Style: Dissonant Death Metal, Experimental Death Metal, Avant-Garde Metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Agriculture, Gorguts, Ulcerate, Panopticon
Country: Norway
Release date: 5 December 2025

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The integration of non-traditional instruments into metal can provide a fresh and unique sound. When done well, like Panopticon and Ne Obliviscaris, the effect can be beautiful or enhance an unsettling atmosphere. Other times, similar textural blending can be a gamble, with plenty of bands fumbling its implementation (lest we not forget the Megadeth attempt on Super Collider). On Hermit Dreams debut, Desperate Anomies, the Norwegians try their hand at such instrumentation, interweaving the banjo, cello, upright bass, theremin, and shruti alongside brooding guitars into a bleak and dissonant death/doom soundscape. The effect is the sound of a schizophrenic wanderer stumbling through the void who’s lost his location in time and space.

Desperate Anomies’ song structures tend to oscillate violently between heavy and gentle, as demonstrated by opening track “Trembling Heretic,” which peaks with repeated waves of intensity before quickly falling off into banjo and cello-led solemnity. At times, these transitions are effective, but they’re often too abrupt, resulting in a fragmented listening experience. The songwriting almost feels like multiple tracks have been cut up and stitched together instead of being composed in a unified manner. This style may very well have been by design, as the band declares on their Bandcamp page that “the album unfolds like a diary of internal erosion.” One can certainly hear the sanity eroding throughout, as if Hermit Dreams cycles between its multiple personalities without warning. Hermit Dreams does create an unsettling atmosphere through these drastic shifts in tone, though unlike Hath and Ulcerate, who use a consistent menacing sound to enhance their music, the fragmented song structures produce the hostile atmosphere in Desperate Anomies, resulting in a frustrating listening experience. Trying to follow “Den Forgjengelige Innsikt,” for instance, feels like trying to find your way out of a dense forest, confusing and easy to lose your sense of direction.

No one can deny the talent on display, particularly by multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Axelsen. Hermit Dreams are at their most effective when weaving the deep and ominous sounds of upright bass into their compositions, such as in “Everlasting Mire” and the eerie closer “And Now What…?” The depth of Axelsen’s bass playing drives home the ominous dread that permeates the listening experience. Vocalist Erik Waadeland has a well-fitting growl for the instrumentals, and tends to be the force that keeps everything cohesive while the music feels like it is on the verge of veering off track completely. Moments when Hermit Dreams seem to catch stride appear throughout Desperate Anomies, like the fresh sound of the banjo being played atop blast beats in the midsection of “Directionless Gaze.” Unfortunately, rather than letting these ideas take root, the band quickly moves onto the next chapter of the disjointed story.

However, Hermit Dreams should be commended for their efforts in Desperate Anomies, producing a menacing and complex album which shows promise for a debut. If nothing else, Desperate Anomies is unlike anything I have heard before and worth checking out for its novelty alone. At a brisk thirty-four minutes in length, Desperate Anomie is overstuffed with ideas. More time spent developing some of the sections and allowing more natural and smoother musical transitions would have improved how each song and the album as a whole flowed. A touch of restraint would go a long way for Hermit Dreams, who should limit the number of ideas they incorporate into each individual song. A very good, or even great album could be in their future if they can smooth out the musical transitions within their songs and provide a more unified listening experience.

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Recommended tracks: Trembling Heretic, Directionless Gaze, Lorn Apparition
You may also like: Knoll, Blindfolded and Led to the Woods, Veilburner, Nightmarer, Diskord, Orgone
Final verdict: 5.5/10

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Chaos Records

Hermit Dreams is:
– Eirik Waadeland – Vocals
– Marin Storm-Olsen – Banjo, guitars, vocals
– Bjørn Tore Erlandsen – Drums
– Eyvind W. Axelsen – Cello, upright bass, bass guitar, theremin, shruti