Review of The Psyke Project - Apnea

Like Hollow Corp’s recent The Cloister of Radiance album, the third album from Denmark’s The Psyke Project was originally released in Europe last year and now has a stateside distribution. Also like Hollow Corp, The Psyke Project mix harsh, caustic metal with a few injections of post rock, and gain the results, while solid are not breathtaking.

While Hollow Corp’s backbone was a hefty, lurching Gojira tones, The Psyke Project’s core is rooted in a more hardcore delivery with the more chaotic strains of Converge mixing with a few Isis/Neurosis styled post rock injections of introspection. On the whole, Apnea is more caustic, jagged, brittle and angry as opposed to a steady lope and builds and often, the more introspective moments are built into the framework of the chaos (“I Get Paralyzed”, the 7+ minute “Creating Landscapes”, “Love Showed in a Handful of Dirt”, “Poems Written By Kings” and massive 9-minute standout “Jugganata’) rather than relying on separate tracks to convey the mood shifts. That being said, slightly out of place 8-minute closer “Not in My Time” is moody clean vocalled piece that serves as an appropriate bookend for the album even if it a sudden change in tone.

With a surprisingly acidic Tue Madsen production, Apnea, aided by Martin Nielskov’s furious hardcore screams has a wide appeal to both hardcore and post rock fans, but I have to admit I’m not fully convinced by either, as despite a solid offering I’m simply not blown away or feeling the need for multiple listens, its just lacks that special track or moment to push it past simply solid. Basically, the post rock moments don’t move me or elicit any emotional response and the caustic hardcore I’ve heard a thousand times before. I’m just more likely to reach for labelmates Harlots or even Nights Like These.