#selfreleases — Public Fediverse posts

Leading up to the release of The Harvest, Ashen Horde finds themselves pushing against the boundaries of the identity they’ve honed since forming in 2013. Conceived by Los Angeles-based Trevor Portz, the sole contributor through the band’s first two albums,1 Ashen Horde stands as a studio-only project, blurring the lines between black and death metal with progressive tendencies while telling unified stories through each album’s runtime. On third album Fallen Cathedrals, Ashen Horde enlisted the talents of powerhouse vocalist Stevie Boiser (Inferi, Equipoise) to tremendous effect. Portz and Boiser delivered another gem on follow-up Antimony, joined by drummer Robin Stone (Chestcrush) and bassist Igor Panasewicz (NightWraith). On fifth album The Harvest: newcomer Karl Chamberlain (Putrefier) replaces Boiser and leans heavily into melodic cleans, Panasewicz exits the fold, the narrative element has been replaced with a looser theme,2 and Ashen Horde begins rehearsals for their first-ever live performances later this year. Do all these changes result in an effective crop rotation, keeping The Harvest’s yield fresh and rich, or do the white-hot flames of slash-and-burn songwriting blaze too brightly, leaving only a bumper crop of ash?

Where Boiser’s vocals amplified Ashen Horde’s ferocity within the confines of black and death metal, Chamberlain’s stylings push the band’s sound into a more melodic arena. Clean vocals sparsely populated Ashen Horde’s Boiser era, but The Harvest sees them co-headline, prominently featuring Chamberlain’s versatile melodic phrasing. Prior releases’ touchstones Opeth and Enslaved continue to be relevant, yet the emphasis on cleans skews heavily towards Trivium and, to a lesser extent, Killswitch Engage.3 The shift is broader than the vocals, though, as the instrumentation diversifies as well. Frantic trems and knotty compositions previously grounded Ashen Horde’s sound in progressive black metal akin to Ihsahn, but The Harvest evolves to bring a distinctly Voivoidian essence to the guitar work (the riffing after the solo on “Backward Momentum” is classic Piggy). Performance-wise, Ashen Horde delivers first-rate moments that ground returning listeners in a familiar setting, with Portz laying down his usual impressive stringed attack and Stone supplying nuanced exhibitions throughout. In total, these changes evince a band at a crossroads, uncontent to rest on its laurels while a new outlook is forged.

The maturation of Ashen Horde’s sound amounts to more than an inflated list of references, though. For starters, the underlying genres require reevaluation. Fallen Cathedrals and Antimony classify as black metal, death metal, and progressive metal, yet The Harvest adds a healthy dose of melodic death metal and a dash of thrash. Specifically, “Remnant” evokes a slightly proggier take on 90s In Flames while “Apparition” recalls a less rabid The Black Dahlia Murder. Besides Voivod, The Harvest taps into thrash via the jazzy grooves heard on Species’ latest (“Entropy and Ecstasy”) and the whirring, dissonant refrains endemic to Coroner (“Autumnal,” “A Place in the Rot”). With so many moving pieces, it’s a wonder that Ashen Horde retains as much of their core identity as they do.

Given the dramatic musical pivot, The Harvest feels like a snapshot of a band mid-flight rather than one reaching their final destination. With Ashen Horde stacking so many elements on top of one another, I’m not sure how well they gel into a unified album. The vocals in particular give me the biggest pause—not because of Chamberlain’s performance, which is potent across harsh and clean deliveries. I’m just not convinced how well they work in concert, given the even split between them. On previous albums, cleans were sparingly used as accents, but their expanded involvement on The Harvest conjures disparate moods that flit back and forth in a way that occasionally feels jarring (“Autumnal”). The end result is a compromise that lands between the familiar and the bold.

Despite Ashen Horde exploring a new identity on The Harvest, plenty of earwatering fruit awaits a good reaping. As the band calls out in their promo materials, even though the central theme is about endings, The Harvest is a new beginning. I expect opinions will be split on the new direction, but Ashen Horde is a project that teems with ideas and new frontiers, and I’ll take that every time over a band that’s content to remake the same album over and over. Now go check out this week’s Harvest and sample its tasty Ashen Hordeuvres.

Rating: Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 1st, 2026

Herezjarcha—Arch-Heretic—is the sophomore of Pennsylvania-based Profane Elegy, who are determined to escape genre boundaries. Following the trajectory set by 2023’s When All is Nothing, it sees the co-existence if not coalescence of black and death metal, but also an atmospheric, ambient kind of doom, and only doubles down on each aspect. It’s not the first time a metal artist has claimed to eschew categorization, and many, if not most, modern artists in extreme subgenres borrow from less extreme ones and incorporate generous reverb. Profane Elegy’s claims, therefore, don’t excite special interest whether you’ve heard the debut or not; listeners dis/like their sound on its own terms. However, there is actually something different about the way they combine their disparate aspects, and Herezjarcha is all the stronger for it.

Dropped blindly into Herezjarcha at any random moment, you’d be forgiven for taking it for trve blackened death—reminiscent in particular of Keres, or a less-polished Vredehammer. Rough snarls rip like cold wind across mean-faced arpeggios skittering their way up and down sinister scales to unforgiving percussive assaults, satisfyingly gnarly. But with a snap, Profane Elegy’s mood swings from malice to despair, and clean vocals lead a mournful refrain, layered, post-black strums dominating the soundscape. Opener “Exeunt Omnes,” which begins—as many others do—with wild, thrashy black metal energy, prefigures the way the album repeatedly changes the vibe and takes its listener by surprise, as the riffs soften and are joined by softly sung “ohh-hh-hh”s. Their blackened base is rent by change, from stripped-back ambience to hearty sung-screamed duets, black n’ roll irreverence to sludgy blackened doom and frosty black metal proper. Though sounding very little alike in actuality, the best comparison to Profane Elegy’s marrying of a vibrant blackened death with overt melodicism led by cleans is Slugdge.1 Herezjarcha is far more intriguing and multifaceted than may appear on face value.

Herezjarcha by Profane Elegy

Profane Elegy do nothing by half-measures, and throw themselves with equal vigour into both their heavier and softer sides. Their blackened death is gnarly and dynamic, whether overtly aggressive (“I AM”) or in squealing, drawling pursuit of flair and acrobatics (“Haunted” “And Then We Are Gone”). The second-wave-adjacent harsh vocal production, slightly muted and noisy, adds to the overall rawness, intensifying the more straightforwardly brutal and giving grit to the more melodic, atmospherically inclined. On the former side, things really do get heavy, and the churning, howl-ridden soundscape is irresistible, but as the album progresses, it’s the latter that sees Profane Elegy doing some genuinely cool things. Eerie scales blend into a layered cascade of strums (“As My Heart Turns to Ash”), or invite the chords of melancholia to join them (“The Accuser”); more and more space is devoted to variously stripped-back quiet. Things don’t just hang in reverb; space opens in which a savage riff briefly grows mournful, and after few turns of tension, an almost gazey feel prevails as cleans take the lead (“As My Heart…”). It’s not the addition of atmosphere that’s good, it’s how Profane Elegy positions a mournful, post-adjacent mood with their harsh blackened side that manages to not sacrifice either, even when combined.

Yet, in committing as fully as they do to the spirit and execution of their disparate visages, Profane Elegy demonstrate that they haven’t quite refined the formula for their coexistence. The churning, variously vicious and epic blackened death on display on Herezjarcha is raucously enjoyable, while the vulnerability and atmosphere brought in by other influences create a powerful emotionality and works very well in combination. This doesn’t prevent the slightly awkward way one transitions to the other—particularly in the record’s first half. The balance and integration do improve as the runtime progresses, to the extent that the latter end, if stretched to the length of a full LP, would receive a higher score of at least one half figure. Still, the difference in the sound between the raw and ugly and the comparatively glossy is marked and can give the impression that one is suddenly listening to a totally different artist when the former switches places entirely for the other.

What Profane Elegy do achieve with Herezarcha, however, is to assert their skill and personality. Amidst a sea of underground metal artists pitching their bold and subversive takes, Profane Elegy stand in the sureness of honest distinction. They might not have cracked the complete execution yet, at a slim 38 minutes, Herezarcha is more than worth the time it takes to experience their unpolished expression.

Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: January 30th, 2026

Back in 2004, an album called Fallout dropped from an unheralded little band called Slumber. It was a lush, gorgeous piece of melodic doom in the vein of early Katatonia, Rapture, and Insomnium, and there was something very special about the moods created within. It remains a beloved album of Yours Steely, and I often wonder why it isn’t better known. Slumber guitarist/songwriter Jari Lindholm would go on to start Enshine, and their Origin and Singulariuty albums took the Slumber aesthetic forward to new soundscapes. Singularity was my Album o’ the Year in 2015, and I still get dragged into its glorious depths at regular intervals. It’s been a long wait for a new Enshine opus as Jari puttered with his ExGenesis and self-titled projects, but word broke in December that a new Enshine was imminent. Elevation was dropped without much fanfare or advanced promo campaigns, so we had to get our greasy mitts on it the same way the filthy masses do. As with past Enshine efforts, Elevation finds Jari Lindholm teamed with Sébastien Pierre, and their classic sound is present, still sitting somewhere between melodoom and melancholic melodeath, and naturally, it’s beautifully rendered. But can it maintain the same high level as the earlier works?

Opener “Shimmering” suggests it can as you’re greeted by the expected cavalcade of opulent trilling leads with melancholic flourishes. Everything is highly polished and bright as the sun, with guitar and keyboards rising and swelling in melodic waves. The music reminds me of modern Insomnium and the mellower moments on Omnium Gatherum’s New World Shadows. Sébastien Pierre provides effective death metal roars that suit the music, and the pieces all fit together well. It’s not the best thing Enshine’s ever done, but it’s pretty damn good. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the opener is one of the most lively tracks on offer. “Heartbliss” has harsher vocals, but they’re wrapped up in a glossy pancake of airy, ethereal melodoom without much in the way of an actual “doom” component to ground things and provide real impact. Jari’s guitar work is ephemeral, stunning, and I could listen to it for days, but the song itself doesn’t stick in my memory. I enjoy it as it floats past, but cannot recall it thereafter. “Where the Sunrise is Felt” self-corrects, providing a beefier riffing foundation, and Sébastien sounds extra spicy here. You still get a deluge of ethereal noodling to float upon, but it’s balanced by some beef, and that makes a difference.

Just as things seem to be moving in the right direction, “Distant Glow” hits with 4 minutes of bright, sugar-coated synthwave devoid of vocals or the slightest edge. It’s moody but dull, and it derails the energy Elevation was beginning to establish. Around this point, it dawned on me that the album is something they could play at a new age spa without disrupting the tranquility or displacing anyone’s chakra. I suppose there’s a place for “spa-metal,” but not on my goddamn property. The remainder of Elevation is loaded with languid, lustrous melodoom with the emphasis on the melo part. I’m reminded of Omnium Gatherum and later era Anathema, and the ravishing sounds are omnipresent, but it’s often sleepy and overly restrained. Here and there, Sébastien or Jari lapses into a whispered delivery, and that choice sums up Elevation as well as anything: it’s dialed-back music designed to avoid any emotion beyond a sullen glaze-over. It’s gorgeous but without real peaks and valleys or much in the way of dramatic impact. Without memorable individual moments, it becomes too easy to lose focus while listening, and the music very quickly slips into the background. Not only does the material tend to sit in the back row of your attention, but the songs tend to bleed together into an ornate, noodly mush. Lovely but unmemorable.

I’m a huge fan of Jari Lindholm’s guitar work, and his brilliance is on display all over Elevation. He has a unique ability to craft such gorgeous and moody guitar lines and layer them in a way that generates a fog of emotion. While his talents are in force here, the end result is less immediate and dynamic than on past works. There’s no shortage of sumptuous leads and delicate solos, but the overall effect is too often lethargy rather than emotional pangs and pulses. A lot of Elevation simply washes over and past me without activating my memory circuits. Jari and Sébastien share vocals, and though Sébastien’s death roars are good, they don’t add as much pop to the material as they could. Sébastien also handles keyboards, and at times his playing becomes a touch cloying and even cheesy. Ultimately, I spend too much time waiting for Jari and/or Sébastien to go harder and provide more oomph to the proceedings, but they rarely do.

Elevation is a gorgeous listen, but there aren’t many songs that I recall once the album ends. It’s a worthwhile listen, and I doubt Enshine could make a bad album, but this really makes me want to spin Singularity or Origin instead. That’s a big bummer for me, and I hope your melo mileage varies. Now go find that Slumber album and learn!

Rating: 3.0/5.01
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: enshine.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/enshine.band
Releases Worldwide: January 3rd, 2026

Maddog

I can’t overstate Enshine’s impact on my music taste. As a teen, I enjoyed melodic death metal, but struggled with the genre’s doomier acts. One day, I stumbled upon Enshine’s 2013 debut Origin. Having never heard of Jari Lindholm’s landmark band Slumber, I came in with few expectations. Eschewing the nondescript riffs that I had come to expect from doom, Origin captivated me with its creative melodies, gigantic climaxes, and synth-laced atmosphere. Most importantly, it brought tears to my eyes. Singularity followed suit in 2015, dragging slightly but hitting hard nonetheless. While Lindholm has released other albums via Exgenesis and his solo work in the interim, Elevation breaks a decade-long silence for Enshine. While it can’t match my first wide-eyed listen through Origin, Elevation is a worthy companion to a sorrowful night.

Enshine has always made every instrument count. Rather than fading into the background, Giannis Koskinas’ (Ocean of Grief) bass steals the show with lively lead melodies (“The Moment”). Conversely, on tracks like “Where the Sunrise Is Felt,” the rhythm section supplies a simple but hefty backbone to steer the song along. Sébastien Pierre’s keyboard is as active as ever, providing both center-stage melodies and a canvas for the other instruments. It’s remarkable how well this works; indeed, the key-heavy instrumental “Distant Glow” is one of Elevation’s most haunting cuts. Pierre and Lindholm’s vocals are unremarkable but get the job done, and the vocal lines are perfectly timed to accentuate the album’s peaks. Of course, while each of these pieces is compelling, Elevation’s guitars are a masterclass. Serving up huge Insomnium riffs, tear-jerking melodies, and minimalist interludes, Lindholm’s guitar work is varied but consistently impressive. Rounded out by a rich tone, Elevation is a full-blown sonic tapestry.

Elevation by Enshine

Enshine’s best work excels in both its climaxes and the journeys between them. Enshine’s riffs are more enormous than ever, with “The Purity of Emptiness” showcasing some pounding specimens. The rhythm section accentuates this riffwork like a thundering heartbeat. Elevation’s melodic peaks are just as lofty, and an explosive guitar solo makes the opener “Shimmering” an early contender for song of the year. As always, Enshine knows when and how to dial it back. For instance, the opening melody of “Heartbliss” serves as a serene counterpoint to the song’s beefier moments, while the closer “Reignite” relieves tension through its sparse midsection. While Elevation often flits masterfully between these extremes, it sometimes fizzles out. The aforementioned “Heartbliss” and “Reignite,” the two longest tracks, both spend their last few minutes in forgettable melodic ramblings. More generally, the album’s back half often settles into a neutral middle ground that neither excites nor calms. Elevation sometimes loses its footing, but most of its runtime is a dexterous volley between aggression and tranquility.

Accordingly, Elevation packs a powerful but inconsistent emotional punch. The most conventional source is the album’s soaring melodies, like those on “Shimmering.” But Enshine’s heart often hides in unlikely spots. “The Moment” hypnotizes the listener with a simple guitar riff, transmutes it into a tragic behemoth, and culminates in rhythmic repetition that evokes Cult of Luna. The key-driven “Distant Glow” remains the album’s most unlikely triumph. By rooting itself in one bittersweet melodic motif, “Distant Glow” evolves seamlessly from a chamomile-infused Infected Mushroom trance to punchy melodeath riffs. The result is a four-minute track that feels like a lifetime, in the best possible way. In contrast, parts of Elevation feel clinical. Songs like “The Purity of Emptiness” rely on interchangeable mid-paced riffs that fade from memory, and even stronger tracks fall into the same age-old trap (“Where the Sunrise Is Felt”). Enshine hasn’t lost their secret sauce, but they have diluted it.

But even more so than usual, I’m an unreliable narrator trapped in the tiniest of prisons. My twelve years with Enshine both paint and taint my perspective. So yes, “Reignite” is Enshine’s worst closer; but that’s because I remember the months I leaned on “Apex” and the friendship I strengthened with “Constellation.” And yes, Elevation sometimes gets lost in meandering riffs; but that sticks out because Origin is the pinnacle of concise melodeath-doom. Enshine’s former glory offers a convenient template for critiquing its follow-ups. In truth, Elevation is an enchanting release from a band that I’d feared would never return. Whether you’re an Enshine addict, a curious first-timer, or even a non-metalhead, Elevation demands and earns your attention.



Rating: 3.5/5.02

Grace Hayhurst – The World Is Dying Review

By Angry Metal Guy

Written By: Nameless_n00b_601

Making good progressive metal is incredibly difficult. Where styles like black metal can still succeed without considered songwriting or astonishing musicianship, prog is a fickle mistress, demanding expert songcraft that balances dynamic peaks and valleys, as well as considerable instrumental prowess. Even prog’s biggest bands still routinely falter when armed with a fearsome squad of world-class musicians and major label backing.1 Still, this fails to deter new artists without such resources from aiming for the sheer highs the style can offer. Enter English multi-instrumentalist Grace Hayhurst and her debut record, The World Is Dying. Except for drums, Hayhurst accomplishes the impressive task of composing and performing an expansive prog album entirely by herself. Informed by both ’70s prog rock and modern prog metal, alongside orchestral music and sci-fi media, The World Is Dying aims to be music that Hayhurst “wants to listen to.” Can this one-woman independent release fulfill her ambitions and succeed in producing a quality prog album where her contemporaries have failed?

Grace Hayhurst demonstrates a clear familiarity with prog, which she uses to craft engaging and varied songs. Her brand of prog metal is very much in line with the approach to the subgenre crystallized by Dream Theater and modernized by Haken, complete with a dash of extra British flavor á la Steven Wilson and Gentle Giant. Vocal-led compositions feature keyboards front and center, alongside odd time signatures and syncopated guitar riffs across dynamic shifts between softer, atmospheric moments and heavier passages with distorted power chords. Hayhurst follows the “prog playbook” while managing to avoid the common pitfalls of unfocused songwriting and extended solo sections, which plague many of her contemporaries. Instead of mashing together unrelated parts around a vague pop song structure, she builds on a distinct rhythmic or melodic motif and follows it throughout a song. Hayhurst weaves in and out of verses, choruses, and solos while dialing the intensity up or down depending on the part. The World Is Dying’s strongest songs use such motifs as central throughlines, complicating and enhancing compositions through texture and instrument substitutions (“Us vs Them,” “Revolution”).

Stunning compositions are only part of a successful prog equation, though, and unfortunately, Grace Hayhurst is an unengaging vocalist. The vocal parts themselves are all competently written, but vocally, she lacks the power or personality necessary to lead songs consisting of big hooks and dramatic peaks. Her vocal delivery is breathy and devoid of emotion. This makes the more chorus-focused songs (“The World Is Dying,” “It’s Our Fault”) significantly weaker, as each song’s repeated centerpiece falls flat. This isn’t helped by uninspiring lyrics throughout, which are presented with crystal clear audibility due to the production style. The record is entirely about humankind’s destruction of the Earth and the lack of consequences for those in power who have caused this. Yet, there’s no use of metaphor or abstraction in dealing with this potentially rich topic, just relatively plain language doled out in obvious rhyme schemes. After repeated listens, I find myself constantly pulled away from the tension created by lush instrumentation when what should be a memorable vocal moment fails to land.

When the vocals aren’t centered, The World Is Dying is loaded with engaging compositions, replete with musical layers and countermelodies that elevate an already-strong instrumental core. The individual sections themselves can sometimes veer into predictable, generic prog territory, but there is no shortage of textural flavor or variety, which adds nuance and replayability to several tunes. Nature sound effects are used to strengthen the concept while deepening the sonic space (“Our Forest, the Earth”), slap bass is employed for some funktastic groove changeups (“Us Vs. Them”) and guitar/synth melodies are embellished with tasty, doubled harmonies or added strings and orchestral flare (“Take Off”). On the vocal end, there are efforts made with layered harmonies and vocoders to make things a bit more interesting by pulling the focus away from a single vocal performance. Even harsh vocals are deployed at a few key moments, such as the end of the 13-minute “Revolution,” to great effect. Although on the track list, this is followed by an interlude and then the album closer, “Absent Futures,” a vocal-led acoustic ballad that falls flat due to its form.

The World Is Dying displays plenty of promise, but its potential is hampered by one unfortunately lackluster element. As a lover of prog, Grace Hayhurst’s debut is almost filled with enough whimsy and clever songwriting to excite me, but is ultimately held back by its weak vocals. I could see Hayhurst functioning well as the primary composer for a prog metal band with a dedicated singer. She still has some growth before carrying a full band on her own. For now, this album finds itself in the same predicament as its cover art: a competent package whose thematic cohesion is displaced by one disappointing component.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: gracehr.st| gracehrst.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: June 27th, 2025

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