“Holy man or surmising goat, Push against the scythe as it slits your throat.“
Prog metal is not often as digestible as this. Desenser‘s new EP Aurora Equitum releases this week, and in their previous work, Desenser’s punk influence was strong. The years between 2020 and now seem to have brought introspection and funky time signatures to the fore. The band still retains their preference for focused track runtimes and good humour, leading to a new release that has a lot of fun fusing heavy rock genres.
By my reckoning, Aurora Equitum is lovingly inspired by 00s Tool (not derogatory!) or Cobalt (an undeniably cooler namedrop), right down to the lyrics on “Broken Crown” (“With eyes wide open!”). Desenser further this by playing at a much faster tempo with cheeky bass licks and proggy turns aplenty. The guitarwork is both a bit sludgy, a bit thrashy, and feels straightforward and dependable. This gives the songwriting a flair at making surprising structures that still make “sense”. The vocal range is also spectacular, from alt metal choruses on “All That Remains”, right up to the raspy screams you will find all over the shop. “Broken Crown” is a worthy single full of great riffs that even gets a little electronic near its end.
For a DIY release, the production is solid and quite hard to argue with, as it goes hard in all the ways it should, if a little compressed. It’s a nice step up from Desenser’s debut self-titled EP from 2020. It’s satisfying to see how their songwriting has now improved in the intervening years. A neat trick is that the tracks run into one another slightly, which is particularly pleasant for an EP, conferring coherence over its short length. Note that the intro is a weird little experiment that I hope doesn’t turn off too many listeners, as what follows is nothing like it. This EP demonstrates Desenser as a serious band worth following.
8/10
Aurora Equitum is out this Friday via self-release and can be pre-ordered here.