Artwork by: God, duh. (No artist credited)

Style: Technical Death Metal (Mixed Vocals (mostly harsh))
Recommended for fans of: Born of Osiris (early), Veil of Maya, The Black Dahlia Murder
Country: United States (CA)
Release date: 16 June 2026

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They say God created man in His image, but we definitely created angels in ours. And why wouldn’t we? The biblically accurate angel is the stuff of horror movies; imagine a giant cluster of winged eyes hovering over your bedside rather than a breathtakingly androgynous being. Granted, I’d argue it’s unfair of us to have forced our idyllic forms upon these othernatural creations of a Supreme Being. If people claim to love God as much as they do, then maybe they should love angels as they are, too – disintegration of your pathetic mortal mind be damned. Thankfully, 2026 has seen a blessed rise in support of our spherical, ever-watchful homies, with bands like Inferi and Spirit Adrift proving brave enough to grace their latest album covers with their celestial majesty.

Add newcomers EL to the list as well, who’ve taken this reverence for Peak Angelic Form a step further by centering their entire debut LP, The Angelarium, around interlocking themes of Humanity’s divinity and madness. The Californian duo send down from their pulpit canticles of heavenly technicality to whip the holy and the profane alike with flensing riffage and time signatures largely beyond mortal comprehension. EL claim to bring to the masses “a new style of music”, proof that Metal, like Lazarus before it, is risen from the dead – if truly Metal was ever dead at all. Yet we know many to be the false preachers and prophets, whose gilded offers of salvation slither forth from a serpent’s tongue to poison and corrupt the innocent and unwary. And so I have been dispatched from on high, on behalf of the inquisitors of the Subway Most Progressive, to hear these claims and render unto them judgment. Do EL speak the True Word? Or have they come, unknowingly, bringing ruination upon our immortal souls?

May I interest you in our Lord and Savior, Born of Osiris? What about Circle of Contempt? No? Well, if you’ve heard The New Reign or Artifacts of Motion, then you’ll have a grand idea of what The Angelarium is all about: namely, relentless staccato instrumentation, grinding guitars, and machine-gun drums chipping and shifting away at incalculable turns as frontman Matthew Rodriguez growls, shrieks, and occasionally brees beneath it all like some red-throated sermonizer. Like the mania visited upon any brave (or foolish) enough to look upon an angel’s true form, The Angelarium is utterly relentless. From the first cymbal hits of opener “The Elestial One”, there’s nowhere on Heaven or Earth where man might escape EL’s holy assault. Guitarist James “Jazzy” Boff sketches riffs into existence like some mania-induced scribe hastily attempting to translate the word of the Most High via quill and parchment; the nimble-fingered guitarist leaps from bendy technical pyrotechnics to textural grinding to straight-up death metal thuggery, often all within the same track. Even the machines toil in service of celestial powers, as the programmed drums blast and generally pummel the foundation – and the listener – without cease, giving no quarter to idling.

It’s not all hallelujahs in the House of EL, however. For the very thing that lends credence to their sermons, their undeniable technical prowess and blitzkrieg compositions, stands to turn away as many as may also be converted. There is far more maelstrom than order at work in The Angelarium. Songs spiral and twist together into complex sequences of instrumentation that, when paired with the production, can make pulling individual moments from the record feel like attempting to divine meaning from some obscure translated text. Granted, that keeps repeat listens rewarding, as new passages begin to reveal themselves, and at a lean thirty-two minutes The Angelarium is hardly lacking in expediency. Still, I can’t help but wish there was a tad more definition to EL’s songcraft beyond the non-euclidean designs they’ve fabricated.

All said, fans hungry for that specific breed of late-aughts tech death would do well to seek out EL’s debut. Not only does the band tap into the sonic palette of benchmarks like early Born of Osiris and Veil of Maya, but this dynamic Californian duo have the chops required to execute, as well. And despite my gripes, I’ve exited The Angelarium on an agnostic front – not fully convinced of EL’s teachings just yet, but certainly convinced in the potential of their word. So, while I may not be a regular Sunday show-up, that doesn’t mean I won’t be popping in from time to time.

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Recommended tracks: Rule I, Palindrome Isn’t Palindrome, Never Odd or Even
You may also like: Circle of Contempt, Spire of Lazarus, Cosmitorium, Growth, Symplus-E, Pathogenic, Anomalous, Coprofago
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram

Label: Independent

EL is:
– James “Jazzy” Boff (guitars)
– Matthew Rodriguez (vocals)