‘The key to this music is its hypnotic hold on your senses. You could walk through the countryside rain without noticing a single drop on your forehead as the album filters through to your brain,’ said Scream Blast Repeat of Playgrounded’s 2022 album The Death of Death. We praised the prog dimensions and sophisticated electronic soundscapes and wondered if it might be the finest rock LP of the year. Now, the Greeks have attracted the attention of The Ocean’s record label, Pelagic Records, and they’ll be on the radar of every prog and post-metal festival in Europe. There’s also a good reason for this: Playgrounded are heavier and yet more delicate than before. A Flower to Water is a pleasure to experience through headphones.
You know from the first porcelain guitar twang of ‘A Flower…’ that this’ll be an album for solemn reflection. The person you need to confront is yourself. Listen to how the layers of different instrumentation ease their way in, with the drums being the most secretive in their designs. At the centre of it all is the chalky baritone voice of Stavros Markonis. It resonates like a distant rumble that might reach your village if you’re unprepared. Is it any wonder that the first crunch of the electric guitar at 02:35 comes as a shock? Here, the bass hangs in the gaps of the syncopated rhythms as synths beep and cackle around the snares. With so much sophisticated minimalism, it’s easy to forget the lyrics. In this song, they talk about standing before gates and waiting in eternity as if writing taglines for existential photography.
Track two, ‘Counting Embers’, does the opposite. The crashing cymbals and thick guitar distortion clatter around you like a crumbling power generator. Yet they bring the dynamics down to a crawl for the verses. This lets the words settle and opens the path for the bass to manoeuvre its gears before the electric guitars take over again. “There is something safer about the haze,” laments Stavros Markonis. The amount of care and precision that went into this composition is obvious. One wonders how many evenings these guys spent around a laptop deconstructing their songs and redesigning them.
You’ll realise that Mortiis would be a perfect guest vocalist on at least one of these tracks. ‘Someone’ takes the deliberate offbeat rhythms of Pain of Salvation and pits the guitars and synths against each other. Markonis retains faith in his deep gothic voice as if somebody asked Katatonia to show their prog credentials (which they did on their last outing, to be fair). How might the audience react to watching this unfold live? That’s hard to say. It’s easy to be swept up by the dominant emotions of loss and self-reflection, yet the brain finds itself dragged in different directions by the smooth drumbeats and circling synths. And the action never strays from its metal roots.
Prog metal music as therapy is the best way to describe this remarkable album. You’ll hear the word “post” bandied about, and Playgrounded prefer post-punk to post-metal for their timbres. ‘Snow’ might even earn the term “progressive techno”, just as nobody knew how to describe Depeche Mode circa 1987-88. The easy thing would be to plough the drums through this delicate setting, yet Giorgos Pouliasis leaves his sticks to one side and allows the mind of Orestis Zafeiriou to furnish the mix with careful samples and subtle beats.
We know the roster of Pelagic Records is one of the first things you can use when people say there’s no innovation in metal these days. Playgrounded deserve to be included in that argument. ‘Of Air and Metals’ is the closest they come to a Tool vibe, but with a firmer emphasis on enhancing the crunchy guitars with layers of synths. The drummer does not miss his opportunity to remind us that he could deputise for Danny Carey if needed. Neither does Michael Kotsirakis go easy on his plectrum when palm-muting his way through this musical equinox. Many bands try to introduce Depeche Mode into their metal soundscape, and this is how you do it. In other words, a music engineer’s dream.
The most alluring feature of this LP is how it rewards repeat listens, allowing you to catch the things you missed on the first and second occasions. At thirty-six minutes, it ought to be a recipe for disappointment among prog fans. After all, great records in this genre seldom clock in at less than forty-five minutes. A Flower to Water is a triumphant exception. Every instrument is worth following in isolation, but you can also let the sound design take over when your analytical brain needs a rest.
Verdict
Release Date: 18/09/2026
Record Label: Pelagic Records
Standout tracks: A Flower; Of Air and Metals; Someone
Suggested Further Listening: Pain of Salvation – Panther (2020), Depeche Mode – Delta Machine (2013), The Ocean – Holocene (2023)