If anything is more clear about Soen than their affinity for single-word song titles, it’s their commitment to refining their well-established sonic identity.
Always a unit that’s prefered to tiptoe into the broadening of their sound, the multinational outfit born from Martin Lopez’s exit from the mighty Opeth and the dissolution of Joel Ekelöf’s indie rock band Willowtree continues to cautiously cultivate their voice while expunging what few elements detract from their very Soen-ness, all the while honing in on their singularity.
Reliance, the outfit’s seventh outing, continues the metalward trajectory the Soen has unapologetically taken since 2019’s seminal Lotus, after which the band has shamelessly heavied up an already heavy sound.
Reliance opens with the riff-happy “Primal,” a typically brooding, prog-infused banger of a tune that leaves both metalheads and prog nerds more than just a little satisfied. From the outset, there’s no room to doubt that Lopez, Ekelöf, and their compatriots are in absolute control of both their songwriting chops and their technical proficiency. Proudly rejecting the oft-maligned excesses of progressive metal, Soen has the good sense to keep their song structures relatively simple while letting their progressive creds shine in their meticulous arrangements.
The verses on “Primal,” for example, have multi-instrumentalist Lars Åhlund laying a moody, gentle, and 70s-inspired key arrangement while Lopez carries both Åhlund and Ekelöf with his signature Latin jazz-inspired grooves. The verses continue with Åhlund shedding the ivories in favor of frets as he and British-born guitarist Cody Lee Ford rock some wonderfully direct metallic riffage that subsides just enough for Ford’s funereal textures to fully carry Ekelöf’s powerfully morose voice as it plunges the listener to ever more depressive depths, leaving a hint of hope.
The refrains further intensify the insidious sense of bleakness as Lopez’s suddenly direct 4/4 approach leaves us feeling as if this desolation is merely a part of everyday existence, Ekelöf’s unexpected death roar punctuating the rage at resignation. Banality of evil? Try the banality of despondence.
“Primal” is the ideal opener for Reliance because it encapsulates the essence of Soen’s current state. The myriad voices that embody the Soen choir – texture, heaviness, a kinship with the retro, and the overall intimation of accepted defeat – sing in tense harmony with no single voice ever subjugating another. Verses within verses cede ground to an array of approaches to this thing we call “rock music,” with the smoothness and effortlessness of a transmission in a form so pure and so distinctly Soen, I would welcome the opportunity to distill it. This one song, in all its complex simplicity, is the Soen sound. And we get to experience it nine more freaking times over the course of this phenomenal record without ever feeling like we’ve just got the same song on repeat.
Things slow down for the third entry, the languid “Discordia,” a spacey piece of atmospheric progrock that evokes predecessors as disparate as ELP and Mortiis, with some well-placed djent breaks thrown in just to fuck with the listener’s anxiety. Not satisfied with simply communicating their feelings, Åhlund and Ekelöf deftly tap just the right veins to stir our unease throughout this melancholic mire. It’s not enough for them to just tell us they’re sad: they leave us no option other than to feel their sadness ourselves. Call it weaponized empathy if you want, but it simply is not possible to master this ability while also sucking.
“Indifferent” is a lovelorn, string-laden lament that picks up where Soen’s acoustic/orchestral live album Atlantis left off. Where that album succinctly reinterpreted selections from the band’s past in order to accent their despair, “Indifferent” does so from its inception. Ekelöf strips down to his very soul in this sonically naked dirge, accompanied only by Åhlund’s piano, that aforementioned string section, and a brief solo by Ford.
Clocking in at barely three and a half minutes, “Indifferent” demystifies the art of balladry by rejecting the saccharine slop that makes so much heartbreak music completely unpalatable. Instead, Soen once again incarnates their dejection to us rather than just whining about how much heartache blows. There may never be another Anathema to define what breakup music could be when done right, but Soen is rising to the challenge without it having been issued, and the prospect of Soen further exploring this path in the future is as appetizing as it is harrowing.
“Drifter” and “Vellichor” have Åhlund adding electronics to his arsenal of ambient weirdness, where both he and Ford toss in a nod to Pink Floyd for good measure, while Ekelöf’s almost rap-like staccato in “Axis” further expands his already noteworthy dynamics, while Lopez and the rest of the band flex their metal might.
Meanwhile, “Huntress” kicks off with an almost doomy riff before Ekelöf whispers the first verse in a way that will neither excite ASMR-philes nor annoy the rest of us. Ekelöf’s delivery on “Huntress” establishes as an undeniable fact that power, conviction, and fluidity can carry more weight than any amount of formal training. So powerful is his elocution that it’s actually an indictment against the insistence that a mile-wide range is even necessary to be an effective singer.
It must be stressed, though, that Reliance is not a groundbreaking album by any stretch. Soen are not reinventing metal here, nor are they redefining themselves. Like a well-trained chef, they start with a thoughtfully crafted base, set it ablaze in order to reduce it to its essentials, and then build on that. Soen’s genius is not in their considerable technical ability or in the opulent arrangements they could easily master but opt to forgo. Nah, their genius lies in how they take that mountain of musical mastery and reduce it to a molehill without sacrificing its mass. If progressive metal at large is a meticulously choreographed Wushu sequence, then Soen is the musical equivalent of a one-inch punch.
Release Date: January 16th, 2026
Record Label: Silver Lining Music
Genre: Progressive Metal
Musicians:
- Joel Ekelöf / Vocals
- Martin Lopez / Drums
- Lars Enok Åhlund / Keyboards and Guitar
- Cody Ford / Lead Guitar
- Stefan Stenberg / Bass
Reliance Tracklist:
- Primal
- Mercenary
- Discordia
- Axis
- Huntress
- Unbound
- Indifferent
- Drifter
- Draconian
- Vellichor
Order the album here.
With the indie rock minimalism, prog-death grandeur, and Tool-worship a distant memory, Soen have long ingrained themselves among progressive metal’s luminaries by rejecting the sometimes superfluous nature of the scene that begat them. They’ve so perfected the art of connecting to their listeners that they’ve perversely brought untold levels of joy by becoming the very essence of agony. Soen are so damn good at being sad that we honestly don’t want or need them to be happy
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