Style: Progressive metal, post-metal, post-hardcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Karnivool, early Thrice, The Ocean, Vulkan
Country: Switzerland
Release date: 28 March 2025
Azure waves lap lazily against the sun-baked Peloponnesian shore and the olive trees are waxy in the Mediterranean heat. A wanderer ventures inland towards the ancient city of Elis. Word has travelled ahead of him, and onlookers stand on stoops and peer through windows to get a glimpse of the son of Zeus: slayer of the Nemean lion and the Lernaean hydra, a man atoning for past crimes1, plaything of a cowardly king, beholden to dreams of divinely ordained immortality. A scraping noise follows as he strides uphill and, spotting the shovel chipping at the stones behind him, the villagers look up towards the city gates and back to the tool and begin to murmur. ‘Surely not,’ they say, ‘King Augeas’ thousand oxen haven’t been cleaned out for thirty years!’ The camera cuts back to our hero, the village diminishing behind him as he continues forth. He mugs for the camera and quips, ‘There’ll be no love lost over this labour!’
Meanwhile, two more years of labouring in Switzerland have yielded the second part in NevBorn’s Alkaios trilogy, based around the twelve labours of Heracles. The first instalment of the Swiss post-metal quartet’s opus was an undersung gem of 2023, a tapestry in four lengthy parts, unfurling each of Heracles’ challenges in cinematic style, and marrying the angst and punch of post-hardcore with the more meditative build-and-release structure of post-metal. The Peacock continues in the same vein to deliver the central third of the tale.
At this point, the Gods get a little silly with Heracles. Having slain a lion and a hydra, and caught a Hind and a boar, the middle four labours see the Greek demigod working as a farm labourer, clearing out stables, killing pesky birds, rounding up a rogue bull, and lassoing in some horses. I don’t know about you, but I think Perseus and Theseus got the cooler quests. The material is a little rougher this time, but NevBorn approach it from intriguing angles: on “Elis” they focus on the refusal of the greedy King Augeas to honour the successful completion of the labour with Heracles’ reward. Meanwhile, “Stymfalia” seems to allude to the discounting of the labour due to Athena’s intervention2. The compositions themselves always prioritise storytelling. For example, on “Stymfalia”, Heracles’ successful killing of the birds of Ares is heralded by intense screams in a triumphant crescendo with digitally lowered backing cleans providing a unique texture, while the chaotic tapping solos on “Tirida” convey the savagery of Diomedes’ man-eating mares.
To the same end, NevBorn’s penchant for long3 runtimes hasn’t gone anywhere, and I’ve come to really enjoy this facet of their compositional style. The steadfast refusal to inject a song with a billion riffs, and instead let each section breathe, again benefits the storytelling as well as the sense of cinema, making them the Béla Tarr of progressive post-metal. Both “Elis” and “Stymfalia”, for instance, open with post-rock builds running to over three minutes, grounding the songs in a sense of mythic scale equal to the subject matter.
And this willingness to let each section sit and breathe yields album highlights, the best of which is undoubtedly Elori Baume’s sublime sax solo on “Knossos”, a beautiful evocation of the majestic Cretan bull facing down the son of a God. Much like “Keryneia” from the previous instalment, in which Heracles frees the Cerynian hind, there’s a sense once more of affinity; Heracles as untameable beast, itinerant loner, finding companionship in these mythic mammals. As the sax mellifluously cavorts over a serene atmosphere, one can imagine the demigod admiring the bull as it roams the fields in the burnished orange of the Mediterranean sunset; a sense of guilt washing over him knowing he must bind this free spirit, waiting for the cover of night to aid him in his challenge.
My one reservation is that The Peacock doesn’t differentiate itself from The Eagle all that much. NevBorn have a distinctive style which works for them, but many moments are reliant on the push and pull of calmer atmospheres and clean singing versus screams over chord-driven crescendos, and over the course of what will be a three-hour suite when the final part drops, that’s a lot of the same formula. The moments that stand out—that gorgeous sax solo, the tapping motifs, the uncharacteristic guitar solo, the little pulsations of synth underwriting “Tirida”—do so because they contrast the formula, and they’re woven into the compositions perfectly. NevBorn don’t need to start djenting or doing Dream Theater discursions into technical wankery, but just a little more variety in the rhythm section would make those final four labours really pop.
With Part II safely delivered, NevBorn prove themselves brilliant sonic storytellers, infusing the somewhat stoic labours with emotion and introspection just as the labours infuse NevBorn’s compositions with a greater sense of narrative purpose. I, for one, can’t wait to hear their take on the final four labours in a couple of years time. In the grounds of King Eurystheus’ castle, the now-tame mares of Diomedes frolic. Heracles kneels before the king who informs of his final labours. There’ll be some cattle-rustling, some apple scrumping, and he’ll have to capture a dog that’s three times as vicious as most, but one labour in particular grabs Heracles’ attention: ‘Before all that,’ says the king, ‘you must journey to the land of the Amazons and retrieve for me the girdle of Queen Hippolyta.’ Heracles turns to the camera, smirks and shrugs his shoulders. ‘It’s a living!’ he quips.
Recommended tracks: Knossos, Stymfalia
You may also like: Ions, Hippotraktor, Playgrounded
Final verdict: 7.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Label: Luminol Records – Facebook | Official Website
NevBorn is:
– Matthieu Hinderer (vocals, guitars, piano, synth, drum programming)
– Brice Geiser (bass)
– Alan Gualandris (guitars)
– Nicolas Huguenin (drums)
With:
– Elori Baume (saxophone)
- The Disney film understandably leaves out the fact that, in a fit of madness induced by the goddess Hera who hated him (her inveterate shagger of a husband, Zeus, had fathered Heracles by a human woman), Heracles had murdered his wife and children. His commitment to the labours was, in part, seeking absolution from his crime. ↩︎
- In some tellings of the myth, the cleaning of the Augean stables was discounted on the grounds that Heracles was paid for his work. ↩︎
- A lesser writer would’ve said “Herculean”, but I’m better than that. But I’m also not good enough to not write a footnote about it. ↩︎
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