Psychonaut – World Maker
On paper, Psychonaut sounds like a perfect band for me: Belgian post metal (which often means quality in itself), a bit sludgy which I don’t mind, and with a lot of clean vocals.
Yet, somehow I have never really given them a chance; I have even seen them live at the Arctangent festival, and yet I cannot recall anything about that performance, except for the resemblance of Stefan de Graef (guitars, vocals, who you also might know from the band Hippotraktor) to a certain YouTube celebrity.
So I have approached this review quite unbiased, given I am not very familiar with their discography. Sure, while working on this review I went back and checked the earlier records, but sometimes would find it “too” something for me (too sludgy, too heavy, and so on).
“World Maker” is Psychonaut’s third album, and with the previous two releases, which were accepted well, they already earned themselves a good fanbase and reputation for being a band with an established sound and great live presence. Being on Pelagic Records, I expected quite a lot as I tend to like a lot of the bands from their roster.
The first track of the album often sets the mood for the rest of the record, and the title track ‘World Maker’ made it clear that we are in for a dive into some melancholy waters, atmospheric and dark, so I was quite excited. Also I really enjoyed the clean vocals, delivered by bassist Thomas Michiels, and he really deserves some credit for them, as they sound beautiful and moody, and they absolutely worked well for me. Vocals can make or break the band for me, and both vocalists did a great job here.
Psychonaut band members
The album continued with ‘Endless currents’, with a very interesting intro riff, which then transformed into the melancholic verse, similar in style to what we heard on the first track.
But I knew it was a build-up for something, and boy the payoff came on the chorus: it exploded with the powerful harsh vocals from Stefan de Graef, which absolutely worked for me, combined with the heavier variation of the intro riff (which came back again later , even stronger). Definitely one of the outstanding songs for me, and it was a very strong start.
‘You Are The Sky’ is eerie and heavy, and I was trying to wrap my head around the rhythm section, absolute chaos, and I felt the album generally was building up, but on the following track, ‘Everything Else is Just the Weather’, it went quiet again, with some nice acoustic guitar passages, and clean vocals. So I was enjoying myself.
The album then continued to change the pacing, between more mellow and intense tracks, there were a few instrumental ones, which felt a bit like fillers, but the remixed version of ‘Origin’ caught me by surprise.
Gotta be honest, the second half of the album lost me a little bit. Not to say there are bad songs , I enjoyed them (especially ‘All in Time and Stargazer’), but I felt like ‘Endless Currents’ and ‘You Are the Sky’ to me definitely were the strongest songs on the album.
But I will probably appreciate it more after revisiting, which often happens, can definitely see myself listening to this record more.
Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed “World Maker”. It has everything I love about post metal (I hate labelling things, but here we are): atmosphere, melancholy, emotions and a lot of heavy moments. I feel that it’s a bit more accessible than some of their older albums, whether it’s a good or a bad thing – you decide. Definitely give this album a chance, if you like this kind of music or you are a fan of the band, and catch them live!
Track List:
- World Maker
- Endless Currents
- You Are the Sky…
- …Everything Else is Just the Weather
- And You Came with Searing Light
- Origins
- All in Time
- Stargazer
- All was Quiet
- Endless Erosion
- Origins (Ghesso Remix)