The solo project of a seasoned multi-instrumentalist with strong roots in the progressive metal space, Zathras’ EP ‘Dawn Breaks’ brings together progressive metal and death metal with a dark flamboyance. The record is an exploration into personal struggle, depression, and the pains of hiding it from the people around you. Matt Buller, the man behind the means, pulled the entire piece together entirely on his own with little to no assistance or cost involved. It’s a testament to experience, an unravelling of emotion, and a tunnel of vulnerability.
On ‘Brain Rot’, Zathras describes the pains of depression having to be concealed and the severe impact in places on people who are compelled to do so. That overbearing sense of weight, the crushing on top of your inner psyche as well as the consequent physical strain you feel compound to an overwhelmingly negative sentiment all round. On the titular track, he describes in pained arrangement and lyricism the struggle of fighting through that emotion on a day to day basis. “Fading” takes the more wittering feeling, the wistfulness that compounds and leaves you feeling that the very life within you is slowly and surely being sapped away.
Combining heavy and pounding death metal with more melodic and sombre progressive sounds, ‘Dawn Breaks’ is a cathartic metal record that has equal parts violin and heavy metal. Destructive and emotive in equal measure, the inner workings of crippling anxiety and depression never sounded so real and raw. The brutality in the aggression, the death in the metal is undeniable. An assault on your senses that’s got an astute sense of melody in the riffs that will have you feeling equal parts angry but mellow. The kind of death metal that even an outside fan can find solace in.