The Prog Supergroup You’re Sleeping On
Slow news week, and then this hit my inbox this morning and fixed it. TEMIC dropped a new single called “Ceased To Be,” and it scratched all the right itches. Exactly the pleasant surprise I needed.
TEMIC just announced their second album, Ceiba, out October 2 on Season of Mist, and shared the lead single “Ceased To Be” with a video filmed inside a Yucatán cenote. It’s a concept record about loss in all its forms, and the band says it leans further into progressive territory than their 2023 debut. New bassist Miguel Pereira rounds out a lineup that pulls from Devin Townsend’s band, Haken, the Neal Morse Band and more.
This is a supergroup that never plays the supergroup card. Nobody in TEMIC is elbowing the others out of the frame, and there’s no marquee name blowing everyone else off the record. It’s five players serving the song. “We wrote this album together with contributions from all five members,” the band says. “We allowed ourselves to explore the songs and really extend ourselves while always keeping the emotions at the front of our minds.” That restraint is probably why they fly under the radar, and it’s a shame, because this is just really good prog metal. “Ceased To Be” lands somewhere between Dream Theater and Sleep Token: technical when it needs to be, big and melodic when it counts, never noodling for the sake of it.
And here’s the best part: if the single is this good, Ceiba has a real shot at being one of the fall’s sleeper favorites. Eleven tracks, a ten-minute closer, a full concept built around loss and Mayan mythology. October 2 is circled on my calendar. If “Ceased To Be” is the appetizer, I want the whole meal.
Spin the single below, then keep an eye on these guys. This one could be special.
You can pre-order Ceiba now (CD, plus a stack of colored vinyl variants) or pre-save it on Spotify.
Source: Season of Mist