When Indianapolis-based progressive metal project Pentrilox announced "Apotheosis: The New Frontier", I genuinely didn't expect to be handed a literal digital antidepressant. But here we are. Operating entirely out of their in-house production studio, this independent outfit utterly rejects the exhausted, dystopian sci-fi tropes we've all been choking on lately. Instead, they’ve engineered a massive, heavy sonic blueprint for celestial optimism. https://open.spotify.com/album/1lXMirFmYCFLZ8CJ8LJGfi?si=oXWz-hzbSV-i2MNymOiwDA The physical force of...

Rare Element (feat. Britt Foe from Lunar & the Deception) take on "Fields of Joy" as a single, and it lands like finding a meticulously crafted ship-in-a-bottle washed up on a neon-lit beach. You have the producer duo, Hedge Seel and Jerry Kandiah, laying down this framework of pulsing electronic heartbeats and synth textures that feel both organic and meticulously engineered, a surprising bedrock...