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BERIEDIR’s “As Tight As Phantoms Hold”: A Ghost Story in 5/4 Time

Ever stood in a parking lot at 3 AM, watching headlights blur into the distance while your coffee goes cold? That’s the kind of existential dread Beriedir bottles in “As Tight As Phantoms Hold”, their new single and visual gut-punch from Liminal Spaces. The Italian prog-metal outfit trades power metal’s shiny armor for something darker, knottier, and far more human: the slow rot of loneliness, the betrayal of fleeting connections. “A keeper of nothing, only meeting ghosts,” they snarl, and damn if it doesn’t hit like a sledgehammer wrapped in velvet.

Musically, it’s a masterclass in controlled chaos. The track lurches between ambient desolation (think Katatonia’s Dead End Kings meets Devin Townsend’s weirder experiments) and crushing, syncopated breakdowns that’ll have your neck snapping like a mousetrap. Those electronic drum glitches? Not just window dressing, they’re the static between radio stations, the white noise of a mind unraveling. Live, this thing’s apparently a beast; the band calls it their “most energizing” cut to play, and you can hear why. It’s the sound of a band finally embracing the prog-metal sweet spot: brainy but brutal, cerebral but visceral.

The video doubles down on the unease, swapping stage pyrotechnics for something more unsettling, imagine Tarkovsky directing a Tool clip. No spoilers, but let’s just say the guardhouse metaphor isn’t just lyrical fluff. It’s the kind of visual storytelling that sticks to your ribs, like a bad dream you can’t shake.

Liminal Spaces as a whole finds Beriedir shedding their old skin with surgical precision. The album’s themes, trauma, nostalgia, the “emotional fragmentation” of modern life, aren’t just tossed around like buzzwords. They’re woven into the music’s DNA, from the Pain of Salvation-esque twists of “F.I.V.E.” to the Gojira-meets-Leprous heft of “Burnout.” Mixed by Simone Mularoni (Fleshgod Apocalypse), it’s a record that sounds expensive, but never at the expense of soul.

If you’ve ever stared at your reflection in a train window and wondered “Who the hell is that?”, this is your soundtrack. Beriedir aren’t reinventing prog-metal, but they’re sure as hell refining it: cutting the fat, sharpening the hooks, and leaving you with something that lingers. Like a ghost. Or a bad decision.

Watch “As Tight As Phantoms Hold”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Y4pOuhglw