Review by Iron Mike
- Release date: 05/02/2025
- Recorded by Will Marvelas at 14:59 Studios and Reed Reimer at Fable Factory.
- Tags: metal, alternative metal, prog metal, progressive metal, Minneapolis,
Setup
In a region fairly well dominated by death metal, black metal and a rising tide of doom metal, UXIA mixes flavors from those more extreme subgenres into their own recipe of progressive metal. This immediately helps them stand out from the local crowd.
Their Bandcamp page states, “For fans of Porcupine Tree , Opeth , and Mastodon , UXIA offers a captivating and unforgettable progressive metal experience.”
No lies detected in that statement. Now, just don’t ask me how to pronounce their name. I’ve only seen it written, but not heard it spoken aloud. (youkSEEuh?)
Fresh Meat
The album kicks in with Sunk, launching with a driving drumbeat and some keyboard/synth laden guitar and bass accent riffs. The initial vocals are somewhat reminiscent of the death growls of Trent Horselord formerly of Living Through Ghosts and Synopsis. They soon give way to clean, heartfelt vocal style often found in progressive metal and melodeath. This one trucks along for a solid 3:55 before devolving into SFX that fade away. And we’re off!
Journey To Begin is next, starting with a Rabea Massaad-reminiscient clean guitar rhythm ala Toska. Honestly surprised Toska isn’t listed as a ‘for fans of…’. After many listens, this track is my favorite and the shining star of this album. Oddly enough, its placement in the context of the full LP makes it better. Not because it exceeds the quality of the other songs, but due to how it contrasts from the context of the full offering. Before the song comes to a satisfying conclusion, the deathly vocals return, hammering home this tracks message.
Next we hit The Cycle, a nice mixture of vibes from the first 2 tracks, with more to offer all its own. If you were to pick a song off the album to play for someone who wanted to know what UXIA was all about, this might be a great choice. Growling vocals dance with clean singing, while pounding, percussive rhythms underscore delicate melodies. While I’ve yet to see them live, I bet this track is incredible at full concert volume through a quality FOH sound system with a good sound engineer at the controls.
Mirror’s Edge, a more mellow offering, precedes the thoughtful Follower, World’s Fair (not a song, but a recording of what sounds like a carnival ending with panic’ed screams) before Welcome Holm lands the plane on this journey. Holm has the best vocal growling on the whole album, and, if it wasn’t for Journey, might get my vote for best track on this 1.
The Kill
The musicianship, songwriting and arrangements on this album are clearly advanced well beyond the standard verse-chorus-verse standard fare. But the word “progressive” implies that, as you know.
For those who live for the negatives: In some ways, like many progressive bands, this might get labeled as “music for musicians”. However, Rush, Voivod, Dream Theater & Opeth have long proven it’s a potent subgenre for fans as well. In a few spots, the clean vocals ride the edge of “flat”, but retain their musicality. For some listeners this might be a turnoff.
My only real nitpick is the information on their Bandcamp page. It has an incredible amount of info about the recording process, but doesn’t name a single musician, speak to the band members history, influences, preferences, visions or dive into the sorts of things other musicians want to know, like gear used, etc. Thankfully, that’s a simple fix.
Final Thoughts
I think this album has been a long time coming, and it’s worth the wait. That said, it may take some listeners a little longer to get into all it has to offer. If you give it shot and don’t immediately love it, try again a few times and you’ll likely discover it grows on you as you follow along on the trails of exploration from one song to the next.