Gaerea - Loss - review
Gaerea - Loss - review
Tracklist
01. Luminary02. Submerged
03. Hellbound
04. Uncontrolled
05. Phoenix
06. Cyclone
07. LBRNTH
08. Nomad
09. Stardust
A review by
musclassia April 17, 2026
As I mentioned in my review of Coma, Gaerea exhibited ambitions beyond the confines of straight black metal early on in their journey, although the likes of Limbo and Mirage focused on a post-black style that didn’t foreshadow where they would venture next. Coma shook things up by going in a more melodic direction that brought in elements from blackgaze and post-hardcore, and now Loss has really put the cat among the pigeons.
While I would argue that anyone capable of predicting the trajectory towards Loss when listening to Gaerea’s earliest albums would be in possession of legendary foresight, there were songs on Coma that laid the foundations for this latest effort. By namedropping Killswitch Engage as a reference for melodic guitar work on the record in my review in addition to highlighting anthemic choruses, I unintentionally predicted Gaerea’s shift towards metalcore. That said, if Limbo, Mirage and Coma were points A, B and D on a map, Loss sounds more like point H or J.
Are Gaerea a metalcore band now? Opening song “Luminary” might suggest so, with grooves and chugs reminiscent of acts such as Polaris and vocals that take my mind towards 00s In Flames, with but glimpses of anything blackened in the closing stages. However, on the whole, Loss sounds like a mesh of elements of sounds old and new without particularly resembling either black metal or metalcore. There’s consistent presence of blast beats and (mostly melodic) tremolo riffs across the album without anything that more firmly captures the essence of black metal, and there are good cop-bad cop vocal structures, djent-leaning grooves and electronic dabbling without a more concrete presence of metalcore elements such as breakdowns.
The end result brings to mind a few different bands across the album’s runtime (among them Devil Sold His Soul, Ghost Brigade and Kardashev, in addition to the aforementioned acts), while also sounding quite distinct from most things I can remember listening to. There’s no doubt that the sound on the record is tailor-made for wider appeal, and murmurs of ‘selling out’ (particularly as this coincides with the band’s arrival on Century Media Records) are inevitable. Personally, I found the album initially offputting, particularly due to my dislike of “Luminary”, but with time and repeat exposure, I’ve come to appreciate a good amount of what Gaerea have attempted here, even if not all of it works.
To dive into the positives, we can move past the opening song (among the weakest here) and go into the track that follows, which is comfortably the peak of Loss for me. After the almost complete absence of blackened elements in “Luminary”, “Submerged” delivers a deluge of triumphant melodic tremolo riffs accompanied by storming blasts, lending a grandiose blackgaze feel that is enhanced further by roaring semi-clean vocals in what amounts to the track’s chorus. There’s several divergences, however, with electronic RnB-style backing beats and understated clean singing reminiscent of Devil Sold His Soul in the mid-song quiet interludes. While I’m not convinced by the hushed cleans, I am far more on board with the richly layered sorrowful singing in the track’s lushly melancholic climax, where pretty tremolos and melodic guitar leads clash with blasts and double bass rolls.
Looking for more of the album’s highlights, I appreciate the way in which “Hellbound” traverses the ‘black to metalcore’ spectrum, unleashing blasts and tremolos at the beginning of its verse, and subsequently moving into double bass rolls, punky beats and finally djent-influenced grooves by the time it reaches the chorus. While a few too many songs have mid-track ‘quiet’ pauses that start to feel increasingly unnecessary, there is some solid instrumental work outside of the verse/chorus core of tracks, and I rather enjoy the instrumental bridge of “Uncontrolled” with a neat tremolo solo, as well as the Killswitch-esque arpeggios and harmonies in the pre- and post-chorus of “Phoenix”.
With all of this said, there are still aspects of Loss that still don’t spark joy for me. I’ve already mentioned “Luminary”, and the Anders Friden tone to the chorus singing is not charming; this isn’t a consistent vibe I get from the clean vocals on the album, which span quite a range, but they can be generally hit and miss for me. The gloomier vibe used in “Submerged” and “Cyclone” (the latter taking my mind to some vocals Josh Middleton has recorded) I quite like, but the semi-clean lines in the choruses of “Phoenix” and “Nomad” I am less fond of, particularly with the latter foreshadowed by the electronic quasi-interlude “LBRNTH”. Additionally, this might be one of my ‘metal grandad’ moments, but as someone who has not gelled with Sleep Token, I have no appetite for the RnB rhythms and whisper-rapping in “Stardust”.
That said, even these songs have their own merits; outside of the chorus, I quite enjoy the blackgaze-heavy nature of “Nomad”, with the explosive introduction to it reminding me a lot of the similarly blasting beginning of “Silvered Shadows” from Kardashev’s Liminal Rite, while “Stardust” becomes more palatable later on when those opening vibes are recontextualized with heavier supporting instrumentation.
Overall, Loss is an album that moves far away from a lot of what will have initially made people fans of Gaerea, and is naturally going to disaffect a number of those fans as a result. Whether it wins them a new cohort to compensate remains to be seen, but while this version of the band is clearly far more widely accessible than their earlier material, I do find merits in the fairly unique sound that they’ve arrived at, even if it’s not where I would have chosen to hear them go, and if future efforts can veer closer to the quality and vibe of “Submerged” rather than “Luminary” or “Stardust”, the band may not be entirely lost to me yet.
Written on 17.04.2026 by
Written on 17.04.2026 by
Hey chief let's talk why not Comments
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The Tik Tok-ification of Gaerea.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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I find it surprising that people call this more accessible to a wider audience. It seems to me that most of what said wider audience would like about metalcore is still absent here, while Gaerea's previous outputs were incredibly strong in their styles across multiple albums. I had hoped that Coma was a one-off and they'd go back to their sound on Mirage, or at least something closer to it. I still don't know what they wish to achieve with this. I even went back and listened to the few songs you pointed out as strong points of the album, but I just cannot connect to this sound, the riffing, the structure, any of it. It all feels extremely shoe-horned. I doubt many people would make note of this album, were it not a Gaerea album. They've built enough of a catalog and fan base for people to try to find something positive in Loss. If this were a debut album of an unknown band, I doubt we'd even bother with it.
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Good review. "...I do find merits in the fairly unique sound that they’ve arrived at, even if it’s not where I would have chosen to hear them go, and if future efforts can veer closer to the quality and vibe of 'Submerged' rather than 'Luminary' or 'Stardust', the band may not be entirely lost to me yet." That's basically exactly how I feel about the album too. It's not like they did a bad job by any means, in this new amalgamation of sounds it just leans too far into the stuff that's not for me. Submerged and Hellbound were the only songs I actually liked and since they were both released early as singles it made listening through the full album pretty disappointing because I felt like I got nothing else out of it except a bad time. I wish them well though if it's what they want to do and I'll give what they do next a shot depending on what it sounds like.
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Posts: 4549 Quote: Well put. In hindsight, I guess you can see the trajectory coming and trace some early hints on Coma already... But then it feels like Loss just fast-forwarded past a few crucial evolutionary stages to get where they are now. In that regard, it comes off like a missed opportunity to spin this into a side project. Call it Sugaerea or something, and frame it as adjecent rather than canonical. This way, a lot of these songs would suddenly make a lot more sense and land way better in that context. Let Sugaerea have the freedom to go all-in on the extreme-saccharine, borderline metalcore instincts, without it clashing so hard with what people have come to expect from Gaerea proper. It also would've kept the door open for Gaerea to swing back toward the more (melodic) black metal side post-Coma, should they ever feel like it, without this detour hanging over them. So, viewed that way... Written by corrupt on 18.04.2026 at 00:35 ...this could've actually worked as a solid debut.
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Posts: 179 Written by corrupt on 18.04.2026 at 00:35 Written by corrupt on 18.04.2026 at 00:35 I guess I'm one of the few then, because I had never heard of Gaerea until recently. It kind of fell into my lap when I was randomly listening to some bands I didn't know that are touring Graspop this year. And I was immediately blown away by Coma, and even more so by this album. Also funny is that a lot of things that are being highlighted by the reviewer as disappointing in this album, are what makes it interesting to me. That's music for you I guess 
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---- rekt
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