Kaupe – Destroyer of Worlds
Release Date: 17th October 2025
Label: Morbid Subculture
Order CD / Vinyl
Genre: Progressive Metal, Experimental.
FFO: Converge, Tool, Meshuggah, Deftones, Carpenter Brut, Jeff Wayne.
Review By: Magnus Rotås
From the swamps of DeLand, Florida comes progressive instrumental metal unit Kaupe who are back with their third and most ambitious full-length to date: Destroyer of Worlds. I was not aware of this band before this review, but an all out assault on modern decay and the digital world by the means of cinematic progressive metal had me very intrigued to check them out!
Kaupe was apparently born from a desire to create music that tells stories without words, however Destroyer of Worlds sees the band include voices for the first time into their dystopian soundscape, including Scott Angelacos (Bloodlet, Junior Bruce, Hollow leg) and Matt Decker (Tangent, Ginko Balboa). Sample artist Viewer Discretion (formerly of ACP Pro) also lends his textural collage work to key tracks, warping real-world commentary into surreal commentary on modern decay.
The album opens with The Past Will Own You, a sample-driven instrumental that sets the tone for what’s to come: crushing grooves, layered synths, and an ominous atmosphere that feels equal parts sci-fi and spiritual collapse. As an opener for an album like this I wish it was a bit more atmospheric and building to start off with, it kinda just throws you straight in, which feels a bit weird. But man is this track cool, though, I just love how they manage to keep the atmosphere so dark while being so damn groovy and melodic at the same time.
Living Among the Dead follows, a song which the band call “an orchestration of chaos” that features over 70 recorded tracks, which caused mixing engineer Stephen Sheppert to lovingly scold the band for exceeding the original mix estimate. This song quickly moves from brighter moments of clarity to chaotic, heavier sections, almost like a breathing lung that pulses between light and dark.
Unresolved Trauma was the single I heard that made me want to do this review. It’s my favorite track on the album. The way it constantly switches up between these heavy, groovy riffs is just so damn cool. It’s a beast of a song where every second is packed with purpose. The title track, Destroyer of Worlds, is one of the more cinematic tracks on the album. It emerges like a machine uprising, you can almost picture the big robotic machines from the album cover come to destroy us all. Built on off-time dissonance, the song’s polyrhythmic solo section pulses through time signatures like 6/4, 5/4, and 4/4, certainly a big treat for the nerds!
Then comes the shift. Next Time Wear a Black Shirt is a more straightforward eruption of punk-thrash. It’s quite different from the other tracks, but with Matt Decker on vocals, it adds a jolt of life to the album. I must say I’m a bit indifferent about this track as it’s not only sonically more straightforward, but even the title is a joke about fashion faux pas at a metal show and is about the quiet importance of simple requests in life’s final moments. It feels much more grounded than the world ending scope of the other tracks. If you like synths, you are gonna love All That’s Left Is Sin! The track plunges into darker terrain with a blast of aggression softened by haunting synth drones. The way the synths are used here is phenomenal.
The Joy of Sorrow is another very technical but synth laden track. But it’s RMR-1029 that may linger longest in listeners’ heads. Scott Angelacos roars prophetic lines, “Quantum computing will be the key to make better pornography,” while Viewer Discretion’s audio collage builds a dystopian narrative of technological dependency. It’s heavy, it’s unnerving, and it feels like they mean it. The final track, Rosen Bridge, is a quiet moment of cosmic optimism in an otherwise bleak journey. The band describe the dueling guitar and keyboard solos as like a conversation between machines that finally understand emotion, and that is basically spot on.
Destroyer of Worlds manages to blend intricate grooves with beautifully layered synths to create immersive soundscapes. Their attempt to tell a story without words is also mostly successful, but I think the tracks could have been ordered a bit differently to create a stronger musical narrative overall.
The band has a unique ability to make technical and complex music feel emotional and sound melodic, something that is very hard to do. That, combined with a message about modern decay and how technology, media, and dopamine-fueled consumption are tearing apart the very fabric of human interaction, makes for one great album!
(4 / 5)
