Style: Technical Death Metal, Progressive Death Metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Fallujah, Rivers of Nihil, The Zenith Passage, Vale of Pnath, The Faceless
Country: France
Release date: 29 May 2026

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I’ve always been pleasantly amused by tech death bands and their naming conventions; throw enough vaguely scientific or literary words together and maybe it’ll stick. Mathematical terms like “scalar” will always make my ears perk up—I’m a math PhD student¹—but as it turns out, the scalar process is a concept from the business world; essentially, it refers to a hierarchical decision making process (scalar as the adjectival form of scale meant as a series of steps). And yet, because The Scalar Process play a style of spacey prog/tech death in lineage of The Faceless, The Zenith Passage, and Fallujah, I think the band just picked their name because it had the vaguely scientific air that the tech death meta calls for, with no regards for the real business meaning.  

Although their name has a real world meaning, unlike many prog/tech death bands, The Scalar Process follow several genre conventions closely. First, the sci-fi theming comes through loud and clear; Agnomysticism is comprised of atmospheric, non-distorted tremolos, alien synths, noodly guitar leads, and a range of vaguely spiritual new age elements, such as the quiet female vocals backing on “Physical Conquest.” The tech death bits are interspersed with synth-led ambient sections that provide a nice buffer from the barrage of riffs; but the entire schtick has been done before, and while that’s not damning, The Scalar Process also don’t add any novel elements to their sound. The most they break convention is by adding two entirely new age tracks (“Affluent Marea” and “Sigil”) to the tracklist, but every song already uses the buffer of synth-led ambience, rendering two entire tracks of it entirely superfluous—not to mention they’re rather boring, as The Scalar Process are clearly more accomplished riff writers than ambient producers, lacking the sound design chops to pull off the latter.

As on The Scalar Process’s 2021 debut, Coagulative Matter, production—handled by the band’s founder and guitarist, Eloi Nicod—puts a criminally low ceiling on the band’s potential for Agnomysticism. Nicod mixes Agnomysticism with the hyper slickness that has been industry standard since the mid 2010s, and the spacey guitars are so clean you might forget these are death metal songs without Mathieu Lefevre’s mid-range growls or the band’s chuggy breakdowns (“Far from the Flesh,” “A Breathing Moment”). The master, moreover, is an outdated wall-of-sound style, dominated by the omnipresent backing synths. The band leave plenty of breathing room compositionally, but with the volume always turned up, the new age transitional moments aren’t much of a sonic reprieve. And my god, the treble. The bass guitar has a decent chunk carved out in the brickwalled master—and even has some highlights of its own, like the slap bass in “Illness”—but Nicod cranks up the tremolo to be so dominant that half the time you’re exclusively slathered in atmospheric tremolo picking that reverberates with only their highest frequencies and rippling synths in the upper-end of the sonic space. Even Thomas Giroud’s drums feel the effects, packing no punch with the machine-gun blast beats, while his tinny cymbals are perfectly clear. Altogether, the production on Agnomysticism creates a constantly annoying buzz that is often so loud as to dominate any other interesting performances. 

Of course, Agnomysticism is proggy tech death by fantastic musicians, so performances do stand out despite the constantly stifling production. Guitarists Lucas Martinez and Eloi Nicod play in knotty lockstep like The Zenith Passage and The Faceless—their main riff pattern involves a rhythmically complicated chug ending with a techy flurry of melodic notes. This strategy works positively when the band are at their techiest (“Physical Conquest,” “Agnomysitcism”), although often the chugs fray into something more generic (“A Breathing Moment,” “Far from the Flesh”). The guitar solos are routinely the highlights of the album, bolstering the sci-fi vibes with alien harmonizing and a fluid playing reminiscent of Inanimate Existence. The solo following the underwhelming clean vocals by Andy Thomas (Rivers of Nihil) in “Incessant Continuum” is my favorite on Agnomysticism, and “Illness” and “Agnomysticism” have other standout ones. 

Fans of the specific style of modern tech death that makes up Agnomysticism will undoubtedly eat the record up as a satisfying comfort food; The Scalar Process don’t stand with Fallujah or The Faceless, but they’re a good enough supplement. More discerning listeners will find more mileage with acts like Inanimate Existence or Burial in the Sky, as they don’t leap into an abyss of production issues and aren’t plagued by excessively long ambient sections. The Scalar Process would really benefit from improving their production, perhaps hiring some outside help, and maybe they could attain the quality of their peers; Agnomysticism is simply not as enjoyable to listen to as it should be.

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Recommended tracks: Physical Conquest, Agnomysticism, Lack of Colors
You may also like: Decrepit Birth, Burial in the Sky, Fractal Universe, Inanimate Existence, Irreversible Mechanism
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records

The Scalar Process is:
– Eloi Nicod – Guitar / Composition / Production
– Mathieu Lefevre – Vocals / Lyrics
– Lucas Martinez – Guitar
– Vincent Amar – Bass
– Thomas Giroud – Drums
With guests:
– Andy Thomas (Rivers of Nihil) clean vocals on Incessant Continuum
– Justin Mckinney (The Zenith Passage) guitar solo on Illness

1.  How do you know a reviewer is a math PhD student? He’ll tell you in the intro paragraph. 
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