Stellar Remains - Wastelands

Stellar Remains – Wastelands (EP)
Release Date: 15th February 2024
Label: Cabal Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Black Metal, Progressive Metal.
FFO: Blood Incantation, Horrendous, Tomb Mold.
Review By: Mark Young

This debut EP comes courtesy of the one-man gang, Dan Elkin and starts with the Ceaseless Charade of the Living Dead. It has that melody line that wouldn’t be out of place on some symphonic pieces and leads us into Obsolescence, which just bursts forth, covering so much ground in the first 30 seconds you wonder how he will keep this going.

It’s a great track, constantly charging forward with simple efficiency and some deep growling, which is always good. It’s not just an exercise in battery, there is heavy melody at play and the ending riff is spot on.

Weeping on the Shoulder of a Memory goes even further, dropping a blast-beat fuelled monster that suddenly changes direction with an easy-going solo break. Not suggesting that this is a simple solo by any means, more that it fits the music behind it without trying to shoehorn a million notes where they are not wanted. The guttural vocals make way for cleans that remind me of Muse, and what strikes is that the change fits within the build of the song and isn’t out of place.

The Invisible Man, piano, and ambient background noise act as a break before the face Melter that is Wastelands comes knocking. It shows once again that Dan is not going to stay in one area. Wastelands is the epic track here, it has that ‘something’ to it, from the riffs to the drums and all things in between, that makes you sit up and really dig into it. I’m getting early Mastodon for how it twists and turns with fills coming in from every angle, supporting a constantly changing central riff. Once the vocals kick in, it settles down (to an extent) mixing between the guttural and angelic vocals. The build is fantastic, it’s exactly the sort of song I would love to play because there is so much going on right the way through it.

To be fair, he could have ended the EP at this point, and I’d be happy, but then you wouldn’t have Cloudbearer.

If you imagine that, Cloudbearer comes in and just ups the aggression, speed and overall intent that Wastelands gave us, and it’s simply mental that they give us two stone-cold epic tracks. Even at the length of 7-minutes plus, it doesn’t drag even when the tempo drops. The chops and changes are not tacked together, each development is a logical progression and make this one of the early stand-out releases for 2024.

This is quality, with that very rare one-two of epic songs that close out the EP. Appreciate that at present it is a one-man affair, and it will be interesting to see where it goes next with future releases and with (hopefully) live dates too. Excellent EP!!