Growing up together in the Chicago suburb of Cary, Farseer’s Brendan McCarthy (guitars/vocals), Ted Ballantine (guitar), George Burrows (bass), and Kyle Curtis (drums) have been playing music together since the 8th grade. It wasn’t until they returned to the Chicago area after college, the four intent on applying their years of collaboration to a single, focused project, that Farseer formed in 2016. Their 2019 self-titled debut constituted forty-six minutes of progressively psychedelic stoner sludge, setting a solid foundation for Farseer to build from. Now six years on, stalwart line-up intact, Farseer prepare to release their second record, Portals To Cosmic Womb. With some very Burke-ish cover art courtesy of Ryan T. Hancock, a matured, less stoner logo, and a FFO rap sheet including Mastodon, Opeth, and Elder, I sensed Farseer had ascended to a higher level of seriousness, and I was excited to hear what Portals To Cosmic Womb would birth.
Culling most of the psychedelic and stoner-rock elements, Farseer’s sound has evolved, now rooted in deathly progressive sludge and post-metallic atmospheres. Notably absent from Portals to Cosmic Womb are the meandering instrumental tracks that dominated Farseer, along with McCarthy’s occasional flirtation with clean vocals. Here, he sticks solely to his powerfully effective growls, which sound like a slightly raspier Mikael Åkerfeldt. McCarthy’s and Ballantine’s guitar heroics either ebb with crushing, Mastodonically substantial riffs (“The Supreme Note of Suffering”) or flow in rivulets of delicately strummed chords and gently plucked leads that build, Wayfarer-like (“The Abomination Renders the Poor Man Speechless”) to crescendo. Creeping below these intricate melodies, captured beautifully by Brad Boatright’s master, are Burrows’ weighty, winding bass lines and Curtis’ thunderous drums, which pound forth when riffs command, and retreat as atmospheres demand. Farseer guides us through the cosmic bog, a place lyrically steeped in pools of altered reality that bubble with existential dread, populated by the anxiety-inducing absurdities of societal modernity lurking within the Cthulhuian shadows.
Portals to Cosmic Womb is dripping with highlights. Like “Endless Waves of Obliteration,” which, true to its namesake, undulates between massively heavy riffs intertwined with cavernously snarling vocals, a passage of driving, Gojira-like chugs, then on to a bass- and drum-heavy interlude laced with delicate, Eastern-tinged leads. Its chorus is still living rent-free in my head. Then there’s my personal favorite, “Gentleman’s Bookshelf,”1 that begins with pulsating drums and propelling riffs sluiced by a deluge of glistening, post-metal tremolos before going full-on Leviathan mode for McCarthy’s verse work. Then, the track plunges into an interlude fat with intricate drum fills, noodling bass lines, and subtly mournful leads, before building back in intensity to finish with Mastodon-like majesty. Having spent time with their debut, this Farseer seems well-matured, and their ability to write meaningful yet memorable songs has improved markedly, casting Portals to Cosmic Womb as a dark mistress, whose mysteries continue to unravel with subsequent spins.
As if constructed from a blueprint of Opethic design, Farseer crafted Portals to Cosmic Womb with a near effortless flow. It’s six songs, spanning a very manageable forty minutes, find Farseer merging the best parts of those meandering instrumentals into rock-solid compositions that, like spring and neap tides, rise and fall with dramatic intensity. There is one ripple in the water, though, and that’s the album closer “The Daneri House.” While there’s nothing inherently wrong with the track, I rather enjoyed the last sixty seconds’ flanger modulation on the guitars, which gave the ending a spacy, almost Pink Floydian texture. It is the album’s most progressive song, with its growling vocal first beginning and complex time signatures that, as the final track took me out of the experience Farseer had provided and would have been better placed after “Gentleman’s Bookshelf,” leaving “The Abomination Renders the Poor Man Speechless” to bring the album to a resounding close.
Farseer basting in their creative juices over the past six years has resulted in a vastly improved product, as Portals to Cosmic Womb shatters any notions of a sophomore slump. Should Farseer continue along the path they’ve set here, I anticipate a record deal soon. With Portals to Cosmic Womb, Farseer now enters the pantheon of great Chicago artists as a genuine contender, and one you should definitely take note of. And while September looks to be shaping up as one of the better release months this year, Farseer will undoubtedly stand as one of the brighter spots in not only August, but 2025 for sure.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: ALAC
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 22nd, 2025
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