Style: progressive death metal, deathcore, djent (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Fallujah, Rivers of Nihil, Slice the Cake, Lorna Shore
Country: Italy
Release date: 12 December 2025

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There was a time when the incorporation of djent and deathcore into progressive death metal felt like the obvious next step for the ever-evolving sub-genre. Now, what once seemed a daring evolution has instead shifted to convention. Entanglement, the newest album from Italy’s Sun of the Suns, is a textbook example of this shift, gesturing toward progressive ambition just as often as it does modern tropes. Regardless of its place in the larger music scene, though, how does it stack up on its own merits?

On Entanglement, Sun of the Suns play a style of modern progressive death metal sure to be familiar to fans of bands like Fallujah and Rivers of Nihil; spliced into the meaty core of hefty riffage and occasionally blasting drums are elements of the oft-maligned (and repugnant, as The Metal Archives would have you believe) “d-words” of metal—djent and deathcore. The two genres offer the most exciting moments on the album when they are really leaned into—see the breakdown climax of closing title track “Entanglement”—but also become the album’s largest pitfall. See, inclusion of the “d-words” in my progressive death metal was once something I sought out almost on principle, my earlier listening habits still holding massive sway as I ventured into the world of prog. Now that my old -core kid tastes have turned vestigial, I find that such a “modernization” of the progressive death metal formula alone no longer cuts the mustard.

The issue with this particular genre blend—when done poorly—is apparent as soon as the first real track of the album, “On The Last Day Of Earth” really kicks into gear. Like last year’s release from Kardashev, the vocals, trending towards the “vocal olympics” side of things as they are, sit incongruously against the proggier bent of the track at large. Especially since the minimalist—and ultimately ill-suited—production job seems designed for a much subtler band over the aggressive concoction which Sun of the Suns brewed up. The remarkable compression, which seems to be the only decisive production choice across the album, also highlights Entanglement’s general sameness of riffs and vocal patterns. Some tracks, such as “If I Could Hold The Sky” and “One With The Sun,” feel as though entire sections could be swapped between them with the songs remaining essentially unchanged.

Unfortunately, there are other issues with Entanglement beyond its production and uniformity. For one, it, too, falls into the same ambient guitar haze that has claimed many a -core/prog hybrid: all too often, I found a track’s melodic heft carried not by the riffage or bass but by a din of reverbed out guitar or synth that while cool on occasion simply became tiresome to the ears by the forty-minute mark. Secondly, while Entanglement takes several steps to distinguish itself as a bonafide Prog^TM album, I can’t help but find most of these choices cliche. The obligatory instrumental intro track offers nothing of import, ultimately feeling like a tacked-on afterthought that one must first endure to hear the rest of the album with the instrumental interlude following suit. And, of course, the band must bust out their acoustic guitars and their church choir voices—that is to say clean vocals—for the epic ten-minute closer. It all just feels a bit paint-by-numbers. Finally, the solos scattered across the album more often than not detract from the larger songs either in their general unguided meanderingness (“Ephemeral, Ethereal, Eternal”) or by covering an all-too-rare unique riff (“On The Last Day Of Earth”). While the solos of “One With The Sun” and the title track do redeem the leads, they offer too little to redeem the album in face of other issues.

Entanglement is not entirely devoid of merit. Its occasional dynamic shifts, flashes of rhythmic intrigue, and moments where its djent and deathcore leanings are fully embraced hint at a band capable of more. But those moments are too often undermined by an overreliance on genre convention, flattened dynamics, and songwriting that struggles to justify its own ambitions. For listeners still deeply invested in the modern prog-death-core hybrid, Entanglement may offer enough familiarity to satisfy, but for those seeking progression in more than name alone, may this serve as a reminder that evolution requires more than the careful arrangement of old parts.

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Recommended tracks: The Void Where Sounds Ends Its Path, Entanglement
You may also like: Erebor, Dawn of Ouroboros, An Abstract Illusion, Serein, Cital, Iapetus, Dessiderium, Vintersea, Caelestra
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Scarlet Records

Sun of the Suns is:
– Ludovico Cioffi (guitar, bass)
– Marco Righetti (guitar)
– Luca Scarlatti (vocals)