Visitant – Rubidium
Release Date: 22nd August 2025
Label: Exitus Stratagem Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Progressive Death Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Blackened Death Metal.
FFO: Naglfar, Ulcerate, Suldusk, Dimmu Borgir, Firtan, Devenial Verdict.
Review By: Rick Farley
Formed in Pensacola, Florida in early 2022, by guitarist Taylor Tidwell and vocalist Chelsea Marrow, Visitant weaves a wicked merging of Symphonic black metal and progressive death metal. Complex musicianship and atmosphere round off the sharp edges, making their debut Rubidium bleakly extreme but also approachable. Releasing August 22, 2025, via Exitus Stratagem Records, Rubidium will surely excite fans with an album that is as cosmic atmospherically as it is downright ugly. The record toes the line seamlessly between ethereal and brutal, offering an engaging listening experience that leaves its cerebral impact for long after your first listen.
Unworldly kicks off the first of seven songs with a spirited, piano passage before ripping its flesh straight off into a vile symphonic black metal rage of blast beats, icy tremolo picked guitars and Chelsea’s demonic shrieking. A crunchier, thrashier death metal riff leads the way during the verse, dipping slightly into more guitar complexity than just of the frozen intensity. The track weaves and snakes back and forth between the dark worlds, amping up the ominous atmosphere with each section. From lower chanting vocals to a progressive middle section that vibes with a post black metal aura, this track lets the listener know that this will be a journey that splits into several directions, all connected by the same pulsing vein. Briars shows the versatility of Chelsea’s vocals; her haunting cleans over a lightly distorted guitar sends shivers down your spine simply because of its foreshadowing an oncoming wave of infernal punishment. The playful but ferocious blackened soundscape reminds me slightly of Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir to some degree before it shifts into more jagged guitar patterns with relentless double bass. This band doesn’t have an identity crisis by any means, but the immersive world destroying direction they take is often unpredictable, reaching levels of what at times sounds unstructured and chaotic until you’ve taken the time to fully soak the album in. That’s when things really begin to coalesce. The unique, beautiful, cosmic dreamscapes align themselves with the aggressive, technical, and vengeful spirit of its extreme foundation, forming a united, malevolent sense of knife edged frenzy repeatedly slashing with precision. Huge orchestral compositions behind acidic vocals and intense fire breathing heaviness works on every level. Even when Visitant brightens things up with mellower passages and spectral cleans, there is still a sense of colossal, abyssal bleakness despite it being more serene. Album closer Moon Bathe is a fitting example of this; it’s a two and a half minute instrumental that is on one hand numinous with tribalistic percussion and pacifying crooning vocals but becomes a heavier version of itself only to end feeling irresolute, with a mysterious vastness that resembles looking into the arresting eyes of otherworldly being but not knowing what its intent is.
If I were to have any complaints, it would be that Rubidium is a little short for my personal tastes at thirty-one minutes. I would have loved another full track in place of the instrumental. Despite it being enjoyable on its own, it does feel independent of the rest of the album in terms of cohesiveness. Another five minute track in the same vein as the others would have really set this off. However, this is a damn good record by a band that you should be checking out. Very excited to see where Visitant goes from here.
(4 / 5)
