Style: progressive metal, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Contortionist, Tesseract, Ihlo, Ions
Country: Denmark
Release date: 27 November 2025

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When I ask you to think of the most influential bands in progressive metal, your mind probably wanders straight to the likes of Tool, Dream Theater, and Opeth, and rightly so. But those artists had their heyday in the nineties and early aughts, and there’s been a whole generation of influential artists since. The likes of Between the Buried and Me, Leprous, and Haken mark the new fan favourites whose effect on up-and-coming groups is palpable. But among contemporary acts, possibly the band with the most outsized influence on the genre is The Contortionist. The progressive deathcore-ish group reinvented themselves with 2014’s Language, a more ambient record that traversed the fringes of djent but was largely defined by heady atmospheric synths and gossamer soft singing. The album became an instant classic and copycats abounded. I’ve reviewed more than a few myself in my tenure here, and today we have another denizen of the microgenre. 

Danish quartet Feather Mountain broke through the substrata in 2022 with To Exit a Maelstrom, a cathartic record about Alzheimer’s which was deeply personal for founding brothers, the Dahl-Blumenbergs. Clearly rooted in a similar blend of breathy vocals and full-throated riffs to The Contortionist, Feather Mountain fuse synth and progressive metal influences that flirt with djent while never becoming inundated by it. They also boast that the record utilises “electronic avant garde” elements, and I am begging bands to learn what avant-garde actually means because in this case it seems to mean there are synths. Nevertheless, will Feather Mountain’s liminal step be in the right direction?

The answer is, it’s hard to evaluate. We’ll get into the positives shortly, but there’s one glaring issue we need to get out of the way first because it mars the entire record: A Liminal Step sounds as flat as a sojourn into the second dimension. A clear lack of dynamic range means that every instrument on A Liminal Step is clear on its own but muffled by its neighbour. In the heaviest sections, with riffs, dubstep-ish moments, vocals and drums all vying for space, the problem really makes itself known, muddying ostensibly cool instrumentation into a staticky soup. This means that moments that should be sonic centerpieces, like the wall-of-sound synths and pulsating drumwork that open “Prayer Wall”, become the auditory equivalent of faceplanting into the pillowy belly of a really sweaty guy in a moshpit; soft but not necessarily inviting. Similarly, the weighty grooves on “Rope Me In” should hit hard as hell, but they sit in the middle of the mix without the bass necessary to ground them and ultimately sound vaguely flatulent. When the track explodes into a blast-beat climax, it just sounds staticky. A Liminal Step isn’t badly produced by any means; it just sounds muted.

And that’s a shame, because Feather Mountain show strong promise on the compositional front. “Sigil” opens the record in style, with a strong chorus hook, expressive drum work, and a sick breakdown section that hurls angular riffs at dubstep-y synth work. Meanwhile the mammoth Zimmerian orchestral swells on “Prayer Wall” contrast the restrained verses with an awe-inspiring grandiosity (or, at least, it should sound awe-inspiringly grandiose). Mikkel Lohmann’s softer clean vocals can be rather reminiscent of Michael Lessard at times, as is the sprinkle of vocoder he utilises, but he also hits on some more Dan Tompkins-esque vocal acrobatics at times, such as in the uplifting crescendo section on “Prayer Wall”. Finale “The Hedonist” features some glimmering synths and choral work for a sense of exotic flavour over the djenting riffs though, once again, it’s hard to fully enjoy them in the flatness of the mix. Meanwhile, I’m not so sure of the percussionless “The Grid”, which centres around ambient synths that give way to a rather unexpected shred solo (still sans percussion), but I can imagine that a well-produced version of this idea would be a rather satisfying interludinal track. 

Feather Mountain’s step into liminality certainly lives up to its name, with one leg in some pretty interesting composition, and the other inadvertently kicking the mixing deck and fucking up the levels. While a perfect mix wouldn’t make for a perfect album, it would allow the buried strengths demonstrated across A Liminal Step to properly assert themselves. There’s a very nice little djentle prog metal group buried somewhere in here, just a few more steps.  

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Recommended tracks: Sigil, Prayer Wall, Sunder
You may also like: Soulsplitter, Karmanjakah, Sullen
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Feather Mountain is:
– Andreas Dahl-Blumenberg (bass)
– Christian Dahl-Blumenberg (drums)
– Christoffer Warming (guitars)
– Mikkel Aaen Lohmann (vocals and keyboards)