Chicago quintet, Warforged, are one of many risk-takers in the metal underground. That’s because they believe art should evolve and are always looking for new innovations. It took them seven years to release a record after forming in 2012, but The Grove | Almanac is now their third album since 2019. Their name appears in blackened death metal circles as a leftfield prog offshoot, but this does not capture their sound. What exactly is this?
You don’t expect an extreme metal LP to start with a soul jazz beat and with no guitar to back up the growling vocals. The axemen first enter on opener, ‘Miserable No Life King’, with dreamy pitch bends and then separate into two streams with Jace Kiburz and Max Damske playing different textures. Warforged are triumphant here if the aim is to induce tension and make the listener look over their shoulder. We’re three minutes in and it already feels like six despite its linear structure. Observe how double-kick eighth notes and palm-muted riffs emerge from this minimalist setting and transition into a complex environment in the blink of an eye. The same emphasis on an easy drum groove contrasted by malevolent vocals and neo-jazz atmospherics dominates ‘Streets’. Everything feels spontaneous yet the meticulous planning in this song is its greatest feature.
It’s clear at track three (see ‘A Bustle in Your Hedgerow’) that this music needs multiple listens to make sense. That’ll alienate those who want instant gratification and excite those that like to micro-analyse an album. In this song, screams and groans merge with jagged down-tuned guitars and unpredictable tempo shifts. Drummer Jason Nitts could match Car Bomb’s Elliott Hoffman in his remarkable stick work. Following his every move through nine minutes of technical prog metal is a pleasure rather than a chore.
You might arrive at The Grove | Almanac with a thirst for black metal, but you won’t find any. Warforged have no time to tremolo-pick their way through the turbulence when the emphasis is on finding the fusion grooves that Cynic’s Sean Reinert perfected in the early 1990s. ‘I Wish You Could Live Forever’ gives us the first sign of pastel textures wrapped in a melancholy tone rather than a murderous one. ‘The Verb “2 Hate”’ could pass for an outtake from the latest Ulcerate record before wandering into the world of an unreleased David Lynch film.
Fortunately, Warforged are not averse to a hardcore bounce among the blast beats and sporadic scale-running guitars. You don’t enter a studio unprepared if you’re writing music as challenging as this. ‘Flourish in the Filth’ doesn’t get any easier after three spins, yet the spacing in this song is admirable. You might even see a way out of this dense labyrinth with forty seconds to go, but they redraw the map just as you’ve found your bearings. Vocal harmonies are as important as off-meter rhythms in the electronic-mathcore experiment of ‘Novocaine Grace’. It raises the question: was anything ever orthodox on this album until this point?
The hardest thing about this record is its length. Forty-nine minutes of non-repeating dissonant music with numerous time-changes and competing angles is as exhausting as it is entertaining. Good luck if you can find the energy to appreciate the bewildering ups and downs of ‘Narco Cavalier’. Closing track, ‘Pathetic Wish’, is more forgiving of the listener’s stamina. This is Warforged at their most original like the opening track. The paradox of mellow beats and agonised vocal abrasions is fascinating in a prog landscape. They don’t make for instant satisfaction, but they invite the enquiring mind to enjoy the analysis. The same can be said about the entire album.
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 07/08/2026
Record Label: Self-released
Standout tracks: Miserable No Life King; A Bustle in Your Hedgerow; I Wish You Could Live Forever
Suggested Further Listening: Omnerod – The Amensal Rise (2023), Yakuza – Sutra (2023), The Gorge – Mechanical Fiction (2023)