With the release of their fourth full-length album in six years, a band I once called “one of the best, most progressive young bands in metal right now” is nearing a level of establishment and maturity that probably signifies we can ditch the “young” adjective. While not everyone knows who Dreadnought is, Dreadnought knows what it is, and they waste no time on Emergence reminding us, kicking off the album with more immediacy than ever before. On the first track of their 2013 debut, Lifewoven, they opened with haunting ethereal atmosphere, introducing us to flute, congas, and lilting vocals before ever confirming that we are indeed listening to a metal band (almost 4 minutes in, and even then, with a calm, fuzzy stoner-rock passage). Bridging Realms’s “Ode to Ether” similarly begins with dreamy soundscape action, and only hits distorted chords almost four minutes and a half in. A Wake in Sacred Waves begins with “Vacant Sea”, which starts with a cappella vocals, then throbbing toms and cymbal shimmers accent a gentle guitar and keys as the band slowly builds toward a heavy kickoff at 1:30.

In contrast, listeners are “Besieged” with an immediate barrage of distortion and drums on Emergence’s opener, which later relaxes into a more open \(\frac{5}{4}\) space for a moment before Kelly Schilling’s signature banshee-wail vocals enter the fray. The screams are set deeper in the mix this time, being so aggressive and distinct that they don’t need to hog the spotlight to be effective. The overall production continues to be very organic and classical, lacking the modern veneer of drum triggers and multilayered guitar tracks, because that’s not who Dreadnought is. Jordan Clancy’s brilliantly subtle drumming, which is just as likely to include ghost-note filled rolls and snare rim-sticking as it is blast beats and double bass, shines in this framework, as does the melodic balance between Schilling’s guitar and Lauren Vieira’s keyboard. Clancy in particular has honed his craft noticeably over the years, displaying a multifaceted array of techniques reminiscent of a modern metal Phil Collins (and if that sounds like an insult, you clearly haven’t listened to enough early-seventies’ Genesis).

“Still” represents a novel approach for Dreadnought, a short ambient track that is something more than an interlude but less than a complete song. It’s the kind of piece the band would normally subsume into a larger work—e.g., why not just make it the last three minutes of “Besieged”?—but having it stand alone sharpens the focus on the rich complexity they build within, and it works well to give listeners a breather between the raucousness of the opener and the looming twelve-minute tidal wave of “Pestilent”. The third track begins with a solid three minutes of fiery, swirling heaviness that jumps nimbly between time signatures. After that, the wind section enters, with Schilling’s flute at centre stage, flanked by Clancy’s saxophone. Distortion and vocals swell slowly toward a second chill part, highlighted by vocal harmonies, sticked drums, and a grippingly fluid bass line from Kevin Handlon. The tide ebbs around the nine-minute mark, again showcasing Dreadnought’s ability to naturally meander between heavy and light dimensions without either ever feeling out of place. The heaviest moments of “Pestilent” remain restrained, however, as the band withholds their peaks of intensity for the final pair of songs.

“Tempered” opens with guitar work that is, for a fleeting moment, reminiscent of Krallice’s finest days. The full band doesn’t pursue this angle, though, instead confidently plodding forward with patient mid-tempo prog. Vieira’s keyboard toys with several excursions into synth territory on this song, a beautiful sound that I wish had been explored more deeply in this album’s context. Black metal peeks out from beneath the surface for a moment as blast beats support a surprisingly twangy desert-rock riff from Schilling. The midsection of the track is structured around a dual synchronicity—between Clancy’s kick drum and Handlon’s bass pulses, and between Schilling and Vieira’s floaty and jangling melodic elements. The climax of this track is the most satisfying on the album thus far, with a dawnbreak of piano and vocals carrying the track out.

Finally we arrive at “The Waking Realm”, a track which defies its name by starting in a distinctly sleepy, starry place, recalling the astral-projection themes of Maudlin of the Well. Distortion is shelved for an extended introduction that enables the band to emphasize its best clean skills, the way previous albums’ opening tracks have done. Sparseness is leveraged for full effect around two minutes and a half in, with soft vocals caressing a minimalistic bass-and-toms pattern. Six minutes in, Schilling hammers the lowest register of her axe with preposterously thick distortion tone, yet things still do not fully explode—this just provides another layer to the slow ramp up, another log of firewood for Emergence‘s smouldering conflagration. Just when the embers begin to die, the eleven-minute mark sees the band’s most complete burst of fury yet: a capstone that feels like the climax more of the entire album than merely of its fourteen-minute closing song. All cylinders fire at their maximal level, with Schilling’s final echoing shriek functioning as the pristine catharsis sending the crackling flames of the concluding track into their dying flicker.

Emergence is solid but short, which may suggest an assessment that the band has “tightened their sound” or “cut the filler”, neither of which is accurate. Dreadnought has never had filler, and their sound neither needs nor receives any tightening, as its fluidity and flexibility is essential to the band’s compositional style. Rather, one must conclude that Emergence is short simply because the band was able to tell the story they wanted to tell efficiently and they didn’t need to pad its duration just to satiate ravenous fans like myself. I would have happily devoured another long track—perhaps the one they reserved for a well-deserved and exciting placement on the latest Adult Swim metal compilation—but we must accept Emergence for what it is: another spectacular achievement by one of the best young b– . . . no, one of the best bands in metal.