I am a simple person: I see “prog death” used as a genre descriptor for a band I’ve never heard of, and I am immediately intrigued. Given all the death-doom and doom-adjacent albums I’ve been listening to lately, I decided that the best way to reset my ears was to give my favorite kind of death metal a spin. Enter Fate Unburied’s newest full-length, Neraspeme, an album that brings together an intriguing blend of genres to create a cohesive yet blisteringly aggressive whole.

With the exception of “Hope,” a set piece that establishes how Neraspeme will evolve over the course of its runtime, the music blitzes forward without offering any respite or giving the listener a moment to catch their breath. The tempo is fast, the drums are heavy, and the vocals are so forceful that the music doesn’t immediately feel like prog death. For much of the first half, it sounds more like a hardcore record with progressive elements. Sure, the instrumentation becomes more melodic and complex in sections of “Not Allowed,” but elsewhere, I feel as though I’m listening to Tuoni’s Kuolonpyörä or Ithaca’s They Fear Us: frenetic, chaotic music driven by groove and restraint, with moments of introspection woven throughout.

You can feel the music’s energy vibrate through your body as you listen, compelling you to move along and scream along to the lyrics. It’s like watching someone desperately trying to stay strong as the cracks in their composure begin to show. Those cracks—those undercurrents of melody and flashes of brighter riffs—showcase the band’s ability to weave progressive elements into its sound. Gradually, Fate Unburied moves away from its hardcore-adjacent beginnings and toward the more familiar prog death territory occupied by bands like Gojira and Black Crown Initiate.

Then “Deep Rest” begins, and we reach the album’s turning point. Here, Fate Unburied fully embraces prog death, with towering vocals, more pronounced groove in the guitars and drums, and an inherent complexity that borders on technical death metal. The band isn’t afraid to draw from other artists and incorporate those influences into its own sound. For instance, “Seed, Feed, Keep” sounds as though it takes inspiration from Sadist’s Firescorched, incorporating a guitar riff reminiscent of “Accabadora” to give the song even more groove. I actually had to go back and listen to Firescorched to figure out why the sound felt so familiar. Meanwhile, “Seeking Perfect Harmony” sounds as though it borrows a riff straight from Gojira’s The Way of All Flesh, using it as both an Easter egg and a knowing nod to the listener—specifically, to “Adoration for None.” Despite these overt influences and references, however, Fate Unburied manages to create music that is unmistakably its own. The band draws on different influences to bring its concept to life, and the more elements it introduces, the more maddening and chaotic the music becomes.

By the time “The Gift” arrives, Neraspeme has fully realized its vision. The track feels as though everything that came before has been turned inside out, leaving the listener emotionally strung out. It brings to mind an ode to Ithaca’s “Fluorescent,” capturing the emotional core of They Fear Us while combining the ideas and sounds introduced throughout the album into a fantastic closer. It’s the kind of song that leaves you wondering where it came from—and how the band managed to bring all these disparate elements together so effectively.

Thematically, Neraspeme explores the end of a relationship and one person’s struggle to process the aftermath. This context might explain why the album’s two halves initially feel so disjointed before finally coming together in “The Gift.” The first half is chaotic but restrained, as though someone is desperately trying to hold themselves together after receiving terrible news. In the second half, that restraint finally gives way, unleashing the madness and despair that had been simmering beneath the surface. Experimentation and an overwhelming accumulation of influences mirror this emotional unraveling.

Over the course of Neraspeme, we watch someone slowly fall apart as everything they fought for—and everything they did to keep the relationship alive—stops working. Everything has disintegrated, and there’s nothing left to do but pick up the pieces. Taken at face value, the album might seem like a band trying to combine two halves of an idea into a whole that feels uneven and disconnected. With the added thematic context, however, Nerspeme becomes something far more complex and introspective. Its shifting tempos, melodic flourishes, and increasingly chaotic arrangements bleed into one another, reflecting the gradual collapse of someone’s emotional stability.

While Neraspeme might be a difficult first listen, Fate Unburied has succeeded in creating an album with profound emotional depth buried beneath layers of sound and relentless aggression. Yes, the music blisters, but it also bleeds, unraveling at a pace that feels almost inhuman. Personally, I cannot wait to see what comes next. After all, if this is the future of prog death, then I’m all for it.

— Hera

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Neraspeme is available now on Time To Kill Records. For information on Fate Unburied, visit their Facebook and Instagram pages.