Style: Progressive metal, death metal (Mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Cynic, Gorod, Obscura
Country: Portugal
Release date: 10 November 2025

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An experience common to those of us with autism and ADHD is having music stuck in our head on loop for virtually all hours of the day. The experience can range from unremarkable to exciting to utterly pain-inducing. Noted ADHD witch Jinkx Monsoon described this phenomenon in her interview with Ziwe as “A lot of static: just like, constantly four different radio stations playing at once” before demonstrating the sounds of the stations in detail. Over the last few days, my brain has been–symbolizing words symbolizing words symbolizing words symbolizing words–dealing with incessant earworms from Spiritual Humanized Technology, the latest record from Portuguese progressive metal outfit Disaffected. Has the Spiritual Humanized Radio Inside My Mind finally taken mutiny over my consciousness?

Over their lengthy career, Disaffected have gradually undergone a significant shift in sound. Beginning as a progressive death metal outfit in the 90s, the group slowly diverged from their roots, focusing less on the ‘death metal’ and more on the ‘progressive’ with every release. Spiritual Humanized Technology showcases heady drum grooves, angular clean guitarwork, and bass inspired by fusion metal with only echoes of their past surfacing on occasion. The guitars at the beginning of “Sleeping With Aliens” or the wobbly bass on “The Stream We Abide”, for example, wouldn’t be out of place on Cynic’s Traced in Air. Speaking of Cynic, mysticism abounds on Spiritualized Human Technology, as songs cover ideas ranging from the discovery of Atlantis (“Soul and Words”), spectral journeys through spacetime (“The Stream We Abide”), and, uh, sleeping with aliens? The jury is out on whether Disaffected are simply sleeping among these aliens or shacking up with their extraterrestrial compatriots.

Despite the vamped-up progressive metal tendencies, the real idiosyncrasy of Spiritualized Human Technology lies in the vocal performance, which comes across less like James LaBrie and more like Geordie Greep. Vocalist José Costa lilts through half-spoken, half-sung lines across every track, occasionally accompanied by fully spoken word segments. While the novelty in his delivery is interesting and appreciable, most of the time, the execution can only be described as rotten. Costa is often plagued with a pitchy warbling; the dissonance created by his voice sounds intentional when paired with the sharp punches of atonal clean guitar on “The Stream We Abide”, but a majority of the time, it clashes woefully with the rest of the band. When not combating micro-micro-tones, the vocals are mired by a lack of enunciation: I do my best to make out what Costa is saying on the chorus of opener “Soul and Words”, but I literally cannot hear anything besides “Symbolizing words, symbolizing words, symbolizing words” over and over again. Earwormy, sure, and a cool moment under the right circumstances, but wholly unpleasant as-is—especially because I know that’s not what he’s saying, yet I’m still sitting at lunch trying to eat a sandwich and my brain can only focus on symbolizing words symbolizing words symbolizing words looping on repeat like a broken radio transmission.

What keeps the Spiritual Humanized Technology ship from sinking wholesale is songwriting technique: moment to moment, Disaffected do a great job of weaving ideas together into a singular song. The transitions between moments are particularly well-done: “In Silence Deep” features one of the most engaging moments of the record, cudgeling the listener with a Cynical flurry of drums after a slow, menacing, dissonant arpeggio. Additionally, reprises are handled with finesse, such as the reworked chorus at the end of “Soul and Words”, panning the spotlight from slippery guitar work to pounding drums and thick, rumbling bass underneath. However skillful the transitions are, though, the same can’t be said for what Disaffected are actually transitioning to half the time. The title track features verses replete with crunchy riffage, skittering drums, and corny-albeit-charming voiceovers, building up an intense momentum; this momentum is subsequently sent into a brick wall when the hopelessly messy choruses come in. The songwriting on display is impressive, but not quite as impressive as the band’s ability to expertly oscillate between engaging and infuriating passages.

And how do Disaffected coalesce these ideas into a narrative arc? The answer is, they don’t, really. While the record undoubtedly features some sick bass lines, lots of clever transitions, and some nice structuring within songs, Spiritual Humanized Technology holds itself together about as nicely as gluing two rocks together. You could rearrange the album in any order to virtually the same effect; there are no ups and downs to be found when zooming out, save for the interlude “Dreaming V (Lazarus Syndrome)”. The listening experience becomes so much of a chore that I’m basically begging for it to be over by the time we reach the home stretch. Disaffected would benefit greatly from peppering in their cool songwriting tricks across pieces to give them a more defined sense of identity as opposed to dumping the same cool ideas into every single track.

Spiritual Humanized Technology has many of the elements for a bizarre, idiosyncratic, and esoteric progressive metal opus. Unfortunately, the record is let down fairly hard by a lack of song-by-song dynamics, some rotten vocal moments, and a bevy of musical duds; no amount of clever transitions will save you from that. A band trying something new and out-of-the-box late into their career, like the vocal performance here, is certainly something to be lauded, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing something–symbolizing words symbolizing words symbolizing words–FUCK NOT AGAIN–

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Recommended tracks: The Stream We Abide, In Silence Deep
You may also like: Obsidious, Phlebotomized, Pan.thy.monium, Hieronymus Bosch
Final verdict: symbolizing words symbolizing words SYMBOLIZING WORDS–OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP/10

Related links: Facebook | Instagram

Label: Firecum Records

Disaffected is:
– Bruno Vicente – Guitars
– António Gião – Bass
– Pedro Raimundo – Keys
– Manuel Teles – Drums
– José Costa – Vocals