Their sophomore release expands on the dissonant foundations of Dorsia, pushing further into avant-garde territory while presenting a noticeably more polished and focused vision.
From the opening moments of Haragma, you’re rocked by an immediate wall of sound and cryptic lyrics about beasts, death, and desperation. The first track is dense, technical, and relentlessly chaotic. Beneath the sonic mass are genuinely addictive guitar riffs, pummelling and precise drumming, and growled vocals that feel truly apocalyptic.
Zaphnath-Paaneah leans even further into the avant-garde, playing with unusual time signatures and constantly shifting rhythms. It’s strange and disorienting on first listen, a gruesome barrage fuelled by jagged guitar riffs and off-kilter drum breaks. And yet, the arrangements are crafted beautifully; it’s unpredictable and intense.
The album’s standout moment arrives with Behind the Veil, an eleven-minute progressive epic of monstrous scale — easily the most memorable track here. It opens with a killer guitar riff and spirals into something heavy, rabid, and technically impressive. It feels less intense and intimidating than the previous tracks at first, but slowly descends into raw and wild chaos.
The mythological Heracleidae rounds out the album in surreal fashion. A brooding atmosphere is built from the start, offering something different from the album’s otherwise immediate, no-nonsense approach. The interplay between frequent dissonant passages and something more heavenly and graceful almost tricks you, before it devolves into chaos once more. The guitar solo towards the end encapsulates the album’s spirit in Herculean fashion — challenging, but deeply rewarding.
Across Haragma II, Exterior Palnet balance technical extremity with memorable songwriting — no small feat in such a demanding style. The guitars are the clear focal point, scattering hooks throughout the record that linger long after it ends, especially on Behind the Veil and Heracleidae. It’s an intense, strange, and deeply rewarding listen that confirms Haragma II as one of the more compelling avant-garde metal releases to emerge from the region in recent years.
Where to Find Them
- Bandcamp: listen & support on Bandcamp
