Style: post-metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Moth Gatherer, In the Silence, Katatonia
Country: Sweden
Release date: 14 February 2025
Described as a post-metal collective (who in the post- genres isn’t a ‘collective’ these days?), Novarupta is a project headed by multi-instrumentalist Alex Stjernfeldt, whose CV includes co-founding the post-metal act The Moth Gatherer and death metal supergroup Grand Cadaver. Astral Sands is the project’s swansong, completing an interrelated tetralogy and shutting this chapter of Stjernfeldt’s creative journey. True to Novarupta’s ‘collective’ designation and its prior works, every track aside from the instrumental opener features a different vocalist—Stjernfeldt’s vision is for each track to stand as a singular experience and for Astral Sands to unfold as an evolving art project. Does Stjernfeldt, piloting his fleet of vocalists, deliver on this soaring vision, or does the project end with a crash landing? Astral, or asphalt?
If anything can be said about Astral Sands, it’s that Stjernfeldt finds a sound and commits to it without wavering—a quality one wouldn’t expect from an album of alleged singular experiences. Each track settles into a slow-to-mid-paced rolling tempo, driven by a basic but pleasant bass and relatively simple but effective drums. The airy guitars create a gloomy, distant atmosphere, sparingly offering more traditional, heavier riffing to ground the listener. Stjernfeldt also weaves in synths, piano, and strings to augment the somber mood he has built. Add everything together, and Astral Sands ends up with a sound reminiscent of the darkened blend of alternative and melancholic—bordering on gothic—that Katatonia has refined to great success. Not bad company to be in, right?
Well, if Katatonia is the master of wielding this sound effectively, and bands like In the Silence and Aoria are skilled in the art, Novarupta is your everyday journeyman. Stjernfeldt creates a potent atmosphere in Astral Sands but doesn’t quite deliver the songwriting, dynamics, nuance, or production to make the atmosphere as impactful as it should be. Any expectations of compositional excellence are betrayed in the album’s first moments: the instrumental opener “Ensamstående Enastående” is, essentially, a modest melodic idea that’s dragged out for three minutes without enough context—it doesn’t lead into the next track or set the stage for the work as a whole. Fortunately, things quickly improve on the next track, “Seven Collides,” which is one of the album’s more complete songs, offering nicely layered guitars and a catchy blend of alternative and post-metal. Unfortunately, “Seven Collides” also overstays its welcome and runs beyond seven minutes despite not having seven minutes’ worth of compelling ideas.
The rest of Astral Sands drifts along similarly—well-crafted moodiness but not enough compositional punch; no blunders, but no memorable highs. Some songs are short and have almost an alt-rock feel (“The Bullet Shines Before Impact”) and others take on more expansive structures (“Cosmographia”), but all rely just a bit too much on atmosphere while the underlying instrumentation could benefit from more variation. Similarly, although Stjernfeldt enlists eight different vocalists, the performances tend to run together. Each vocalist stays mainly in the middle of his register and sings with a tone sitting somewhere between apathy and angst. The most powerful moments, however, come when the vocals move outside this narrow range and embrace more contrast: the shouty verses of “Endless Joy,” the emotive beginning of “The Clay Keeps,” and the anguished yelling finishing the album in “Now We Are Here (At The Inevitable End).”
Astral Sands’ production also works against its success as an engaging, atmospheric experience. The mix is trebly and lacks warmth in its mids, causing it to sound hollow and inorganic—not the worst thing for an album of a deliberately dreary nature, but a slightly livelier mix would help provide some missing impact. The drums are also too loud, mostly at the guitars’ expense, with the crash cymbal in “Seven Collides” being a prime example and drowning out everything else. Add in a couple of other odd choices—the piercing synth in “Breathe Breathe” and the amp-breaking overdrive in the closing track—and it becomes hard to fully appreciate or immerse yourself in the atmosphere Stjernfeldt has crafted.
Ultimately, Astral Sands’ lack of compositional intrigue and variety undermines Stjernfeldt’s vision of an album of standalone tracks that unfold as an evolving piece of art—the songs roll along in the same middling vein. The album’s questionable production also does no favors for the immersive moodiness Stjernfeldt sought to create. All this said, Astral Sands is listenable enough; those who truly connect with its mood might even find it captivating. But in a crowded sky of dark, gloomy albums, Novarupta’s swansong doesn’t shine through. And with that, the answer to the question posed at the outset—astral, or asphalt—lies closer to the ground.
Recommended tracks: Cosmographia, The Bullet Shines Before Impact, The Clay Keeps
You may also like: Aoria, Manes
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Suicide Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Novarupta is:
– Alex Stjernfeldt
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