Charles Mingus was one of those jazz giants who carved a unique path through the music world, keeping his ears and fingers on the pulse of jazz’s spirit, spontaneity, and ferocious expressive power. When rock and metal bands flirt with jazz, his iconoclastic style is rarely what they are looking for. You know how it goes: the industry standard of putting some jazz adornments on a rock/metal song is to pull out the Kenny G and “Careless Whisper” card. That’s not the case with ODDLAND, though. Their previous albums already hinted at the possibility that some mighty jazz skeletons might have been hiding in the closet, but their new album “Unilluminate To Illuminate,” released on August 21st, 2026, via Frontiers Music, makes it clear right from the get-go: jazz is not dead; it just smells funny. Those few singles that were released ahead of the album already suggested that the band’s new album might be their absolute best yet, and when it finally dropped – [for more impact, insert some Shakespearean curse here, such as “Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat!”] it bloody well is, too! The new album features quite a lot of saxophone stuff, which obviously further factors into its somewhat jazz-tinged aura, but it goes much deeper than that, my friends. What’s best, the band has not given up those delicious and djenty riff-origamis – they have only grown stronger! So, let’s take a deep breath and dive into the depths of this mighty prog-metal concoction right from the beginning, because there’s quite a lot to unpack here.
The album opens with a relatively short instrumental track, “Amokinus.” It’s basically a Rubik’s cube of mind-melting riffs played in turns by the saxophone and the guitars, resonating thick with the air of those iconic Mingus classics, such as the bangers on his 1959 album “Mingus Ah Um.” That’s one hell of a way to start a metal album! The only metal band that I can recall flirting with jazz flourishes of this type in recent years was VOIVOD, with their 2020 EP “The End of Dormancy,” but ODDLAND plunges into the deep end of “Mingusian” sonic realms with even more reckless abandon. While the rest of the album regains a firm footing in the prog-metal realm, the jazz attacks don’t stop here entirely, but sneak back with some mind-bending licks by both the sax and guitar. If Mingus took the jazz harmonies of Duke Ellington and had a run with them, throwing in all sorts of abrasive and abrupt changes in meter and tempo, ODDLAND does practically the same with the contemporary prog-metal template on this album.
The lead single, “Eternal Erode,” along with “Freefall,” was released last year, and these two bangers sure got some of us anticipating the new album to be released shortly afterwards, but it took a good while longer. As slapping as these first two singles were, they certainly did not prepare me for what the band was cooking up for the album. These two cuts are probably the most “traditional” sounding tracks in this new selection. They could have been included in the previous album, “Vermilion,” just as well. That said, they sure made me all hyped up about the album to come; the band has honed its craft to such a sublime level that even their “stack performance” is enough to blow your mind. The next couple of singles were a different matter altogether, though.
The next single, “Soar,” dropped in early June or something. Just when the festival season was about to kick off… So, it almost slipped by my all-seeing eye! When I finally caught up with it, maybe a month later, I was like, “Where did THIS come from?!” The song incorporates everything that has ever made ODDLAND so great – tight off-kilter riffs, melancholic atmosphere, and the signature crooning of vocalist Sakari Ojanen – but the song boosts it all up to eleven. Then I finally caught up with the fact that, hey, weren’t these rogues supposed to drop a new album at some point? Lo and behold, it was just around the corner! This year has been one hell of a cavalcade of great albums – and this news made it even better!
Ingeniously, the band saved the absolute most ass-kicking single for last, putting it out just briefly before the album release. “Unilluminate” is one of the album’s two titular tracks – and I simply ran out of strong enough adjectives and cuss words to describe what a banger it is. The song’s hook is a diabolically catchy motif played by the saxophone that sticks to your head like a piece of chewing gum. Once again, the main motif resonates with a somewhat Mingus-like air; I guess it stems from the stop-and-go, staccato nature of the riffs – Mingus favored those kinds of licks quite a lot, unlike some other jazz giants, such as Miles Davis. The atmospheric sections sound as though they feature a handpan, or at least some keyboard patch that sounds like one, creating a somewhat Oriental vibe. The next track on the album, “Illuminate,” the other of the two titular tracks, throws in even more Oriental-vibed riffs, and why the hell not?! The previous album had strong Oriental and Middle Eastern flourishes – and they worked wonders with the band’s signature quantum riffs. This new album is no different beast in this respect. This song features female vocals by a guest vocalist who remains shrouded in mystery (I have no bio/press kit for this album, because I chose to review it outside the standard promo selection). This duet-type of thing brings a nice new facet to the band’s signature sound.
And speaking of incorporating novel nuances, touring with SOEN seems to have left a subtle but poignant mark in ODDLAND‘s songwriting. These rogues have never been strangers to melancholy, but the vocal melodies in “Red Canvas” resonate with a particularly SOEN-like air. Not even the smoky saxophone licks can entirely dissolve that feel. It’s hard to pinpoint where exactly it stems from, not without dissecting the song into pieces, but you intuitively feel that these two bands could basically be brothers from different mothers. Scandinavian or Slavic melancholy – what’s the difference, anyway? They both sound damn great! The saxophone has quite a prominent role in this song, so I reckon that the band’s gonna have a saxophonist added to the fold when they head out on tour? I mean, a playback is okay, but if only the sax lines were played live, oh boy!!! There are never too many metal bands with a dedicated saxophone player. If ODDLAND decided to go all RIVERS OF NIHIL, I wouldn’t mind at all!
Then, as if my mind was not battered to tiny bits already, “Waterdrops” wraps the album on an epic note. It suddenly looks an awful lot like ODDLAND‘s new album is challenging not only HANGING GARDEN for the nomination of the Best Finnish Metal Album of 2026, but also a good number of those international prog-metal albums released this year. It sounds like a cliché to say “Unilluminate To Illuminate” is the band’s best selection to date, but it is – and given their nothing short of a flawless discography, that says a lot! This autumn, ODDLAND joins forces with MOTHER OF MILLIONS and RING OF GYGES on the European Prog Madness Tour 2026. There’s only one tour date in Finland, on September 4th, in Logomo, Turku. That’s pretty soon, but if you don’t want to miss the chance of a lifetime to catch three outstanding bands on one bill, you’d better act fast. Alas, I’m going to have to skip this one, but I hope the band will come to Helsinki later, because it’s been a while since the last time I saw these prog sages in action. This new album is such a magnificent selection of quantum prog at its finest that I’m more than curious to see how these monsters would sound live!
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Amokinus
- Eternal Erode
- Soar
- Ascent
- Freefall
- Unilluminate
- Illuminate
- Act of Solace
- Red Canvas
- Unbound in Time
- Waterdrops
Lineup
Sakari Ojanen – vocals, guitars
Ville Viitanen – drums
Joni Palmroth – bass
Jussi Poikonen – guitars
Label
Frontiers Music
