Band: Hologram Earth | Album: City of Gold | Genre: Progressive metal, Post-metal | Year: 2025
From: Amsterdam, Netherlands | Label: Independent
For fans of: The Ocean, Leprous, Meshuggah
Hologram Earth is a Dutch band that plays an intriguing variety of metal. Much of their music is full of aggressive, technical basslines; but the guitars are often more abstract and impressionistic. The band also utilizes trumpet, trombone, and flugelhorn as effective atmospheric elements. I really liked their 2017 debut album, Black Cell Program, but they hadn’t released anything since a single in 2018. As such, I thought this band had just kinda petered out. Lo and behold, though, they’ve been working on something!
City of Gold opens with “Solum”. The guitars ring out mournfully, and the singing is deliberate, too. Beneath it all, a jumpy slapped bass pushes it forward. When heavier passages show up, trumpet bleeds into the backing wall of noise. It also appears during quiet moments, adding a sense of plaintive mourning.
“Clouds” has a more energetic opening, but the bass is still the primary element driving things forward. The guitars evoke distant thunderclaps with harsh, clattering tones and sharp, downward momentum. The rhythm ranges from rolling and insistent to stuttering and unpredictable, and the contrast of clean and harsh vocals is especially strong here. Following a strange, tortured guitar solo, the song shifts into a broader soundscape, and there’s a sense of hopefulness. A majestic organ swoops in to support the closing verses, adding a sense of Gothic grandiosity. In contrast to the first solo in this song, the closing solo is melodic, pretty, and ascendent.
Meshuggah-style proto-djent and thrashy, punkish energy undergird the short piece “Wither”, and this is one of the few points on the record where the brass instruments are used for punchiness instead of atmosphere.
The opening guitar lines of “Crown of Vanity” have a wonky, sedated, detuned quality to them, but a laid-back chugging pattern provides solid forward momentum. Hologram Earth utilizes unusual chords, and the overall rhythm is a prime example of organized chaos. It’s drunken and uneven, but it’s clearly carefully orchestrated.
“Saudade” has a quiet and lightly jazzy opening. The drums are restrained but with a noticeable weight. The vocals waft and echo as this downbeat mood continues into its first verse. Distortion charges in about halfway through, and the emotional weight of the music is undeniable.
“Pillars” is probably my favorite song on the album. It blends some relatively major-key sounds and powerful vocals alongside heavier passages. The band plays with meter and rhythm wonderfully, and the guitar lines slingshot and boomerang all over with wild, sudden hairpin turns. The brass instruments are deployed wonderfully, providing both texture and propulsion.
The album closes on its longest song, “Home”. Tangled guitar lines knot together, and brass instruments add the ominous atmosphere of a noir film. The midsection of this song is mellow and atmospheric, and some Gilmourian influences can be heard in the guitar solo. Long notes are bent sharply over a spacey backing.
An insistent, chugging rhythm emerges, eventually evolving into a bouncing, twisting riff that channels classic prog acts like Yes and Jethro Tull. The band takes another sharp turn, pulling out a riff that sounds like an updated, keyboardless take on classic Dream Theater for the next verse. The song’s final two minutes features a gradual build-up to a majestic finale.
Hologram Earth’s sophomore album, City of Gold, is a powerful and emotional record. The band expertly plays around with textural and rhythmic contrasts, and I really like the way bass is so often high in the mix. The band blends the technicality of many prog metal acts with the big-picture orientation of many post-metal acts to make a deeply satisfying record.
Score: 86/100
The Elite Extremophile 