21 Spins: Plague of Stars – Extinction (LP)

Review by ÆRæder

• https://plagueofstars.bandcamp.com/music 
• Release Date: 1/31/25
• Wormholedeath Records / https://wormholedeath.com/ 
• 14:59 Studios / https://www.facebook.com/1459studio/ 
• Vox/Guitar/Guitar/Bass/Drums
• Identifies as: doom metal, black metal, gothic metal, 

After purchasing and listening to this album over 21 times, here is my take:

Sound/Mix

This sound/mix is spectacular! on quality speakers. I have to admit I sample-listened a few times prior to the release show this winter on some basic speakers (phone – lol, SmartTV, Wonderboom portable) and I was not too impressed. Seeing Plague of Stars live changed some of my perspective. So I wanted to revisit them prior to the Tom Croxton Recovery Benefit show (https://www.facebook.com/share/1AQZyMERqb/) at Club Underground on 04/25/2025. So I dug in deeper through better speakers. I then saw how well put together and balanced the whole album is. Masterful, heavy, clear, and crisp. Just keep it cranked on those quality speakers.

Performance

https://mnbleedsmetal.com/ is an organic work-in-progress, so this heading of “performance” may need to be tweaked. Most bands entering a studio are gonna be performing at peak (or beyond), and connections to a label further enhance everything. What I am aiming at is how they are playing their shit and if it vibes or not. Having seen Plague’s stage presence and performance live, and after delving into Extinction, the overall performance, vibe, and this band’s ability to hit their shit is top tier. The above identity hashtags I scrounged up do not nearly encompass the range of  metal genres this band pulls off perfectly, across the album, and also within songs. Death/Doom/Black/Thrash/HeavyM (The 5 Gospels – https://kfai.org/program/roar-of-underground/), with haunting keys playing around the edges to build a goth element almost subconsciously because of how inconspicuously they are mixed into the background… so smoothly and originally intertwined and truly genre-defying.

Shade

For the hardcore followers of this site, you may notice that “shade” typically follows “highlights”. Well, I am starting with shade because in my first spins a couple months ago, I honestly couldn’t get through this album. Shit speakers to sample the songs had a role in this. After seeing Plague live, I was more motivated to give this a second chance, but when I tried, I was equally frustrated the first few listens. Something seemed off between what the band was doing, and what was happening vocally in some portions. I had to pound these tunes until a breakthrough happened.

Highlights

“Gods of Old”. The darkest, fastest, heaviest riffs and drumming on the album. This was the song that threw me off and brought the shade upon this album for me; until a breakthrough I had after a dozen recent spins. Listening to it as I was driving to work in the morning, I had a vision that gave me chills and got me buzzed for the rest of the day. I told my partner when I got home, 

“That song I told you I couldn’t stand, I love it now. The whole album and the sound she has makes sense now… I was driving and suddenly had a vision; I was stumbling through some black forest, and came upon a clearing with a fucking sorceress singing some scary, dissonant, ancient sounding incantation over this fucking raging blue/black/red fire. And I walk in on them as an intruder, and whatever she is summoning and that fire focused on me… Her voice is that sorceress, and the band is setting the rest of the scene. I can’t understand what the words are though. I need to email them and see what they lyrics are…” (I cleaned this up a bit and removed some of the additional horror elements, but ask my partner for verification.)

Liz Ziegler replied, and I was not exactly spot on in my vision. However, her lyrics sent chills up my spine and definitely connected for me. These are her lyrics, too good not to post in their entirety:

Lyrics

Dancing beneath the moonlit skies, a fire’s glow among the masses.

Voices ring with descants from the past, a pulse so strong it can move The Mother.

A shift in the wind.

The whispers of the ancient trees, reminds us of our roots, and histories

A march felt through the sacred grove, brought tales of arrogance and violation.

Steel-clad with scriptures in their hands, a mission of conversion across the lands.

Intruders seeking a holy expanse, as swords and crosses in shadows advance.

With zeal and arms raised up high, in the name of God, they reached for the sky!

Temples fell and villages burned, impaled, and slaughtered unless they convert.

Eyes ablaze, a thirst for gain. Darkness descends, erasing the gods of old.

Muted laments, erasing the gods of old. Twisting, turning, forests burning.

A trail of corpses bore witness to the march. Haunting cries wail, defeat prevails.

For miles you could hear the screams! Death’s symphony plays. The sacred, concealed.

A truth denied, erasing the gods of old.‘Til the times change, and we erase your god.

That term in the first verse, “descants” (google it up), can create tension, and at times almost dissonance. This is what I got caught on and didn’t like at first (venturing out of my lane here, but I am trying to figure this out). Once I saw this, and thought about the feel and scene the music/vocals/lyrics created, I began connecting and developing an understanding of the concept of the album as a whole. 

My quote above is just my own interpretation of what I heard, and does not reflect what is actually going on in the lyrics or what the artists intended. But it is how I connected to the tunes. This album is eye-opening, convicting, subversive, and liberating on several levels. Liz is not just the vocalist on this album; she is the fucking maestro sorceress, and her singing has a touch of ancient incantation to it that heavily colors each tune. This is a contribution to metal that not many vocalists and bands would be able to pull off. Because of this breakthrough, I easily listened to and enjoyed this album well beyond the 21 count mark.

Summary

Extinction might take some time for some to sink in to, but it could be very well worth it. There is true art here. A final thought I had stems from a couple shows I went to this winter that included Tyr, Ensiferum, and Korpiklaani. There is a power/folk metal element occurring in Plague, but thoroughly iced out in winter and heavy humidity in summer Minnesotan. Anchored more in metal gospel (thrash/death/doom/black/heavy – https://kfai.org/program/roar-of-underground/), than in Euro-folk, lyrically and sonically, with a pagan/animist flavor on the folk aspect. I feel like I have been talking out of my ass in a number of areas here, so correct me where I am wrong. But I truly appreciate all the thoughts and questions this album made me ponder once I got into it.