14 years after their first release, Syberia takes the step into the heaviest instrumental Post-Metal realm with an emotionally charged release.

But wait - hasn´t Syberia´s music always been a whirlwind of emotions and yearning, with albums containing impeccable music? Yes, Syberia is one of those band who has never, throughout all their career, released a disappointing album. And in my experience, not a disappointing live show either - so watch out for their extensive 2026 tour! No one leaves Syberia´s music untouched.

With their previous release Statement on Death (2022; here our review) the band took the step from Post-Rock to Post-Metal. And now in 2026, they have taken a further step into dense and melodic heaviness, into the realm of Atmospheric Sludge Metal, with Dark Ambient parts and even dipping into arpeggio-induced Atmospheric Black Metal. Combine this with the cover picturing bombed-out buildings in black and white, and you have a doomy and grim soundtrack of our times. As with the previous release, Syberia has the finger on the pulse of our zeitgeist.

As mentioned, Syberia´s music has always been very emotional, and this time the music is steeped in desperation and exasperation. The riffs are heavy, the throbbing bass rumbles deep, and the drums are relentless, sometimes intensely frantic. The openings of each track are often eerie, with Dark Ambient sounds. On the first song, “En la foscor una llum que brilla,” [yes, there is a comma at the end of many titles! note of the head honcho] the sounds also have an industrial sense in the music as it eerily grows and then pans out with a delicate piano upon a dark wave of sounds with glints of eerie lights as a melody is formed. It then fuses into heavy and fast-paced melodic riffing with low-end bass, and floor and snare drums keeping the rhythm.

We are now beginning the musical journey into Syberia’s dense, riff-ladden soundscapes. The music immerses you in distorted tremolo guitars that flutter above a dense foundation of melody, but is soon absorbed by the melodic riffing. It becomes more intense, ever growing with translucent sounds in the mix before it crumbles into itself. The drums are set at high speed, spreading all over the drums. Toward the end of the first track, the drums speed up as a contrast to the floating, heavy music, until it tightens and the heavy, distorted riffs take over, racing forward, pushed by the rhythm section.

“llampecs d’oblit d’uns records en vida,” also has this sinister Dark Ambient opening, but with hammering drums parts, upon a low, distorted bass. A light guitar begins to strum while the drums are rolling and hammering on in the musical foreground. It is utterly engaging how the drums are used in the middle, making a kind of rolling marching sound as the bass throbs and the guitars float on each side, one riffing and one in a fuzzy tremolo mode. The music throughout the track is multi-layered and varied and holds the listener in a grip, almost breathless, before it loosens a bit with a heavy and distorted riff in a darkened march into a crippled world. A sound hovers in the middle of the dense music before a breather when the guitars are delicate, but the drumming is contrastingly forceful. But even with some breathers, the pace is increased while melodies floating out of the sonics are intact. This makes the track extremely emotional as it yearns toward a surging crescendo that collapses with a screeching guitar and an indistinct sampled voice beginning to speak, supported by clear guitars and strident drumming.

If the previous tracks were fast and heavy, “naixença d’una mort tranquil·la.”, opens faster and heavier, but just as melodic. The riffs are dense, but with some transluscence in them, the bass is pulsating with a drum that is a driving force. The guitars rise above the rhythm section before panning out in a dark and dense flow with higher sounds in the mix, stretching and yearning for light as the drums are fast and the cymbals glimmer in the emotive musical sonics that swell and yearn and rise above itself. The guitar sounds fade away and leave the heavy, fast, and versatile drumming to lead the melody forward. It is immensely intense before it pans out with Dark Ambient sounds.

In the penultimate song, “Dins la meva ànima la sang em bull…”, there is a discharge of heavy riffs, with a fuzzy guitar avalanche of cascading riffs with a melodic theme at the bottom. After the music has simmered down, a guitar begins to play in the background, fumbling with a melody before it steps forward and begins to soar above the bass and drums and glittering cymbals. The rhythm section stops, and the guitars fuse back into blast beat tempo from the drums and dip into Atmospheric Black Metal sonics with guitars in arpeggio mode, discharging captive melodic themes induced with tremolos. It all fuses into a swelling crescendo before it calms down with warm guitars fading away into static.

The static seeps into the last track that opens quite tenderly before gradually dipping into a doom-ladden musical realm. The guitars soar and swell, regress down to the slow heaviness once more, and race forward with a desperate intensity. It gets heavier, and it seems like the music will implode upon the drums set that heaves forward with double takes on the drums. The music is pulsating forward, slowly fading into oblivion with only the drums left until they disappear into the distance, and the sound is overtaken by dark ambient sonics emanating a gloomy atmosphere that sustain a indistinct deep sampled serious voice of the actor Lluís Soler talking in Catalan.

If we can trust the famous online translator, the Catalan titles of the songs constitute a strong poem if put after each other and seen in context: “In the darkness a light shines,
glimpses of oblivion of memories in life,
birth of a silent death.
Inside my soul the blood boils…
When I leave, don’t close your eyes.”

The penultimate line, ”Inside my soul the blood boils…” could well be the epitaph for this bold and strong album.