Band:	Unprocessed
Album:	.​.​.​And Everything In Between
Style:	Progressive metalcore
Release date:	December 2023

01. Hell
02. Lore
03. Thrash
04. Blackbone
05. Die On The Cross Of The Martyr
06. Glass
07. Abysm
08. I Wish I Wasn't
09. Purgatory

Last time we heard Unprocessed, they were dialling down the metal in favour of a more R&B/rock fusion sound. It seems that Gold was more of a detour than a new beginning, as ...And Everything In Between brings back the heaviness, and then some.

The Manuel Gardner Fernandes-led ensemble have been relatively prolific since forming in 2014, with this being their fifth record. Across the first few albums, they’ve matured a sound rooted in djent, featuring bulldozing riffs, metalcore song structures and refrains, and technical, progressive instrumentation. However, there’s been an increasing sensibility for cleaner, non-metal sounds, which came to the fore in a big way on Gold. ...And Everything In Between does return to their pre-Gold style, but several things picked up during that journey remain in their sound, and in a congested djent scene, expanding one’s musical range is by no means a bad thing.

In contrast to the 16 tracks and 57 minutes of Gold, this latest effort is a lot more easily digestible, sneaking beneath the 40-minute barrier. To fit everything in, Unprocessed cut to the chase with a vicious opening song in “Hell”, a brief quasi-ambient introduction leading into some dirty grooving. The verse of this track is blissful headbanging territory as far as prog-metalcore goes, but the band’s ever-expanding instrumental intricacy is shown on display not long after, with a sudden cut to a highly convoluted and technical guitar/bass trade-off, and before long, Gardner’s impressive clean singing is given a chance to shine alongside his mean screams. “Hell” really has it all, sliding effortlessly between spacious choruses, rapid-speed bludgeoning, thick djent riffs and a nasty breakdown.

...And Everything In Between isn’t a seamless album, but the immediate segue from “Hell” into “Lore” brings about further technical aggression, this time in initially more of a extreme metal form. Still, that Polyphia-esque fusion virtuosity side to Unprocessed casually slides in and out of the mix for some brief yet tasty licks. Polyphia is a fitting band to compare to, since Tim Henson and Scott LePage both feature on album centrepiece “Die On The Cross Of The Martyr”; Polyphia did their own pivot towards a less metal sound on last year’s Remember That You Will Die, and this song is a good example of Unprocessed continuing to explore outside of metal, as the dizzying complex mathy guitar work is accompanied by some electronic beats and punctuated by a pop-influenced chorus (oh, and by some huge, manic djent riffs).

Flirtations with the boundaries of metal are not confined to this song, however. While it’s still metal (and in certain moments, viciously so), there’s a sultry smoothness to the soulful clean singing early in “Thrash”, and similar vibes are returned to later, not just in this song, but on subsequent songs. Another example is the very catchy “Blackbone”; alternating with polyrhythmic screamed verses (and a crushingly heavy midsection) are lush, evocative choruses that really show off Gardner’s talents as a clean-singing frontman. However, probably the tracks that would fit most naturally onto Gold are “Glass” and “Abysm”, which scale back the use of extreme vocals and excessive distortion, instead focusing on tranquil math rock backdrops (in the former), crooning clean singing, and ambient synths (in the latter).

Unprocessed aren’t by any stretch my favourite band in the djent scene; their songs don’t connect with me quite as frequently as I’d like them to, and the super-elaborate technical parts don’t play to my preference for the catchier instru-prog acts (like Plini, Sithu Aye and David Maxim Micic). However, they’re doing good work in distinguishing themselves within the wider scene, and this album feels like a very solid fusion of their extremity, their virtuosity, and their soulfulness. I can see them going back towards where they were on Gold, and Gardner absolutely has the voice and chops to pull it off if they do, but if they want to continue merging the metal and the R&B influences, the balance on ...And Everything In Between feels close to optimal for doing so.