and imbuing “Drive” with a gravitas and refinement. Bassist David Cantina and drummer Giacomo Mezzetti hold down Vanderlust’s rhythms, both driving (“Reborn…Again”) and groovy (“Humanity 3.0 – The New Canaan”) and shine on the “Battlefield”‘s bass solo and underlying fills. Ricca Morello’s vocals can get a bit mush-mouthed in the softer moments, but his power metal-inclined range and delivery crush the big moments, and Barreca’s death growls hit consistently, recalling Ophelion’s vocal duo on 2025’s The Jaunt. The Human Farm isn’t groundbreaking conceptually, but Vanderlust have the chops to tell their tale.

The Human Farm thrives in its biggest moments. Morello sounds his best when he goes all in, like on the Blind Guardian-coded power bonanza “Battlefield”1 and emotionally charged bookends “Humanity 2.0 – The Human Farm” and “Humanity 3.0 – The New Canaan.” Barreca’s growls add tons of punch to Vanderlust’s sound. When she trades lines with the choir on “Connection Failed” or clean sings on “Reborn…Again” and brings Meat Loaf melodrama to Dream Theater balladry, it feels so right. However, The Human Farm lulls when Vanderlust take the pedal off the metal. Momentum from “Golden Shackles” dissipates in the slow-burning of “The Turning Point” and doesn’t return until halfway through “Connection Failed,” and the barn-burning energy of “Viral Escape” is utterly deflated by the narrative interlude “…Find Them!”. However, Vanderlust are at any given time never too far off from another soaring crescendo, making The Human Farm an exciting listen, if not consistently so.

Vanderlust’s conceptual ambitions ultimately hinder The Human Farm, I feel. Vanderlust frequently dumb down musical ideas to allow narration more sonic space. This issue is exacerbated by the uniformly bad acting performances across The Human Farm, which resembles those 90s PC games where they just threw some interns into the booth. But even if the line reads were good, interjected into songs like “From the Cave – Fuga” and “Connection Failed,” they come off as a tacked-on concession to the story rather than an integral part of the music, coming off as distracting or even detrimental to the music. Vanderlust can do interesting things musically to tell their story, like having Barreca clean sing in “Reborn…Again” after the Coelacanths are defeated, reflecting them at their most vulnerable, or reworking the “Humanity 2.0…” motif into the end of “Humanity 3.0…,” where humankind has escaped captivity but find new challenges in freedom and lead some to question their revolution altogether.2 But for the most part, the way Vanderlust tell the story of The Human Farm detracts from what they do well: thrashy prog-power anthems.

If Vanderlust could hone their storytelling as well as their songwriting on The Human Farm, we’d have a great record on our hands. As is, there are too many conflicting elements in The Human Farm for more than a lukewarm recommendation, though there are fantastic songs throughout. Fans of prog-power will find things to like here, and Vanderlust is a band to keep an eye on, and I certainly will try to catch their third album should they make one. I’m not sure if Vanderlust have a Terminal Redux or Access All Worlds in them, but I wouldn’t put it past them either.



Rating: Mixed
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: V0 VBR mp3
Label: Rockshots Records
Websites: facebook.com/vanderlustofficial | soundcloud.com/vanderlust-music
Releases Worldwide: April 17th, 2026

You may not recognize her name if you don’t follow her solo work, but Leila Abdul-Rauf is an experienced metal musician. As vocalist and guitarist in death metal group Vastum, and semi-frequent collaborator with other extreme and unconventional artists like Dream Unending, she is something of a veteran on 20 Buck Spin. Yet it is only now, with Andros Insidium, that her eponymous solo project sees a release on this label, and the change is more than symbolic. Whilst staying within the realms of experimental dark ambience—and retaining her signature trumpet—the music has taken a decisively heavier turn as Leila dials up the oppressive drone, shapes instrumental elements into dissonant, strange patterns, and incorporates vicious, harsh vocals. And if the cover isn’t clue enough,1 she seems to have something to say.

Andros Insidium is a ritual of sorts, but an allegorical one. Leila uses the goddess Ishtar2, specifically her fabled descent into and ascent out of the underworld, as a vessel to explore womanhood in general. Mythology and ceremony act as a framework to “exorcise” demons of patriarchy and the feminine rage that riles against them. Anger reaches an apex in harrowing “Andros Insidium” where Leila condemns “you” (man) in a chorus of haunting half-sung chants, whispers, and snarls for continually assaulting and torturing “her” (woman). Though superficially dissimilar, it vividly recalls a Caligula-era Lingua Ignota with its minimalist piano and cold narration that becomes screams. This is the first appearance of these gargling, screamed vocals on the record, and one of only two songs that include them, the other being closer “Return to Anu.” The time leading up to this release is filled with tension, the ambience smothering the soundscape without reprieve, as eerie plucks and unsettling cleans undulate through it to the beat of portentous drums and tambourine—a bit like an alternate-universe Swans, though sometimes randomly reminiscent of Haunted Plasma (“Stripped Before the Eye of Death,” “Return to Anu”).

Andros Insidium by Leila Abdul-Rauf

Andros Insiduim is out to make its listener uncomfortable, and it unequivocally succeeds. Just about every element from the ritualistic drum patterns, strange melodies from synth, trumpet, and string, and omnipresent thousand-ton drone sets you on edge. The clanging of steel drums that open the album, and return only in the final track, immediately puts the listener on edge. But it’s Leila’s variously dramatic, baleful, and cold—often multitracked—vocals (“Stripped Before the Eye of Death,” “Fractured Body”)3—and the lyrics they deliver—that pulls these feelings of unease into full potency. As a powerless witness (“Stripped…,” “A Requiem…”), a prophetess (“Fractured Body,” “Return to Anu”), or a divine judge (“Andros Insidium”), her accented intonations give her the air of a haunted narrator; and the very dissonance of the vocal lines seems to emphasise their unflinchingly dark lyrical content more than more traditionally mournful melodies could. The sparse use of harsh vocals enhances their viciousness, and their final appearance occurs in a passage that mimics their first—with the same piano tritones and drumbeat—reinforcing their importance both emotionally and musically. In all, it can be a viscerally disturbing experience.

Yet Andros Insidium also has some groovy and even beautiful moments. “Eros Anima” centres a bizarrely catchy rhythm with its menagerie of hand percussion, trumpet, and guitar, while “A Requiem for Ishtar” sees weeping strings accompany angelic sopranos in a genuinely sad lament, and opener “Descent into Kur” consists of mostly harmonious, if ominous, synth melodies. In the context of the whole, however, such occasions are barely less unsettling than the dissonance and only throw those harsher, uglier moments into sharper relief. You could argue they make the music harder to listen to than if they were entirely absent, and the whole thing were obscure and confrontational. Nothing here feels truly random or needless, particularly when one treats it like the story it is and listens actively. But without devoting your full attention, some of the more esoteric aspects tend to jump out at you awkwardly—the announcing trumpets and didgeridoo-like male drones in “Senex Rule,” or the skin-crawling unfolding of “Andros Insidium,” for example.

As with much avant-garde music, your ability to go on the journey of Andros Insidium will depend on your tolerance for weirdness and willingness to feel uncomfortable. In executing her ritual of catharsis, Leila Abdul-Rauf indulges no sentiment but her own—par for the course with extreme metal perhaps, but in this medium, the risk of alienation could be higher. Nevertheless, this is a striking work that deserves at least an open-minded explore.

Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 17th, 2026