As Gaerea reach their tenth year as a band, their experimentation with black metal has thrusted them into the metal mainstream, and they've only continued to grow with Loss.
Since their inception in 2016, the Portuguese masked outfit Gaerea have always been pushing the boundaries of what they can achieve in the realm of black metal. While their newer outputs are classed as post-black metal, they still have their original black metal roots still very much intact at the base of their musicianship.
Loss continues the sound that Coma experimented with, while still further pushing their creative limit to include hauntingly beautiful melodies and inclusion of more clean vocals that appeared on Coma. ‘Luminary’ starts the proceedings of the album with an atmospheric sharp guitar ringing out before the band come crashing in. From the singles they have released, you’re aware it’s going to be a whirlwind of genres colliding, but ‘Luminary’ stands firm with its more aggressive movements from the blast beats to the furious guitar tone that makes an explosive opening statement.
‘Submerged’ comes in with a clean guitar tone reminiscent more from Sleep Token to Gaerea, but that’s to lull you into a false sense of security. Blast beats are behind the corner ready to take your head off as the band’s anonymous vocals are intense and filled with emotion on the massive chorus as you can hear his voice tear into higher registers of his screams. With his vocals shifting from vicious growls to cleaner passages, it adds a raw feeling to the song that sees you clinging on to the end with bated breath.
In fact, the entire album has you by the jugular for the entirety of the album, utilizing its furious emotionally driven melodies and gurgling vocals that you can feel resonating through your bones with every shriek emitting from the vocalist. Across the length of 46 minutes, you’re dragged through the black metal pits of hell on ‘Hellbound’ to the softer cloud-like walks of ‘Cyclone’ that adds its clean vocals diverging into growls to a background of fierce guitar riffs and punishing bass tone. While the album is full to the brim with memorable songs, the only real instance of any filler comes in the form of ‘Uncontrolled’. It’s not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels out of place on Loss, and seems more suited to Coma.
As you reach the last stretch of the album with the eight-minute epic ‘Stardust’ that encompasses everything you’ve heard throughout the album into one final burst of energy, you begin to feel that Loss is less of an album and more of detailed journey through the hearts and minds of Gaerea. As Loss comes to a peaceful end, it stands out as a bold and powerfully resonant record that has Gaerea defining and reshaping modern extreme metal.