Album art by Roi Mercado
Style: Progressive Metal, Djent (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: TesseracT, Cloudkicker, The Helix Nebula
Country: United States, Ohio
Release date: 13 May 2025
Djent is a genre (or is it?) that has infiltrated its way into a myriad of neighboring styles within the progressive metal scene, slowly seeping through the cracks in its foundation. What essentially started as Meshuggah worship has undergone a slow and somewhat painful metamorphosis, transcending beyond a simple palm muted, syncopated guitar technique into an expansive musical language all its own. The journey to this point has been rife with failed experimentation, alchemical genre-mixing, and a steadily evolving intervallic language that seems to have come to its logical conclusion in the form of “thall”—another style about which to argue genre legitimacy. The bulk of djent’s growth took place from around 2006 through the mid 2010’s, with bands like Textures, SikTh, TesseracT, Periphery, Uneven Structure, and Vildhjarta all putting their own spin on the core techniques that constitute its sound and superimposing said techniques onto a variety of unique soundscapes, showcasing the style’s versatility, and solidifying its genre status proper.
There were many a branching path that djent explored during its adolescence, some more niche than others, and some seemingly forgotten to the annals of syncopated time. The Bulb demos are perhaps the best representative of a particular niche of one of the genre’s earliest investigative forays: atmosphere-focused instrumental djent. Bulb’s demos are somewhat paradoxical in the sense that, at the time, they were massively popular, single-handedly inspiring a swathe of bedroom guitarists toward their instrumental explorations; at the same time, they were nearly instantly rendered redundant by these same newly empowered musicians as they realized that what they were playing was basically just Meshuggah with more tonality. The end result was a shockingly frantic evolution of sound. Widek, Nemertines, Returning We Hear the Larks, Walking Across Jupiter, Polarization, Cloudkicker, Their Dogs Were Astronauts, Cold Night for Alligators, Sithu Aye, and many other projects like these have been all but forgotten, mere grains of sand in a desert of chugs, yet their influence on djent’s trajectory cannot be denied.
Antediluvian Projekt, solo project of John Heckathorn, nestles within this assemblage of atmosphere-driven instrumental djent, and if I had been told that Atlan Blue was some obscure demo from 2011, I wouldn’t have given it much of a second thought. Atlan Blue shares the inquisitive, probing nature of adolescent djent, haphazardly smashing djent guitar techniques into a bedrock of jazz fusion and drenching atmosphere, and utilizing a jazz noir-esque trumpet as its main gimmick. Antediluvian Projekt, like so many of its genre peers past, brews its influences together to wildly varying degrees of success; there are moments of inspired, meaningful realization, yet so much of Atlan Blue leaves me scratching my head in confusion at its choices.
After a meandering intro track, “Atlan Blue” starts strong with a bass and piano groove that constantly oscillates between a bar of 5/4 and a bar of 9/8, a roiling sea for the djent guitars to swim within. Clean guitar solos weave between the bass, piano, and distorted guitar groove; trumpet is ever present in the background; and electronic elements further add to the melting pot of texture, resulting in an interestingly varied sonic landscape. “What Does Truth Fear” follows, and is similarly effective in its textural language, switching between a beefy low-tuned guitar rhythm reminiscent of recent Vildhjarta, and a more understated groove that could have been lifted straight from any TesseracT album. Again, trumpet and electronic production elements add depth to the sound, and the revolving structure of the songwriting manages to maintain the listener’s attention while keeping in step with the focus on atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the remainder of Atlan Blue does not live up to its decent first impressions. “P0W3R” recycles the exact same riffs from “What Does Truth Fear”, slightly changing the trumpet lines and adding an electronic drum beat as an intro that I’m pretty sure is the exact same rhythm as one of the riffs, just played significantly faster. The result is an odd interlude track that could have just been tacked onto the previous song as a climax, but is instead a forced detour into unnecessary bloat. Instead of regaining his footing after the stumble, Heckathorn doubles down with “T3MP0R4L 0SCILLAT0R”, the longest track on the album, and also the one where the least happens. The listener is treated to over seven minutes of meandering shoegaze—still with the ever-present trumpet—and any semblance of momentum that Atlan Blue may have had up to this point is unceremoniously squandered.
The remaining few tracks are further explorations of the sound initially presented on “Atlan Blue” and “What Does Truth Fear,” though I am hard pressed to even care enough to reach this point of Atlan Blue after a few listens. On the occasions that I do, I am rewarded not so much with an interesting textural melting pot, but more with a clouded beaker of unfocused distillation. Heckathorn’s trumpet playing is competent, and he has the chops to pull off the gimmick of trumpet djent, but the melodies played often have seemingly nothing to do with the rest of the music, and this problem is especially exacerbated on the back half of Atlan Blue. The trumpet is simultaneously the main selling point and seemingly an afterthought in the songwriting, leading to a bizarre feeling of fundamental discontinuity. What remaining actual guitar riffs there are become shadows of their former selves, falling prey to the insidious curse of hackneyed djent stereotypes. The slightly above average drum performance is perhaps Atlan Blue’s biggest saving grace, though it is not nearly enough to fortify the whole structure from falling in on itself by the album’s end.
Antediluvian Projekt does indeed fit snugly within the old order of atmospheric instrumental djent: quirks, inspirations, and shortcomings all. Atlan Blue reads as a billet-doux to a long-lost lover, one whose familiar memory still lingers in everyday modern scenery, providing comfort and pain in equal measure. Through rose colored glasses, Atlan Blue can be a temporary succor for those plagued by the nostalgic longing for the perceived golden age of djent. With slightly more focus, though, the illusion shatters, and we are left with a stinging reminder of why, perhaps, so many bands become forgotten in the polyrhythmic ebb and flow of time.
Recommended tracks: Atlan Blue, What Does Truth Fear?, BR3AKAWAY
You may also like: Returning We Hear the Larks, Walking Across Jupiter, Bulb, Mouse on the Keys
Final verdict: 5.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Antediluvian Projekt is:
– John Heckathorn (Everything)
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