Gaerea “Coma”
Coma will be released October 25th through Season of Mist
Mysterious masked act Gaerea have been combining elements of black metal, progressive, post-black and countless other genres into their sound. Since the band’s 2018’s debut album Unsettling Whispers, Gaerea continued to push the genre into new directions. Letting the music be the main focus of the band’s message, while the band would shroud themselves in anonymity with their look. The band would gain more praise and grow in popularity with their next albums, 2020’s Limbo and 2022’s Mirage. Now, Gaerea have come back to deliver an album that included new elements in the making of their new record Coma. With the band incorporating more beauty amongst the darkness throughout the whole album. Creating a more ambitious and eclectic record that further cements the band’s impactful sound. Along with how the band pushes black metal in a sound that only Gaerea can make. With Coma potentially being the band’s best record.
“The Poet’s Ballet” opens the album. With clean, reverb heavy electric guitars, the song opens with a very heavy atmospheric tone. A feeling of tranquility begins to rise as choir like vocals come rising from the depths of the track. Almost a meditative-like feeling in the vocal’s delivery, creating a calming feeling to the listener as the waves of the vocal mix and guitar coarse through the ears and through the listener. Then, that feeling drastically falls to the lowest depths as tremolo guitars and pounding double bass, as well as the gritty vocals and blast beats kick in. Feeling like a freefall into the unknown, Gaerea perfectly paced that song and shocked the listener with this opening. Delivering a dynamically done bait-and-switch, creating a feeling of the whole song being one thing, before turning on a dime to shift the song into an angry and darkened tonal shift. GREAT opening track, and builds the anticipation for what the band has in store for the rest of the record.
“Hope Shatters” opens with distorted, jagged like guitars into unrelenting blast beats. With atmosphere filling the space of the mix, the song is driving and unmatched in it’s pacing with the lead and rhythm guitars. Drumming is a non-stop barrage of kicks and drum strikes all over the kit. Vocals have so much phlegm, grit and distortion in the delivery, it just has that aura of darkness and the bleakest of the bleak. The choir at the halfway mark really adds that dimension of ominous and evil to the track as the music just doesn’t let up for one second through the four minute runtime. I love the bridge of the song and the closing performance. Such a great song and potentially my favorite song off the album. On “Suspended”, the reverb guitar and bass really creates that uneasy, anxious feeling as the war-like drum hits come in. The percussion creates a call-to-arms, war like vibe to it as the guitar begins to rise and show a command to fire as the song hits the ground running. Another pummeling song, with the guitar and drums stopping for just a second to give my head the time to prepare to headbang along with every second. Lead guitars on the song really do create an uplifting like emotional message, before the tremolo and blast beats crush that emotion into dust and the band goes for the throat with the vocals and the intensity of the rhythm section. The halfway mark shows that acoustic guitar shift, adding elements of progressive metal and ambient black metal to the song as the band creates a feeling of lull and peacefulness. The choir returns for the closing moments of the song and is such a great addition, creating a darkened sermon behind the unhinged and chaotic screaming of the vocals.
“World Ablaze” opens with an almost post-black metal/shoegaze guitar with driving drums. The soaring tremolo guitars over an almost d-beat drum section seems like it’s an odd mix, but it works with the tone of the song. I got goosebumps during the blast beats mixed with the male choir during that section, hitting like a wrecking ball. The song has a crust-punk feeling with the drumming at some parts, but overall is one of the strongest songs on the album and is a powerhouse of a song. With the title track, the song has a start/stop intensity to it, encapsulated by the high impact drumming and building drum fills after it. With total Behemoth vibes in the musical sound, Gaerea really deliver a menacing and evil-tinged pace. Midtempo feeling with the guitars, but unmitigated drumming during some sections. In an almost counter-melody like feeling, but the band pulls it off and creates that uneasiness in the song’s dynamics and delivery. Ringing acoustic guitar plucks opens “Wilted Flower”. With every string pluck soaked in reverb, the song takes on an otherworldly build as the ambience and layering of the mix adds to the ethereal nature. That feeling comes to a smashing halt as the distorted guitars kick in with the double bass. Tremolo guitars add to the layering and complexity of the mix as the drums create a nice, headbang along feeling before the blast beats return. Vocally, it is just soaked in reverb, anguish and distortion in each word. Really creating that feeling of loss, anger and sadness. The post-black metal whisper section creates a nice break in the heaviness and adds an emotional weight to the vocals as they are whispered. With lo-fi-esque drums and screams compressed in the mix, the guitars take center stage and create a soaring lead and build before everything comes roaring back from the depths to scratch at the old wounds of the opening brutality. After a sonic onslaught of blasts and screams, the song closes with a beautiful vocal layering and progressive sounding guitar and effects that would make any Opeth fan happy as the song comes to a close.
“Reborn” comes out the gate with aggressive and commanding double bass and blast beats. The choir vocals return amongst the tremolo guitars and manic vocals. The band plays around with pacing really well on this song and throughout the album. Almost scoring the album like a movie. Peaks and valleys throughout and sways of emotional anguish and anger, the band captures that technique so well with this song. Grimy and gritty guitars open the track “Shapeshifter”. With a slow, doom metal-esque opening, the song captures that hopelessness and downtrodden mindset as the song picks up with lead guitars ringing in the background. The doom metal miasma fades away at the two minute mark, and the intense black metal sound comes roaring back as the drums and guitars fly at a mile a minute. Throughout this whole album, I do truly get entranced and swept up into where the band takes each track. Trying to imagine where the music will go or what random thing they will add to the song to amplify it emotionally, musically or lyrically. Beautifully layered and effect heavy acoustic guitar opens “Unknown”. With bass being the lead, the song has a groove almost to the opening moments. Drum strikes and tremolo guitars set up an exciting build into unhinged vocals and flurries of blast beats and drum fills. I like the guitar in-between the verses section, almost in the vein of a more distorted metalcore-style riff which kind of caught me off guard, but I dug a lot. The song is again, just an audio score of a piece. So many moments of rising highs and lowest of lows. The album closes with the song “Kingdom of Thorns”. It is a song that encapsulates the entire record in this closing piece. It has the driving and fast-paced playing of the band’s black metal sound. It’s got the layering and instrumentation that adds progressive, atmospheric and ambient elements. Especially in the closing moments of the song. Closing out the album with a punishingly heavy, complex, beautiful arranged track that truly captures the talent and artistry that Gaerea does so well.
Gaerea truly created an album that really was an audio journey that had moments of clarity, regret, depression, self-destruction and isolation. An almost hour long piece of music that showed the band at their most mature. Developing and experimenting with the band’s sound, and that experiment was a success. This, to me, is the band’s best album. It captures a little bit of all the best of many countless subgenres of black metal. I love the progressive elements and the ambience that helped create and add such emotional depth and passion in the songs. This will end up on my best of 2024 album list and I would not be surprised if this album ends up on many “Best Of” lists for the year.
SCORE: 5 / 5
