Besra - Transitions - Metal Epidemic

Besra – Transitions
Release Date: 29th September 2023
Label: Suicide Records Finland
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Metal, Post-Metal, Sludge, Doom, Hardcore, Experimental.
FFO: Mastodon, The Ocean, Cave-In, Russian Circles, Mogwai.
Review By: Mark Young

And 2023 continues to surprise and enthral in equal measure. Complex and stunning, the second album from Besra sees them look to within and without to explore the human nature of the world they inhabit. Make no mistake, this is a work of art that sometimes only the truly gifted ever attain. These six songs possess an individuality and togetherness that grabs you and takes you for a ride.

It has everything you want in modern metal – riffs, pummeling drums and a keen sense of just how to write and arrange songs that you will come back to again and again. Rather than try to dissect each song, which would be redundant on my part and would not capture just how good they are, I think it would be better to describe how they made me feel.

Each song just has so much happening, taking in so many different genres, they sometimes sound like a different band. Nothing is forced or for show, nothing is said without it meaning something to serve the song and incredibly given that there are no short songs here there is no lag in motion or any drop in the quality you will hear. Production is top class, with a clarity, so you pick up every single note, and it’s best if you can find the opportunity to sit and digest it in one go. I avoid playlists unless they are of my own making, preferring the old-fashioned way of appreciating an album by affording it the respect to listen to it in full. Hearing It this way means you get that full effect of how each song builds upon the one that came before. For example, Sentinels leads into Sanguine and you are quite likely to be transfixed by the power and craft that bleeds through.

Their PR notes similarities to Mastodon, I can only hope they manage to follow the same trajectory because by rights (and by praying to the Metal Gods) they should be regarded as masters of this genre. 2023 has been a year of some absolute stone-cold classic releases, a lot of which has been in the more extreme / death metal circles, which I’ve loved to see. But this comes in and batters a lot of those just for the sheer scale and breadth of what they provide here. I hope that from reading this you take it upon yourself to check them out, and personally I’m hoping they tour because I would love to hear these live. If there is any justice, this will be held up as classic in years to come.