Traversus Navigate – What?

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Traversus - Navigate - Album Cover

Alright, RMR’s pickup of progressive pieces has been slow in 2025, to put it mildly. So, better start late than never. Spotlight on, pointed directly on the Dutch act Traversus. Navigate is their newest EP, and it’s a strange animal. Not weird in any confused way, but it takes some chutzpah to mix Hard Rock with Progressive Metal and a ton of Gothic Metal in the fray. That’s dangerous waters with a lot of unseen reefs to navigate through.

And whilst not going there outright, Traversus navigates pretty closely to the likes of Haken and early Leprous. And … [...] Click to raid more!

Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia (2025) – Review

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Green Carnation - A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia - Album Cover

Green Carnation. A band stating that they – and I quote “…are returning to long-form storytelling…” with their first installment of a trilogy, clunkily called A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia. Wow. That’s quite a statement. But then, the Norwegians here pulled exactly that stunt before to quite some critical acclaim, we are told. And the band surely doesn’t take the easy road this time, stating that “…the ambitions are sky high musically.” Well, hell’s bells, that’s not something we really could resist. Right?

Storytelling ain’t no easy feat, though. A band needs to be

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Faun – Hex (2025) – Review

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Faun has been a frequent ‘guest’ of this zine over the years. The RMR crew got to know them once Von Den Elben took some more mainstream undercurrents by storm. The record was a revelation, unlike the forced Wardruna copycat feel that their previous pieces always induced. This drew a total shitstorm of ire from their hardcore fans and led the band to start pulling back from their newfound freedom after a while. Fast forward to Pagan of 2022, Faun‘s fare started to center yet again in the more esoteric form of Pagan Folk. It was interesting to see

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Panopticon – Laurentian Blue (2025) – Review

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Panopticon - Laurentian Blue - Album Cover

There’s a fine line between Black Metal and proper folk. Examples abound, but the most telling one probably is Wardruna with its founding member Kvitrafn (White Raven), who famously hopped to the other side from Gorgoroth together with the infamous Gaahl. The latter returned to his roots in the meantime, whereas Selvik and his sidekick, Lindy-Fay Hella, stayed in pagan land.

But I digress. Panopticon just hit our review pipe. A band steeped in blackened forgery but freely dispensing folksy tunes, too. A one-man show run by one Austin L. Lunn, excelling in a steady flow of Folk and Americana. … [...] Click to raid more!