Review: Dreadnought – The Endless

Style: Progressive Metal, Post-Black Metal, Doom Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: old Leprous, Ihsahn, Cellar Darling
Review by: Christopher
Country: US-CO
Release date: 26 August, 2022

You know that bit in Good Will Hunting where Ben Affleck says that the best part of his day is before he sees Matt Damon’s character because he can imagine that maybe Damon has escaped and gone on to bigger and better things? That’s how I feel about Dreadnought. Here at The Progressive Subway our rule of thumb is to review bands with fewer than 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Sometimes the bands that fall within that rubric are a surprise: Wilderun were still within our remit when they dropped the epic Epigone; and Aeternam will still be well within our grasp when they drop their new album. With that in mind, I want to start by stating that I simply shouldn’t have to review Dreadnought here. This is their fifth album and they’ve been consistently brilliant throughout their tenure. What the hell are you people doing with your lives? Why aren’t you listening to Dreadnought?

For the unfamiliar (which is apparently far more of you than I realised), Dreadnought are a four-piece from Denver, Colorado. Pinning down their genre is a challenge: prog, post-black and doom tendencies are in clear evidence—as well as a palpable jazz sensibility, folkish vocal harmonies recalling Iamthemorning, ambient interludes, and a symphonic attitude to composition. The beautiful female clean harmonies and pensive, piano-driven build-ups are frequently bifurcated by raucous black metal crescendos with wailing banshee screams. No one sounds quite like Dreadnought. 

And to that end, The Endless is instantly recognisable as something only these Coloradan creators could compose. Album opener “Worlds Break” sees Kelly Schilling and Lauren Vieira trading complex vocal harmonies while acoustic guitar and an otherworldly vibrating synth accompany. The guitar and drums build in urgency and a gorgeous piano melody fires up. When the band eventually thunders into life and those unearthly screams scythe through the proceedings, you know that Dreadnought are back. The next forty-two minutes are a smorgasbord of iconic moments in an already iconic discography. 

Dreadnought’s trajectory is fascinating: their sound is inimitable, and each album has a distinct identity within that specific sound. The Endless pulls away from the distortion-heavy aggression of previous release Emergence and instead reaches back to the more melodic, piano-driven earlier releases like 2015’s Bridging Realms. That doesn’t mean heaviness is compromised, just that the mellifluous symphonic, jazz and folk influences are more deftly balanced with the howling metal intensity on this record. However, in a departure from all previous releases, not a single song on this record exceeds ten minutes. Fans of prog epics may feel a little cheated, but, surprisingly, this doesn’t make the songs feel wanting for more. Rather, this is Dreadnought operating at a higher level of efficiency; The Endless is streamlined, vital, urgent. 

The other notable difference on The Endless is the absence of the old woodwind section. I don’t think we’re allowed to complain; I can’t play sax or drums, let alone both simultaneously as Jordan Clancy can, and Schilling’s juggling of vocals, guitar, and flute was always a ludicrous feat (nor is there any mandolin from bassist Keith Handlon). This leads us to the defining trait of The Endless: here Dreadnought are focused on doing as much as possible with less, each member prioritising their main instrument and pushing what they can do with it in a shorter amount of time. It’s a gamble which pays off: Vieira’s keyboard parts are varied and continually impress (the organ sound on “Liminal Veil” is as much of a delight as the void-like ambience preceding it is unsettling), Clancy’s drumming has a jazz-inspired dynamism that reminds me a little of Leprous’ Baard Kolstad, and Handlon’s bass work acts as an undersung rhythmic driving force throughout (the bass tone halfway through “Midnight Moon” accompanying the ritualistic vocal break is filthy). Meanwhile, the absence of woodwinds gives greater opportunity for the vocals to shine, which is fortunate as this is the best that Schilling and Vieira’s delicate, folkish harmonies have ever sounded; the solo vocal break in “Gears of Violent Endurance” is a particular delight in a record chock full of them. All of this fine-tuning gives The Endless a strong edge in a discography populated exclusively by gems.     

All this distillation of Dreadnought’s style ably serves the album’s narrative. The Endless tells the story of a woman roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a metaphorical journey through desolation – of our planet, of society, of the self. Certainly, the music evokes such a desolate waste, and the lyrics are suggestive of something Hobbesian, a palpable horror at a brutal, indifferent world that imposes a survival of the fittest stricture upon us unnecessarily. “The Paradigm Mirror” closes The Endless in magisterial fashion: a pensive mellotron accompanies elegiac harmonies before monstrous swells and glistening synths bring us home; a dream of something more, an escape from the seemingly endless cycle of violence. 

Their fifth album sees Dreadnought doing what they do best, perhaps better than ever before. The Endless is a mature and thoughtful encapsulation of their sound to date, boosted by a laser focus, vibrant production, and a honing of their collective talents, squeezing every drop of creativity they have into a thought-provoking and threnodial work of prog like nothing else you’ve heard. The risks they take with their established sound pay off, and Dreadnought come out sounding genuinely evolved and reinvigorated, making The Endless a superlative entry into a consistently majestic discography. Go listen to Dreadnought, and tell your friends too, ‘cause you know what the best part of my day is? It’s for about ten seconds when I pull up Dreadnought’s Spotify page. ‘Cause I think maybe I’ll look at their monthly listener count and it’ll be over 20,000. No goodbye, no “see ya later”, no nothin’. They’ll just have escaped the underground.  

Recommended tracks: Worlds Break, Gears of Violent Endurance, Liminal Veil
You may also like: Tómarúm, Naeramarth, In Cauda Venenum 
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Profound Lore Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Dreadnought is:
– Kelly Schilling (vocals and guitar)
– Lauren Vieira (vocals and keyboard)
– Jordan Clancy (drums)
– Keith Handlon (bass)