The age-old adage: What if you melted SPIRITBOX, PERIPHERY, and ERRA down into a singular band, and shipped it all the way to Athens, Greece? Well, if you went ahead and did that, you’d get the band NONLINEAR. Formed in 2023 and consisting of close friends George, Konstantinos, Alex, Nick, and Chris, NONLINEAR claims a mix of progressive metalcore with crushing riffs, ambient textures, and poignant lyrics about nostalgia, personal struggle, and growth. This EP is their first-ever and independent full-length release, with a handful of tracks, as well as featuring a guest artist. For progressive metal, the songs aren’t your average twenty-minute epics with a hundred different guitar solos, but more on creating atmosphere and conveying their message, with plenty of proggy elements we all love and adore. “The Longing Light,” released on May 30th, 2025, marks a start for NONLINEAR, and the modern metal world is ready to welcome them!
Many releases led up to “The Longing Light.” Instrumentals, music videos, practically anything to build metalheads’ hype for their first full-length effort. The first single to be released was “Reflections,” with a bass playthrough video courtesy of Nick Koudounas, plus an instrumental version on April 26th, 2024. Later, the second single, “Daydreaming,” received a music video on September 27th, 2025. The third, “Monochrome Chamber,” paired with a visualizer, premiered on December 13th, 2024. NONLINEAR really ticked every box on distribution, as all songs garnered a willing audience for the upcoming EP. All three songs follow a relatively similar pattern: mind-boggling time signatures with a mix of clean and harsh vocals throughout. “Reflections” reeks of modern progressive metal, with a metalcore breakdown segment near the end. “Daydreaming” is djentier, more spacious, and just radiates VOLA’s latest release, “Friend of a Phantom.” The acoustic guitar ending off the song just pushes it even further into its progressive attitude. “Monochrome Chamber” is laden with electronics, and the metalcore elements seep through heavily in this track, even featuring the love-it-or-hate-it “BLEGH” halfway in. All three singles certainly kept me excited for the full release, so I deem it a success.
The EP itself has six tracks, so you’ve practically listened to half of it already if you listened to the singles. The opener of the project “Awakening” is only about a minute long and fully electronic, mimicking a heartbeat and a siren-like buildup that successfully triggered my fight-or-flight response. Following it is the third single, “Monochrome Chamber,” and following that is the first single. The fourth track is where things get really interesting. A featured artist makes their appearance: Athens-based DJ VRODEX on the track “Holding On.” And the song is a full-on DnB track… right smack-dab in the middle of this prog metal album. The next song, with a self-titled track name, comes after it and just continues down the path of what’s expected from NONLINEAR by now. The clean vocals here could definitely be stronger, but they’re nothing of the nasally-whiny route. The track is of great quality and very enjoyable, but I still can’t stop thinking about the unused SoundCloud trap beat a couple of minutes back. Even after taking a listen to the last track, “Daydreaming,” another great djent song, and probably the best one on the album, it’s still there. It could sound like I’m overreacting and perseverating on it too much, but when you sit down for your needed dose of progressive metal, the last thing that would cross your mind would be break beats and trackpad hi-hats. Bands include short musical passages in their works all the time, but usually they fit the flow of the album, and they’re not usually distracting or even relevant in some cases.
NONLINEAR’s slick mix of meaningful lyrics, eyebrow-raising time signatures, and forefront electronic influences places them on the pedestal of that sound, together with aforementioned bands, plus greats like VOYAGER and MARATON without a doubt. The effort from this band is clear. Vocalist George Plaskasovitis quotes, “We poured everything into this—from writing and recording to artwork and final mix. The Longing Light is the sound of five friends making something honest and cathartic together.” This is clearly a product of friendship and hard work, and that makes the listening experience that much better. For their next great effort, I’m just hoping there’s more of their typical sound and fewer random DnB segments.
Written by Mitchell Connolly
Tracklist
- Awakening
- Monochrome Chamber
- Reflections
- Holding On
- The Longing Light
- Daydreaming
Lineup
George Plaskasovitis – Vocals
Konstantinos Chitas – Guitar, Clean Vocals
Alex Louropoulos – Guitar
Nick Koudounas – Bass
Chris Papakonstantinou – Drums
Vrodex – Electronics (Featured, Track 4)
