Apogean - Waste Where Life Begins

Apogean – Waste Where Life Begins
Release Date: 10th July 2026
Label: The Artisan Era
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Blackened Death Metal.
FFO: Sylosis, Soreption, The Black Dahlia Murder, Obscura.
Review By: Mark Young

It’s not often that I’m left cold, unaffected by Death Metal. After all, after Thrash it’s my go-to genre for what I love about metal. The extremity, speed etc is just something that still excites me after all this time. I need to come clean with Apogean and their latest, Waste Where Life Begins.

Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with it, it has everything that you would associate with this music and I can recognise that. For me there is something missing from its DNA that I cannot put my finger on. Normally, I don’t make snap assumptions about the music I’m reviewing just on the strength of one track and yet here I was compelled to do so. The opening track should scorch your ears, pummel and lay the groundworks for the album to follow. What we have here is a mid-paced rumble that places emphasis on a riff set and arrangement that looks towards just running over you, but in what feels like third gear. It does a job, but just about.

The title track comes in much the same manner, again there’s nothing wrong with it, it just doesn’t hit like I hoped it would and in a lot of ways treads the same path as the opening track. Again, let me make it clear that if you lean into that more methodical style then these will be for you. So far, I’m not enthralled and Lie in Cinder does nothing to change that mood. Its build sees it stop/start, increase/decrease in increments. It’s almost like the music is wrapped up tightly with no room for any movement, the aural equivalent of a clenched fist.

When they do let go, such as on White Trees, Black Leaves it’s for the fleetest of moments, that rapid speed giving the song an aggressive edge before it returns to that mid-pace that has dominated proceedings so far. That impetus carries over onto Nassaru, but again its punctuated by that retreat to slower tempos. There is a lot going on in this song, and for me shows that if they could have adopted some of the more aggressive lines we would be talking differently. As it is, it still can’t help pulling back to the point of frustration. Hologram starts on a fleet foot, but they cannot help the inevitable slow down. From a personal perspective, I’ve given enough time to this and to hope that as the album progressed the songs would catch fire. They didn’t, and the closing track is serviceable, opting to actually go a little quicker in its execution. As I’ve said, there is a lot to love about this album; they stick to their beliefs and remain consistent throughout. I’m convinced that for those that like a little more than just an aural blitzkrieg in their music then they will dig what happens here.