Style: Progressive metal, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: VOLA, Pain of Salvation, Soen, Votum
Country: Finland
Release date: 21 August 2026

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Oddland are the strange answer to the question: what if Soen had gone djent? While frontman  Sakari Ojanen’s baritone and hard rock melodies are redolent of that section of the prog scene, the instrumental side of Unilluminate to Illuminate is pure djent, with tangled time signatures and knotty riffs with stompy drum work. Added to this mix is a steady infusion of saxophone courtesy of guitarist Jussi Poikonen, who uses his horn as a textural riff partner as often as a solo instrument. 

“Eternal Erode”, the first proper track on the album, introduces us to Oddland’s unique sense of interplay, with Ojanen’s crooning choruses and a high sax motif vying against knotty 8-string work and some relatively rare growls. Structurally, Oddland keep to verse-chorus structures with instrumental mid-sections over more complex composition, but there are plenty of breaks for mind-bending riffs to get the listener’s brain ticking. “Unilluminate” feels like one of the more structurally complete songs, playing with a synth motif which is taken up by the sax during the chorus to quite satisfying effect; in addition, the track’s mantra of the album title makes it a fitting centrepoint for the record. “Red Canvas” sees Ojanen pushing his vocals further than anywhere else, sometimes not always for the best, but the performance is admirable. Closer “Waterdrops” is the album highlight, opening with a lumbering polyrhythm, and keeping up the tension throughout—for the first time, the band feel like they’re truly in sync. Poikonen’s sax work is at its best here, contributing a solo over his own brass rhythm while the djent slouches like a rough beast toward Bethlehem. 

Still, illumination doesn’t necessarily help one discern one Oddland track from another; djent’s perennial problem of all the riffs sounding too similar contributes to a sense of homogeneity across the record. But worse still is the production which compounds a lot of small problems ultimately making Unilluminate to Illuminate a chore to listen to. Ojanen’s crooning veers between a sturdy, if largely one-note, performance to occasionally wobbly; the mix doesn’t aid him, and the vocal duet on “Illuminate” is one of the worst offenders when it comes to pitchiness. Oddland are at their most compositionally interesting when they layer a bunch of ideas together, but the mix quickly muddies these moments, leaving elements like the synthetic strings hard to decipher. Meanwhile, Poikonen’s sax sticks out oddly, seemingly not fully integrated into the mix at large, and the choice to make the snare the loudest instrument on the album is a grating one—it’s at its most obnoxious on “Freefall”, detracting from an otherwise rather cool prechorus section. The individual performances, which can be very good, are unfortunately left isolated in the mix never quite able to gel in the mix. All this means that Unilluminate to Illuminate is all too often punishing on the ear, with too many hard edges to deter the listener. 

Listening to Unilluminate to Illuminate is a frustrating experience because you can almost hear what Oddland intended the album to sound like and yet it just falls short. Mostly that’s down to the mixing, although there are compositional problems to be addressed. Sure, it’s album number four but there’s always room to grow or, to put it in a more Oddland-friendly way, sometimes you need to be lost in the dark to better appreciate the light.

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Recommended tracks: Unilluminate, Waterdrops
You may also like: Godsticks, Derev
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Frontiers Music Srl

Oddland is:
– Sakari Ojanen (vocals, guitars)
– Joni Palmroth (bass)
– Ville Viitanen (drums)
– Jussi Poikonen (guitars, saxophone)