Style: Progressive Metal, Djent (Clean Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Tesseract, Monuments, later The Contortionist, Skyharbor
Country: Chile
Release date: 7 April 2025
I completely missed out on djent’s initial wave. I was but a child when Meshuggah was first bringing the genre to life on albums like Destroy Erase Improve (1995) and Chaosphere (1998), while the early 00s explorations of groups like Sikth, Tesseract, Veil of Maya, et al would go completely unnoticed, ensconced as I was in the realms of groove, nu, and power metal. Not until the 2010s would I get my first taste of djent’s polymetric grooving and eight-string abuse. I was certainly a fan of much of it, though I’d be hard-pressed to recall specific albums save a few (Skyharbor’s Guiding Lights and Meshuggah’s The Violent Sleep of Reason come to mind). Djent had quickly become filled with bands who, while perhaps boasting technically proficient players, lacked any sort of sonic identity beyond repeating the crunchy, bouncy glitch-metal and waxing introspection popularized by Tesseract and ilk.
With legions of sound-alikes, the genre’s reach as a sub-arm of progressive metal began to feel atrophied and almost like a joke. After all, how “progressive” can a genre be when it sounds like it’s crafted in an echo chamber? Stagnation begets degradation. Suffocation begets death—or at least, death within the critical noosphere. And as the 2020s has seen the domination of “modern metal” (as amorphous a moniker as any) through artists as Bad Omens, Sleep Token, and Spiritbox, not to mention the long-in-the-making ascension of Bring Me The Horizon, djent as a whole-cloth genre has felt less and less valued in the metalsphere.
But nothing stays dead forever, and there will always be artists finding ways to add spice to tired recipes. Which brings us to Chilean outfit Intrascendence and their eponymous debut. On the whole, the band blends atmosphere with grooving rhythms replete with downtuned chugs, and lyrics centered on introspection and themes of, well… transcendence. And if that sounds a lot like, say, Tesseract or Skyharbor or Veil of Maya or Monuments, then I thought so, too. As I fired up Intrascendence’s first cut, the bouncy and breathy “Believing to See,” I was struck by familiarity as the band ba-genk-genk’ed their guitars across a chunky, electronica-dusted landscape capped with powerful vocals equally searching and soaring.
Then the funk-bass, dop-doom-da-dums, and cheeky tongue clicks kicked open the bridge, and suddenly I found myself wandering entirely different terrain. I’ve always found there to be an inherent fun to djent, whether the executors of it intended it or not; a herky-jerky jauntiness tailor-made for the kind of impromptu jank-dancing I court shamelessly. Suddenly, Intrascendence was speaking a language of love to my admittedly weather-beaten soul, delivered in myriad spats a’la the jittery guitar lines pecking away at the atmo-prog of “Ostracism,” the symphonic metal-bombast of “Ascend to Infinity,” or the buoyant and bouncy “Self-Blinded,” perhaps my favorite slice off the record. And while much of Intrascendence does feel like Tesseract-core, it’s this undeniable liveliness and willingness to expand within well-trod sounds that keeps aspects of the album afloat in my memory.
I wish more of Intrascendence incorporated this kind of off-center experimentation. Tracks like “Stones,” “Strength,” and “Sintergy” are perfectly fine, but without the little additions found in “Believing to See” or “Self Blinded,” they can’t help feeling generic by comparison. As a result, Intrascendence have cultivated a clutch of songs that are good in the moment, gone in the aftermath. Then again, there’s much to be said for too much of a good thing; I’d hate to see the band’s creative playfulness weaponized into some form of inorganic template, where expectation overrides artistic intention.
Speaking of expectation…
Djent has a tendency to sound robotic, so stiff and stilted in its systematic syncopation that one could be excused for assuming machines were responsible—somewhat amusing, considering the genre’s preoccupation with humanity and introspection. Intrascendence somehow sidestep this issue, despite carrying many of the sonic markers of their forebears. There’s a palpable energy running through the entirety of the record. Key to this are Omar Alvear and Rodrigo del Canto, who handle guitar and bass, respectively. I can almost imagine them swaying and bouncing along with their instruments as they ebb, flow, drop, and stutter across the forty-one minute runtime. Martin Alvarez’s drumming is tight, yet allows for the kind of organic flow which made Neil Peart (Rush) such a joy to listen to. Singer Felipe Reyes’ cleans, breathy and resonant, may echo Tesseract’s Daniel Tompkins, but there’s elements of Ra frontman Sahaj Ticotin in the way he vocalizes and holds certain notes, adding small but flavorful differences in support of Intrascendence’s uniqueness.
I approached Intrascendence with caution. At its worst, djent is not unlike the tulpa of progressive metal: a vessel filled to the brim with the ideas of depth, nuance, challenge, etc, yet unmistakably hollow and lacking vitality. Derivative of the thoughts which conjured it into reality. Though Intrascendence’s existence is clearly indebted to those who came before, that has not stopped these Chileans from pushing beyond the measures of their make to conjure a work awash in the liveliness of their own humanity.
Recommended tracks: Believing to See, Self Blinded, Ascend to Infinity
You may also like: Blinded By Silence, He Knows (formerly Form Subtract), Inner Cabala, A Notion of Silence, Perfect Shadows
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Independent
Intrascendence is:
– Felipe Reyes (vocals)
– Omar Alvear (guitar)
– Rodrigo del Canto (guitar, bass)
– Martin Alvarez (drums)
– Manuel Arriaza (keyboard)
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