Musically brilliant, structurally insane, World Maker is another unique record that is very much set apart from its peers, with Psychonaut being one of the last truly interesting bands to emerge from 2010’s progressive metal.
Release date: October 24, 2025 | Pelagic Records | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
When I hit play for the first time, I was not prepared for the opening track of a progressive metal album to be so damn calm. All the way through the four-minute track, I was certain that it was going to really explode into huge riffs and scorching vocals, but all I got was a stunning psychedelic track that envelopes and settles you before the coming storm. The introspective depth that Psychonaut bring to their music helps to create unique albums that don’t play out like many others, and I think World Maker will land as many listeners album of the year.
Psychonaut‘s direction has always been ferocious progressive post-metal that cedes to light psychedelic metal and whilst the band cite Tool, Amenra, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin as influences, I hear more recent bands like The Ocean, Lucid Planet, Gojira, Monkey3, and DVNE as their peers. For a band of three, they make a hell of a lot of noise, both live and on record. Two singers who are excellent at their craft, paired with excellent songwriting and delivery, Psychonaut are a treat to experience in all times in life.
After the shock of the slow, calming, yet warming title track and opener to World Maker, fans of the band are greeted with a very familiar style of riffing in “Endless Currents”. Staccato chords overlap, with tight drumming following behind, before leading into a very posty song. The buildup is calculated, with each additional layer of fury building up a really tight track. It’s one I keep coming back to time and again, and I feel it bridges the gap perfectly between their styles in Unfold the God Man and Violate Consensus Reality. The former is full-on hefty post-metal, whilst the latter is very, very progressive and much lighter overall. “Endless Currents” strikes a great medium, having more grit than Violate, yet bringing oodles of progressive flavours to the mix.
“…Everything Else is Just the Weather” was the next track to really capture me. The introspective opener has some exceptional psychedelic guitar work, which leads into a choral climax that is out of this world. The song lengths are kept quite tight, meaning that nothing feels overplayed, or like there is filler. Your attention is constantly fixed by ever-expanding riffs, swells, and motifs that blow you away.
From here, the next three tracks are absolutely massive. “And You Came With Searing Light” is possibly one of their best tracks ever, a gluttony of massive guitar licks and roaring vocals that showcases their whole range impeccably. As soon as the titanic peaks of post-metal are reached, they cleverly wind down into trancy psychedelic metal again, loading up one final barrage of prog-metal at the end, along with an amazing vocal-led crescendo.
Psychonaut opened Unfold the God Man with an instrumental track, and since then, I’ve been hoping we’d get another one. “Origins” delivers again, offering the band’s full smorgasbord of sound, but this time in a more traditional post format, escalating all the time while adding and chopping layers at will. The grooves are tight, the mix delightful, and enveloping cascades of riffs and motifs barrage you. The blackened buildup to the finale is a standout moment in the album, culminating on a monster riff, imbued with chaos and groove at the end.
Going back to the headline statement, here is where things got a bit weird for me. “All in Time”, I think, is a brilliant album closer – yet it isn’t. Whilst it starts smooth and calm, it gets even heavier and doomier, with a massive climax, before ending on one of those classic guitar squeals you hear at the end of an album. And whilst the next track, “Stargazer”, is an absolute banger, starting off equally huge, with a post-doom riff before digressing into more prog, you can’t help but feel it’s out of place after the sequence you’ve just heard.
The album closes out well nonetheless, wrapping up yet another unique and fulfilling record from the Belgian band. The recording and production is yet again brilliant, delivered by Chiaran Verheyden from Hippotraktor, the band you can also find Stef in, as well as their live engineer Victor. I was lucky enough to catch them twice on the Violate cycle and will be seeing them in London next month for their World Maker tour, and I can attest that live, they make their albums perform really well. Make sure, if you haven’t yet, to get tickets to their pan-european tour, they’ll be flying across the continent starting this month. Overall, whilst I haven’t connected emotionally that much to World Maker compared to Violate Consensus Reality, I still think that this is another progression in their sound, and I hope they keep creating such standout music in a crowded genre.
