Style: Progressive metal, djent, metalcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Caligula’s Horse, Leprous, TesseracT, Black Crown Initiate
Country: Australia
Release date: 28 November 2025

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One of my favorite underground progressive metal albums of all time is Dyssidia’s debut, Costly Signals, released back in 2020. There are many reasons I love this album: it’s well-balanced in its sound mix and master; its musical compositions are in the higher echelon of intricacy while remaining intuitive; and the musicians all seem to play at levels above their pay grade, especially lead vocalist, Mitch Brackman. Costly Signals came the closest to capturing the magic of Leprous’s classic Tall Poppy Syndrome—both albums establish a beautiful balance between dark and wistful aesthetics while exemplifying extraordinary subversiveness without the sacrifice of catchy melodicism. I waited in nervous anticipation to see if Dyssidia would satisfy my likely unreasonably high expectations with their follow-up album, Deeper Wells of Meaning… 

Deeper Wells of Meaning is a melting pot of numerous influences from the recent prog metal zeitgeist, but most of them muddle together. Strongly heard in Dyssidia’s new sound are Caligula’s Horse and TesseracT, as many of the chord progressions from the lead guitars by Cory Davis share an uncanny resemblance to many from Charcoal Grace; the syncopated, chuggy aspects from TesseracT and similar bands in the djent movement manifest the rhythm section. Vague remnants of Opeth also linger in the hard-to-soft compositional shifts. Part of the experiment here is seeing what a sound would be like with the aforementioned influences (and more) being combined, but no significant results were yielded since Dyssidia ended up utilizing the less interesting tropes of these bands rather than what makes them excellent songwriters. For example, the subtle to massive build of tension and release from Caligula’s Horse is absent, along with the trance-like, focused djenty sections from an album like TesseractT’s Altered State. This album seems to be a rather confusing, mixed bag of a sophomore release with motifs that don’t feel as coherent as in their debut; songs like “Anatomy of a Cloud” and “Dream Persuasion” bring any potential of a coherent aesthetic into question. Dyssidia continue to conspicuously tread the paths of their forefounders, but follow too many opposing paths that their message gets lost along the way, leaving them sounding unfortunately more generic. A true “too many chefs in the kitchen” type of situation.

Nonetheless, hints of genius reminiscent of Dyssidia’s fullest potential shine through often but inconsistently; seemingly by happenstance, all of the odd-numbered tracks are the good ones. A prime example and one of Dyssidia’s best works is “Hellish Embellishments,” which features across-the-board superb performances akin to an ideal prog metal track: sparkly keyboard chord progressions, impressive and unapologetically self-indulgent vocal gymnastics, and invigorating pacing by the rhythm section with rare time signatures. Other tracks like “Serum Sickness,” “Impulsivity,” and “A Statue of Time and Depth” feature captivating, hooky metal riffs that give Deeper Wells of Meaning intermittent feelings of direness and emotion bordering between fear and passion. Dyssidia’s songwriting usually thrives most when they oscillate unexpected tempo changes with their instrumentalists, which chaotically build Brackman’s top-tier harsh and clean vocal techniques, which serve as makeshift climaxes in the album.

But unfortunately, whenever one is enthralled with a heartpumping track, they are followed up with tracks of disappointingly undistinguished and worryingly flawed music. For example, “Few and Far Between” is something I couldn’t imagine the band writing with the potential they established. It’s a slower-paced track that doesn’t lean into any emotion in particular and feels rather aimless, featuring comically apt lyrics such as “It goes on, and on, and on, and on until it’s gone.” None of the instrumental or vocal passages seems far above what a mid-tier prog metal band would put out, and it is a gratuitous momentum killer that stops the listener’s excitement in its tracks. The compositional writing in “Anatomy of a Cloud” and “Dream Persuasion” is similarly dull, even with the inclusion of a shamisen.

I also want to tackle an elephant in the room when it comes to the sound balancing, volumes, and depths. New listeners entering Deeper Wells of Meaning with some attention to its mix & master will find that the sound layering is often exceptionally unpleasant. All of the tracks—even the good ones—suffer from the sounds being brickwalled together. This leaves the tones resonating utterly flat most of the time, with few unintuitive exceptions, such as the cymbals on “A Statue of Time and Depth” that really lack personal space. The level of sonic depth & detail of Brackman’s voice from Costly Signals is gone, but is nonetheless very loud in the mix. Moments that could have been utterly jaw-dropping from “Hellish Embellishments” or “Serum Sickness” are just blunted on impact but are still loud and in-your-face. The production job failed to capture the full vocal ranges; perhaps the equipment limited his voice with overly tight thresholds as many frequencies seem to be lost somewhere. 

Additionally, the frequencies of all of the instrumental pieces blur together in a muddy mess. In “Anatomy of a Cloud,” the colorful keyboard chord progression that opens the track gets drowned out by the loudness of the vocals and guitars as the song goes on. Furthermore, many of the down-tuned guitars enter djent-levels of heaviness, but each individual chord is not distinct enough from one another for their strums to be impactful; instead, they all bleed together in an uncomfortable noise. Dyssidia was picked up by Wild Things Records for Deeper Wells of Meaning (they previously worked independently) with help from V. Santura (who produced Diluvium and Akróasis) and Sam Vallen (who produced all of the Caligula’s Horse albums).

We are left with a complicated album that is sadly unfocused and is additionally marred by a poor production job. From a band that, I’d argue, has the potential to produce compositions that resemble some of prog metal’s most illustrious gems, Deeper Wells of Meaning was greatly disappointing but not so much that I lost faith in the band to bounce back. Perhaps it is difficult to imagine what this album could be with a polished rerecording and a mix that distinguishes the instruments from one another well, but this would likely enhance the impact of the compositions on Deeper Wells of Meaning greatly. For the many who are beloved fans of Costly Signals, I would keep following Dyssidia to see them succeed in the future because as long as the band continues to make music, I remain confident they will churn out something coherent and amazing.

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Recommended tracks: Hellish Embellishments, Impulsivity, Serum Sickness, A Statue of Time and Depth
You may also like: Parius, Luna’s Call, Lunar, Fractal Universe, Alkaloid
Final verdict: 6.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Apple Music | Metal-archives

Label: Wild Thing Records

Dyssidia is:
– Corey Davis (guitars)
– Neil Palmer (bass)
– Mitch Brackman (vocals)
– Liam Weedall (drums)