Stellar Circuits - Phantom : : Phoenix

Frontman Ben Beddick’s lyrics orbit the idea of death through fire, a metaphor sharpened by his own near fatal experience when his home caught fire during the album’s writing. That moment manifests vividly in opener “I See Your Spirit,” where he sings, 🗣️ “I see your spirit, it’s like a flame.” The song anchors the album’s tone, cinematic, haunted, but resolute. Across the ten tracks, the band, Jared Stamey, Jesse Olsen, Tyler Menon, and Beddick, crafts a dense atmosphere that merges precision with emotional weight.

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Songs “Queen Mary” and “Elegant Illusion” move through a chiaroscuro of melody and aggression, their structures collapsing inward before reemerging as something newer and leaner. “The War Within” and “Bury the Ashes” trace the record’s philosophical spine of destruction as purification. The production emphasizes clarity over compression, allowing Olsen’s bass to breathe under Stamey’s labyrinthine guitar phrasing and Menon’s meticulous polyrhythms.

If Sight to Sound sought transcendence through tension, Phantom :: Phoenix locates it through surrender. The band’s influences, Deftones’ atmosphere, Tool’s architecture & Karnivool’s precision, surface but never dominate. Instead, Stellar Circuits assert a matured identity, technical yet unpretentious & cinematic without indulgence.

There are moments where repetition threatens to flatten momentum, but the emotional coherence of the whole negates the critique. Phantom :: Phoenix feels is forged in crisis & articulated through discipline. It confirms Stellar Circuits not as inheritors of modern prog metal, but as craftsmen of its next evolution with melodic yet physical soundscapes that are unafraid to burn.

9/10

Words by @FuegoCasa

In collaboration with @HeadbangersAustralia

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