Band:	Exist
Album:	Hijacking The Zeitgeist
Style:	Technical death metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	April 2024

01. Blue Light Infinite
02. Thief Of Joy [feat. Sanjay Kumar]
03. Hijacking The Zeitgeist
04. Funeral Toll
05. A Path To Nowhere
06. One Degree Removed From Human
07. Window To The All

An interesting progressive death metal mixture that sadly suffers from annoying problems.

Let me start this review by taking you through my thought process when I came across Exist’s Hijacking The Zeitgeist. My usual experience when browsing new releases is being hooked by the striking cover art of an album. This time, although the cover art is pretty nice indeed, it's the title of the album that grabbed my attention. Hijacking The Zeitgeist is simply a badass-sounding title, invoking for me ideas of dystopian, sci-fi themes or some criticism of our current technology-driven mindset. These themes are typically addressed by thrash metal, so I was eagerly awaiting some music of the fast-paced, aggressive kind when I hit “play”. Instead, I was faced with prog.

Now, admittedly, the progressive metal on display here is indeed very fast-paced and technical. Does that mean they're guitar-noodling into infinity and beyond? Well, yeah, kinda, for better or worse.

Hijacking The Zeitgeist starts strong, showcasing on “Blue Light Infinite” equal amounts of technical death metal and progressive metal, letting both rough growls and clean vocals accompany the interweaving melodies. After that, however, a clear divide starts growing between Exist’s strengths and weaknesses.

Surprisingly, even though I typically tend to find pleasure in the more extreme side of metal vocals, I greatly enjoyed the clean singing throughout. The chilling whispers and mournful lamentations on “One Degree Removed From Human” mark some of the greatest highlights in the second half of the album. So that the clean singing doesn't get too boring and the songs don't end up being too mellow, it's a good idea to blend the use of cleans with harsher vocals. This Exist manage to do in a really enjoyable way with the combination of melodic singing and the more hardcore yells on “A Path To Nowhere”.

Yet, it's when the vocals get even harsher that we start seeing the cracks in Exist’s approach. On songs like the title track and “Window To The All”, the use of deep, death metal gutturals is not as badass as the vocalist wants it to be. There's nothing particular interesting about the growls, making for an annoying interruption of the intriguing clean singing. If they want to add more effective force to their sound, I advise them to either stick with the hardcore yelling or find a more entertaining growling technique.

The other main negative of Exist is in their songwriting. They are no doubt capable musicians, showing skill with their intricate guitar-work that's often hard to follow as the listener. But that's partly the problem, at least, if you're not a super fan of noodles. However, it's not necessarily the progressive musicianship alone I find issue with. Rather, it's the constant switching between heavy and melodic styles, in combination with the quick-paced, complex guitar playing, that can be quite disorienting, leading to an unfortunately messy overall sound. It's not clear what an individual song's goal is or where it plans to go, as the music meanders with indecisiveness from one disconnected song idea to another.

It's a shame that I feel this way about Hijacking The Zeitgeist: an album that pulled me in with its thought-provoking title and provided intriguing musical performances. Yet, the way in which these musical elements come together is lacking, feeling somewhat unfinished. The overly convoluted songwriting and mundane growls easily lose my attention, while the clean singing and individual song ideas keep bringing me back. In the end, it's a difficult album to judge, as there are some really stellar moments on “Blue Light Infinite”, “A Path To Nowhere”, and “One Degree Removed From Human”. Still, there are too many issues for me to ignore, which sadly makes the album as a whole a frustrating experience.