Kardashev - Alunea - Metal Epidemic

Kardashev – Alunea
Release Date: 25th April 2025
Label: Metal Blade Records
Bandcamp
Genre: DeathGaze, Death Metal, Progressive Metal.
FFO: Fallujah, Slice The Cake, An Abstract Illusion, Rivers of Nihil, Black Crown Initiate.
Review By: Mark Young

Sometimes you just don’t align with a band or an album, no matter how hard you try. There is something about this album that I just can’t get with. It happens, and I’m sure that the band won’t lose any sleep over it. Alunea is the latest full-length release and continues their development from early bringers of Deathgaze (which is a new one on me) to a more progressive sound that still takes in death metal but leans more into that atmospheric side of things, which in turn expands their sonic playground. This wouldn’t normally turn me off, but here there is something that makes my teeth itch. The use of clean singing is commonplace, and there are some bands that do it well and some that don’t. The quality of the vocals on here, whether they encompass clean or dirty styles here is very good, it’s just that I find the cleans too clean, almost sweet for music of this nature. This is possibly where the ‘Gaze’ part comes in, bringing (admittedly) strong singing into the realm of death metal.

Right, so now I’ve got that off my chest, what is it like? Putting the singing to one side, it sounds great and is a strong set that shows a great ability to put individual songs together that come together as a cohesive whole. The songs avoid the trap of repetition, and there is some raging material on here which is top class, such as Truth to Form, which for me is a standout track and shows that they can be brutal when they want to be. In terms of a listening experience, it is a bit hit-and-miss, because as they have noted themselves, they are trying to continually develop to a sound that is unique to them. In doing so, it has put them in a half-way house of trying to be all things to all people. Some like me won’t like it (personally because I lean to the more brutal side of things) others will wholeheartedly embrace it. The parts where they go down that heavier route are fantastic and are as good as anything that has been released recently. Where this falls is where that lighter side comes in within the same song, and it then detracts from it, such as on Below Sun & Soil, which is mesmerizing until that lighter approach comes in, which even for that short spell changed how that final song resonated with me.

I think that this is the first time in a long time where one aspect has severely affected how I go about reviewing. There are moments of sheer class on here and for those that have been on the journey with Kardashev they will be here for this.