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Winter Gardens is back with an EP, this one called Macabre Divine. You may recall my review for their amazing 2025 EP Uncomfortable/Unlovable. For my money, I’m just going to combine them into one excellent album.
The band plays a meaty blend of dream pop and shoegaze. I say “meaty” because it’s far more technical and I daresay progressive than those genres typically betray. Their sound is more like a vibrant river of thoughts and rhythms and melodies, spaced out into the cosmic distance. It’s so beautiful.
The EP contains five songs and runs 22 minutes. “Adored” was immediately one of my favorite songs of the year. The hazy chorus, the colorful stream of melody, the excellent rhythm section: it’s such an arresting song right from the start. “Fragile Boy” is almost as good with its introspective, storytelling vibes transitioning to the climactic shoegazey section.
Then we get “Violet Corridors”, an instrumental track. Their instrumental pieces on the first EP were basically progressive rock affairs and absolutely mind-blowing. This goes the other direction. It’s quiet, ambient, echoing with memory. I really like it. The final two tracks emerge from it in purposeful manner. “The Yearning” is a slow rise of emotion and tone with lots of heavier, foggy moments near the end. The seven-minute title track closes the EP with a cautious ladder of emotions. It takes us up and out, and into the searing color and light. It is so effective and feels untamed.
Overall, such a vivid EP, and I hope the band can give us a full album someday.
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Tanterill released a hard-rocking EP called Zagreus back on October 1st. This trio is Erdem Hakan Engin on drums, synths, and vocals; Andreas Krebs on guitars and vocals; and Randy M. Salo on bass. What a sound they’ve created!
This six-track EP runs about 26 minutes yet somehow feels like a full album. The music here is what I’d called progressive electro-rock. It has lots of electronic accents, but also burning bass grooves, amazing instrumentals, and tons of cool energy. It’s a blast to hear!
The opener “Not Coming Back” is basically a two-minute ambient intro. And it’s beautiful. From there, the EP gives us three instrumental tracks and two with vocals. “Tide” has vocals and hits really, really hard. The gritty bass and layered rhythms are so damn cool. I can listen to it forever. The other vocal track is “Frames”, with more sweat and more lumbering grooves. It feels very hard rock and I love it.
But my favorite tracks are the instrumental ones. “Fat of the Fat” is fantastic in how it trades back and forth between ambient space and nostalgic heavy grooves. “90 Percent” rocks but somehow also feels thoughtful and spacious. “Prodigy” is my favorite with its electronica and intricate rhythms; I adore the swirling synths that emerge near the end.
Overall, such an energetic EP that I think will surprise people.
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My wife and I love Bent Knee, but the band has been relatively silent since 2024’s Twenty Pills Without Water. If you follow singer Courtney Swain’s Instagram, though, you’ll see she’s quite active in various things. One of those things is this collaboration with guitarist Harry Stafylakis. It’s an EP called dontwaitforme, and I want a full album.
First off, I should mention there are lots of musicians here. Courtney Swain handles vocals, synth, and sound design and Harry handles guitars and programming, but you’ll also hear Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (also of Bent Knee) on drums, Will Healy on piano, Megan Atchley on violin, Philip Sheegog on cello, Izzy Gleicher on flute and piccolo, and David Valbuena on clarinets. All of that for one song! Yes, this is one 14-minute epic suite.
Here’s the thing. The music is spread over six tracks, most of them rather short. The song is quite reserved for “Self-fragmented”, “Within Vastness Sublime”, “Self-reflected”, and “With Emerging Purpose”. Also, Courtney only offers a few lyrics throughout, instead focusing on harmonization and vocal inflections, which sounds fantastic. If you love her voice, she essentially flavors the music with her unique tone. I love that. These tracks are thoughtful, anticipatory, and harmonious. I honestly could listen to a full ambient album like that, complete with the classical touches.
But then “Self-determined” hits and the song takes off. In sweeps progressive metal trappings with raging orchestrations. It contains bits of folk music, I’d say, and some of the writing reminds me of Pain of Salvation’s BE in that way. “With Blinding Clarity” ends the affair with the heaviest, most guitar-forward portion of the song. It is fantastic and technical in all the best ways, feeling urgent and confident.
Long story short, this is a terrific epic and I want more.
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