{"id":771658,"date":"2026-07-19T07:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/771658\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:17:21","slug":"apogean-waste-where-life-begins-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/771658\/","title":{"rendered":"Apogean – Waste Where Life Begins Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the game of reviews, expectations can either be a blessing or a curse. Whichever way they fall, one truth remains: expectations are a bitch. It\u2019s a hard lesson that Canadian technical death metal outfit Apogean is about to learn firsthand. Back in 2024, the then largely unknown quintet\u2014with little more than a single EP to their name\u2014released their debut full-length, Cyberstrictive. Inspired by Ray Bradbury\u2019s Fahrenheit 451, it was a dystopian barrage of assaulting technical death metal that paired jaw-dropping musicianship with memorable riffs and great songwriting, making it my most played record of the year. I crowned it my Album O\u2019 the Year during my budding n00b days for this site, so when Waste Where Life Begins was announced, I was stoked. At the same time, however, the specter of the dreaded sophomore slump loomed large. Could Apogean make it two in a row after a list-topping debut, or would the weight of expectations prove too much to overcome?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Waste Where Life Begins doesn\u2019t come close to matching its predecessor, and the reasons are twofold. First, where Cyberstrictive was unabashedly a tech death record \u00e0 la Vale of Pnath<\/a> or Inferi<\/a>, Waste Where Life Begins plants its flag much closer to deathcore and blackened death. Cuts like \u201cLie in Cinder\u201d and \u201cWaste Where Life Begins\u201d make this shift painfully obvious, with endlessly chugged caveman riffs, half\u2011time knuckle\u2011dragging rhythms and tropey guitar squeals and string rakes. It\u2019s easy to point to lineup turnover as the culprit behind the stylistic change\u2014guitarist Gabriel Castro and drummer Jacob Wagner gave way to Jack Post and Doug Noel, respectively\u2014but that doesn\u2019t make the transformation any less jarring. To be sure, traces of their explosive past still exist. \u201cNassaru\u201d and \u201cHologram (Singing Silently on an Empty Stage),\u201d for example, are adrenalized tracks with the spunky riffing and technicality that worked so well before. Dexter Forbes\u2019 and Post\u2019s guitar solos also elicit plenty of flashy fretwork, but Waste Where Life Begins feels like Apogean has traded in their sports car for a lifted truck, to its detriment.<\/p>\n

Waste Where Life Begins by Apogean<\/a><\/p>\n

Second, Waste Where Life Begins would work far better as an EP. Despite running only thirty-three minutes, the record somehow feels long, like Apogean strained to add material. The album\u2019s disjointed sequencing reinforces this impression, pushing and pulling in conflicting directions, and the completely purposeless interlude \u201cRitual\u201d adds nothing except the suspicion that someone insisted on hitting a minimum runtime. Some songs embrace unadorned composition (\u201cDaughter of Oak,\u201d \u201cLie in Cinder,\u201d and the title track), while others attempt to recapture the cybernetic stylings of old (\u201cBlack Smoke, Bleeding Earth,\u201d \u201cHologram (Singing Silently on an Empty Stage), \u201cNassaru\u201d), resulting in a bifurcated flow with little sense of cohesion. Further compounding matters is the repetitive songcraft. The first third relies so heavily on the same chugging and squealing guitar patterns that they begin to blur together, as if a song\u2019s worth of ideas were stretched across multiple tracks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Apogean remains a highly talented group, and Waste Where Life Begins contains enough strong performances to suggest a return to form for these lads remains within reach. Vocalist Mac Smith (Eschaton, ex-Alterbeast) and drummer Doug Noel, in particular, deliver impressive performances throughout. Smith grabs my attention with his dynamic range of growls, rasps, guttural belches, and pig squeals, effortlessly shifting between techniques and tones. His vocals sound downright burly and well-defined in the mix, consistently drawing my focus back to his performance. Noel is equally impressive, bringing a much-needed degree of versatility to the songwriting. His playing ranges from bludgeoning, syncopated grooves on tracks like \u201cNassaru\u201d and the title track to raucous blast beats on \u201cBlack Smoke, Bleeding Earth\u201d and \u201cWhite Trees, Black Leaves,\u201d all accented by some snazzy cymbal work that adds color to an otherwise flat palette.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t sugarcoat it: Waste Where Life Begins is a disappointment. After eagerly anticipating a follow-up to Cyberstrictive, I\u2019m left unsatisfied by a record that abandons much of what made its predecessor so great. The energetic, virtuosic, and memorable songwriting that defined Cyberstrictive has largely been replaced by a middling blend of deathcore and blackened death. Apogean\u2019s decision to broaden its sound is certainly understandable, especially given the recent lineup changes, but this new direction is a clear step back. Apogean surely has the talent to right the ship, but Waste Where Life Begins is yet another example of the dreaded sophomore slump.<\/p>\n

Rating: Disappointing
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb\/s mp3
Label: The Artisan Era<\/a>
Websites: apogean.bandcamp.com\/music<\/a> | facebook.com\/ApogeanOfficial<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: July 10th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the game of reviews, expectations can either be a blessing or a curse. Whichever way they fall,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[101728,54639,329314,329315,78948,12026,88,329316,212001,322086,216,899,900,183486,329317,9683,329318],"class_list":["post-771658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2-0","tag-54639","tag-alterbeast","tag-apogean","tag-canadian-metal","tag-death-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-eschaton","tag-inferi","tag-jul26","tag-music","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-technical-death-metal","tag-the-artisan-era","tag-vale-of-pnath","tag-waste-where-life-begins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}