When I heard there was going to be another Hanging Garden release, I was confused. I knew that a Hanging Garden had released an album in the earlier part of 2026, so imagine my initial confusion when I heard of this one. Well, the joke was on me, because this is certainly not the death-doom Finns. Let’s discuss this band and their newest album Dream Death.

Dream Death is an album that hits the ground running. Its riffs immediately punch you in the face without as much as a thought to your feelings. The guitars chug, the drums blast beat at a speed that borders on racing, and the orchestration is a well-oiled machine that doesn’t stop until the band says so. Although this is prog death, there are no clean vocals, and no sonic reprieve to be found. If you came here thinking that you would find something like Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, be prepared to have your entire face melted off as there is no levity. The music is an onslaught of various sonic influences all intricately placed together, creating a structured cacophony that works incredibly well together. Hanging Garden’s music feels like a moving painting, embedded with a mechanical perfection that boasts of power and relentless drive that doesn’t stop. It’s clear that the band has this album down to a science, its precision in creating intricate guitar melodies and allowing itself to experiment in the middle of tracks and then being able to shift back to straight death metal is impressive. For example, take third track “Dreamwoven,” a song whose main highlight is the band’s ability to shift between intensity and melody to create a compelling song that makes you want to move. Its intensity keeps you rooted on the spot, so when the melody breaks out, you can’t help but just be enamored with how focused they are at creating music that blisters. This bleeds into fourth track “Carambola,” that further raises the intensity and commits to the melodic bit even more. Unlike its predecessor “Carambola” is more on the experimental, progressive side of death metal, where the music sounds cleaner, allowing the band to experiment with more influences and slowing down their speed to a crawl.

“Carambola” is the halfway point, and Hanging Garden is very keen to show you that they are more than just mechanical prog death that was created in a lab.

As the album moves past “Carambola,” the music also moves away from the overt mechanical death metal feeling, becoming more accessible. Stripped of its precision, the second half becomes more straightforward and progressive, as if the band wants to pursue that experimental, moving tone seen on “Carambola.” The musical pace ebbs and flows to match the vocals and the speed of the drums, but it remains restrained. The mood has shifted, paying more attention to how a song sounds versus how intense a song can become. Look at sixth track “Tears of Lustful, Secret Desire” as a testament to this idea. While the death metal remains, the music is complex, emotional, and seemingly more melodic. Yes, there were melodies and softer sounds in that first half, but Dream Death’s second half is what good prog death should be, and I am so happy to experience it.

Of course, Dream Death takes a while to grow on you. While I am for its concept, its first-half is incredibly top-heavy, its speed and sonic onslaught an interesting thing to get used to on the morning commute. However, once you are able to get past that first-half, Hanging Garden lays the album bare for you to listen and enjoy. You have arrived at the center of its musicality, and you can’t help but be impressed by how good this album is. I haven’t been into prog/experimental death metal of this caliber since Depressants. It seems both Dream Death and Depressants now sit very comfortably as my top “weird” metal releases of the year.

— Hera

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Dream Death is available now on Transcending Obscurity Records. For more information on this Hanging Garden, visit their official Facebook page.