Apocrypha
Artist: Exiled Hope
Genre: Metal, Power Metal
Record Label: Self Released
Release Date: 11 April 2025
Exiled Hope’s Apocrypha, set for release on April 11th, has been carefully crafted over several years, with fans receiving small glimpses leading up to this moment. Now, with the full record soon to be unveiled, we can finally explore the intricate world Sofia Frasz has built.
The album begins with ‘The Summoning’, a stunning choice for an opener, given its highly searched title thanks to a little band called Sleep Token in 2023. A delicate piano introduction gives way to a powerful blend of soaring cleans and punishing harsh vocals. The drumming is relentless, but ‘The Summoning’ overall has an air of pain about it with some subtle string instruments in the background that do a good bit to flesh the track out. ‘The Day Will Come’ shifts into more gothic territory, evoking Ghost with its layered vocal modulation giving Peter Steele, but femme. It wouldn’t come as a surprise is Type-O were an influence for the track either. Exiled Hope clearly prioritises storytelling and setting in their music, and the lyricism in this is done quite well in the areas outside of the chorus. It does well at creating an air of intrigue. ‘Blood of The Ancients’, released in June 2023, serves as a fusion of the first two songs. It feels like Ghost again but this time experimenting with power metal, and had harsh vocals stirred in for good measure.
‘Dreamwalker’ is by far the most familiar song on the record as it actually dropped back in April 2022 as a single. This takes things in a totally different direction, and has the first featured vocalist of the album, with guest vocals from Metal Matt. The more ballad like structure breaks up the album quite well as well as offers some levity in terms of sound as the previous songs blended together quite well. This shift adds a bit of levity and prevents the album from becoming overwhelming fluid between songs. ‘Over For You’ is where the rough length of each track seems firmly established at the +4 minute mark. While that isn’t Herculean in length, when you have as busy an instrumental arrangement as Exiled Hope, it means there is a lot of music happening. Face-melting guitar work, goblin-like vocals, and folk instrumentation mean that this is a totally different song to ‘Dreamwalker’ yet somehow fits together incredibly well. The halfway point in the album brings with it our second vocal feature from Imperator Morte and therefore the bulk of the track is a dual layering of vocal duties from Sofia and Morte. Personally, this is the only place where pacing in the album may suffer a little, stylistically it makes perfect sense to group it up with the previous two tracks. That said, it feels like a slower, heavier twin of ‘Dreamwalker’, making it less distinct despite its strong individual elements like the drumming.
The bulk of the review so far has consisted of discussing the album in sets of 3 songs. ‘The Silence is Deafening’ is the main track to influence that, as well as being personal favourite on the record, and has been in the ears of fans for just over a year, having released in March 2024. This feels like a different direction in terms of the message in the music. A lot of the discussion prior to this track paints a greater message about the hellscape Exiled Hope’s music is set in, whereas this feels a lot more like a love song, for whatever that can count as in the extreme metal genres.Musically is very catchy and developed where you can place each instrument, and it feels like the track and is closest to being a living thing, which is ultimately the purpose of music focused so centrally on storytelling as Apocrypha is. Also the breakdown to finish the song is filthy. The latter half of the album is where things really settle into longer territory, with ‘Behold My Shattered Skies’ now cracking into 5 minute territory. It can’t be stressed how well Apocrypha uses the less conventional elements like string-centric parts in songs as well as a very crisp bass sound. The more Blackened genres of metal can really suffer from fans losing a beat in the music and it then becoming a sort of noise wall. ‘Behold My Shattered Skies’ does great at keeping a head nodding, albeit quite slowly as it fades out with bass and choir-like singing. With ‘Deathlayer’ clocking in at over 8 minutes, what it means is that the album is somewhat back-loaded, as all the longer tracks on Apocrypha are in the ending stretch, most of which start with somewhat similar orchestral intros before dropping in. That said, ‘Deathslayer’ is a continuation of all the things the album does well, in much greater length, as well as reintroducing a more prominent use of harsh vocals from Sofia and some superb work on the drums.
Beginning to close out the album is ‘Lightborn’, which will be one of the more familiar tracks to fans, as it dropped with a lyric video and can be found on YouTube from back in July last year. Across various tracks on the album, Sofia’s vocal work, as well as the drumming and bass have been lauded. ‘Lightborn’ is the guitar track on the album. It is one of the more “power-y” tracks on the record in a Trivium sort of way, where they excel at heavier material and dip out into something clean for a stretch. The penultimate track on the album is solely instrumental, with ‘Remnants’. For those that are focusing on Apocrypha for its storytelling, this is what will likely solidify it as an epic for those listeners. It encourages reflection, and when most tracks on the album are as grand as those on Apocrypha, this helps set up an actual sense of finality as it rolls into the last song. Said final track, ‘Forbidden Majesties’ is the outing that shows what a powerhouse Sofia is as Exiled Hope, constantly changing between singing and guttural duties whilst lyrically it ties itself very neatly to put an end to this particular story. The drumming is almost ever present as a force almost beating the album over the finish line, as well as it being the home to an excellent guitar solo where it stands as the final note on the whole record.
Apocrypha is a bold and ambitious album, weaving together extreme metal, symphonic elements, and some very immersive storytelling without it being overbearing. The album’s pacing stumbles in a few places, and some of the longer tracks blend together towards the end, but its strengths, especially in vocal performance and instrumentation, make it a compelling listen. Apocrypha is a testament to Exiled Hope’s artistry, earning a solid but also leaves room for so much more in their journey.