apanthropy

Unmother
State Dependent Memory
Independent/Fiadh Productions
To Be Released: February 20th, 2026

Rating: 8.5/10

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1 – My Armor
2 – Bear Hug
3 – Modern Dystopia
4 – Attiki Victoria (ΟΔΟΣ 55 cover)
5 – State Dependent Memory
6 – Magda
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The modern urban sprawl is the antithesis of nature in every sense but the concept of hierarchy, which is usually enforced through violence. The urban sprawl is a swallowing void of blight, populated with crime, poverty, and mental overstimulation, ran as a broken system in failing late-stage political power structures and predatory banking systems rigged to rob the common person of both their labor and dignity. Unmother seek to explore the narrow alleyways and gutted brutalist structures of the urban hellscape and capture from it the negativity and desperation that runs rancorous throughout. Embodying the social decay of post-industrial society, where one can be lonely while surrounded by thousands of people at once, Unmother wield flowing, atmospheric black metal with experimental and post-metal elements, bringing with it a sense of dissonance, desperation, and overwhelming bleakness.

Formed in 2019 in one of the largest metro areas of Europe, London, England, Unmother released their debut effort, Lay Down the Sun, in 2021, creating an immediate spark in the abyssal void of post-black metal’s current scene. February 20^th, 2026, will see their newest effort, State Dependent Memory, released independently on digital format with Fiadh Productions issuing a vinyl and cassette version. Six new tracks at 38 minutes of fresh material, packed solid full of funereal emotion, Unmother bring existential despair into the front of the human experience, embodying the worst of feelings not through violent delivery or homage to old gods but by way of the suffocating totality of hopelessness.

Album opener, ‘My Armor,’ is enchanted with dreary melodies, bordering the dissonant, coupled forcefully with circular rhythmic phrases, completing long drawn-out stretches of living emptiness. Vocals don’t adhere to the old style of piercing, distorted scream or the rather passive execution seen with many other post-metal bands, but a frustrated shout and a scathing growl. Atmosphere comes courtesy of the wonderfully expansive long-form riff work and less so from drenching the instrument signals in huge layers of reverb.

The opening tremolo melody on ‘Bear Hug’ possesses an apocalyptic, almost cinematic quality, thanks to both construct and tone. Transitions shove the song into up-tempo phrasing, burning with dueling guitar channels that invoke painful tension, and resolution is brief and antagonizing, never allowing the listener a sensation of brightness or hope.

The urban environment never sleeps, it suffers from an insomnia of neon lights and electrical hum, and ‘Modern Dystopia’ captures that sensation well during the opening phrases of the track, featuring restless bass and an almost theremin-like drone. Through its discordant middle section, the song flows into a quicker meter, featuring a blast beat and long tremolo grinding in cyclical fashion.

‘Attiki Victoria’ is a cover of Odos 55, a Greek synth-punk band. Replacing the drones of the original are grinding tremolo and the mechanized beat of a drum machine replaced with the unwelcoming coldness of a running blast beat. The atmosphere Unmother builds here is impeccable, rivaling the analog shine and tonality of the original, bringing what feels like an old, ancient tonal palette into the urban future of muted greys, dim overhead streetlamps, and the silent gaze of concrete towers.

The title track takes the listener on a nearly nine-minute journey of anxiously pacing bass, droning guitar, and distorted vocals. Pacing transitions from a stalk to a murderous pursuit, building in layers of sound that bend and warp into one another, deep guttural vocals pierce through the dense noxious fog of sonic debris.

Closing the experience is the brief instrumental ‘Magda,’ which shows off blazing organ in the opening moments, coupled with spoken-word samples. Keyboards are the most prominent mode of auditorial conveyance up until the closing moments of the record, where an artificial crescendo forms and breaks apart, leaving nothing but dismal clean guitars to keep the listener company at the close of the album.

Production on State Dependent Memory does an excellent job of keeping the caliginous tonality of the constantly tension-inducing guitar work on an avenue uncrowded by other instrumentation. Bass is clean, vibrant, and restless. Drums sit in the background, hammering away in metronomic fashion, with crystalline cymbals, sharp snare, and punchy bass drum. Vocals are constantly changing their delivery style, but are presented in the front of the mix, like guides through the darkness.

For many who ultimately desire to be left alone, the concept of the urban metro might as well be Hell on Earth. Unmother captures the sleeplessness, the collective frustration, and the constant state of emotional antagonization of the concrete and glass sprawl, where one is disconnected from the very nature that gave them life. Birds lodge their nests on telephone poles or under the awnings of faceless businesses, nary a tree in sight. Stray cats probe through garbage dumpsters with human and cockroach alike, aimlessly moving from survival source to survival source without rationale or emotional reason. Those with no home to call their own, sleep on the concrete flesh of the metro, overlooked by the other drones, they themselves possessing a state of dismal, slow death behind their eyes. Life is reduced to numbers, currency, and cultivating what little free time one has into some meager life of constant subconscious anger and a willful burning desire to break free from the process. Confined within State Dependent Memory is the bleakness of the human experience under this bizarre and mostly ungratifying environment. It is a flash portrait of millions of lives seen as identification numbers on asset sheets, or living elements of productivity, reduced out of their humanity and into an unnamed state of de-identification.

Those seeking an uncomfortable listening experience, one that should radiate within all of us, State Dependent Memory possesses this concept with startling accuracy. There is so much ugliness that it quickly replaces the concept of beauty, miserable tonality becomes what the listener reaches for, as it becomes the only thing offered to sustain him or her. With six songs at 38 minutes, this is a great repeat listening experience and each new spin uncovers new scars and new details to the sonic portrait one cannot possibly draw in on a single listen. Even down to its album cover, Unmother does not stray from the concept they set forward, featuring the band’s name in brutalist red font, while everything else is colored in doubtful shades of grey, black, and white. Straight lines outline the city environment on the cover, with warped ovals bearing detail-less faces surrounding a figure of white.

Those chasing the high end of low feelings, State Dependent Memory is waiting for you. This is an experience worth having, and an unpleasant reminder of what ruinous systems the human race is capable of building for itself.

Label: Fiadh Productions
Band: Unmother

AJK