Style: Progressive rock, post-hardcore, math rock (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Eidola, Hail The Sun, Protest The Hero, Thrice
Country: Oregon, United States
Release date: 20 March 2026

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Did you know The Progressive Subway has lore?¹ Well, you’re about to find out! Early last year, Object Unto Earth’s debut graced our collection of bookmarked albums, and with it came some particularly charming cover artwork featuring a heroic frog in a flowing red cape. Memetically dubbed “forg with cap,” this amphibious adventurer quickly wormed its way into our collective hearts, even earning an honorable mention in our roundup post for favorite album art of the year. Just over a year later, the band are back with their followup EP Memory Tyrant, now featuring a froggy cover illustration from frontman and music producer Jonathan Zajdman himself. And to top it all off, the forg now has a sord! And is riding a hors! Truly, a figure worthy of our adoration.

Memory Tyrant represents a minor, sensible, yet noticeable evolution of the project since The Grim Village. The production has taken an extra step towards Weezer-esque indie rock, replacing the precise cutting edges of The Grim Village with a slight lo-fi haze shrouding everything from vocals to percussion and making it all feel that much more fantastical. The vocal part has also gained extra depth of sound from more frequent use of overlapping vocal tracks; the resulting self-harmony provides a thicker medium in which to express the emotions at play. Nevertheless, the group’s central post-hardcore and math rock influences remain intact. The same uncompromising existential spirit flows throughout Memory Tyrant, supported by Zajdman’s poetic lyricism spinning everyday modern troubles into clever metaphors for topics ranging from his own near-death experience in a car accident to the economic and environmental crises brought on by late-stage capitalism.

Object Unto Earth don’t quite fit the standard mold for progressive rock with their short, accessible tracks. Nevertheless, they pack an impressive amount of clever musicianship into those small morsels. Despite rarely venturing outside of 4/4 time signatures, their compositions keep the listener alert with heavy syncopation and masterful use of phrasing to create the same off-balance feeling found in prog’s signature manipulations of time. “For as Long as Frog Kills Frog,” for example, drops a surprise coda after a false ending with roughly a minute still to go, and pours a whole track worth of flashy time signatures into the finale with a further chorus and a flurry of instrumental embellishment. The compositional structure of “Man Proposes, Bog Disposes” befits a song much longer than it actually is, with multiple extended instrumental breaks in between the choruses and at the very end of the track, which help to add a greater sense of variety and space which would otherwise be absent.

Both of the middle tracks employ a complex, continuous sort of phrasing that seems to resist being broken up into measures, creating a sense that each segment runs uninterrupted into the next, a clever way of sidestepping the drudgery of a verse-chorus song structure without having to abandon it completely. This clever construction is a bit of a mixed blessing, though. Where “Man Proposes, Bog Disposes” breaks up its runtime with lively instrumental features after each third, the ceaseless urging forward makes “Speculative Miseries” begin to feel a bit like a run-on sentence no matter how well-thought-out the rhythms are. Likewise, “The Meaning of Haste” shows us…well, actually a rather subdued outing. Existentialism overtakes biting commentary as Object Unto Earth settle into a general malaise over the poor state of media and communications in the present sociopolitical climate. Unfortunately, despite the insightful critiques contained within the lyrics, the low-energy atmosphere dominates the mood over any of the relatable commentary, leading to a bit of a disappointing closing number.

Ultimately, I’m grasping at straws a little bit to find things to critique. Memory Tyrant offers a quick, concise taste of Object Unto Earth’s signature blend of emotive, existential songwriting and complex yet accessible song structures. This is the ideal use of the EP format: get in, drop a quick sample, and get out before the music begins to overstay its welcome. Although Memory Tyrant keeps its footprints small, the artists’ obvious passion ensures that this brief EP finds a way to stick in your memory anyway. All in all, this is a solid sophomore outing, showing incremental development while still retaining the central qualities that made The Grim Village a memorable debut.

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Recommended tracks: For as Long as Frog Kills Frog; Man Proposes, Bog Disposes
You may also like: Vower, East of the Wall, Children of Nova, Anemera, Rosetta
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram

Label: Seven Sided Sounds

Object Unto Earth is:
– Jonathan Zajdman (vocals, guitars, bass)
– Eric Bloombaum (drums)
– Lucille Parker (guitars)

1. No, not the Elder album. Well, a bunch of us probably own that too, but that’s beside the point. ↩︎