Chicago produces so much good music that even those of us who write about it professionally can struggle to keep up. My colleague Leor Galil just published his annual list of overlooked local records, and I definitely missed some great 2025 releases too—including Farseer’s second album, Portals to Cosmic Womb, which they self-released in August. The band’s four members—guitarist and vocalist Brendan McCarthy, guitarist Ted Ballantine, bassist George Burrows, and drummer Kyle Curtis—are childhood friends who began playing music together while growing up in suburban Cary. They went their separate ways for college but reconvened after graduation, and in 2016 they launched Farseer. Three years later, they dropped a self-titled full-length whose tight playing and ambitious songwriting were especially impressive on a debut, showcasing a psychedelic postmetal sound indebted to the likes of Yob, Isis, and Russian Circles.
Farseer had some stoner vibes, but Portals largely does away with those in favor of more intense sludge, darkness, and experimentation. In the process, Farseer have delivered one of the most riveting local postmetal albums in a minute. Opener “The Supreme Note of Suffering” contrasts McCarthy’s fearsome death growl with shimmering, waltzing guitar, then plunges full throttle into the abyss. “Endless Waves of Obliteration” goes even harder, taking you on a turbulent ride through the cosmos that sails from chunky riffs to proggy interludes to a hooky refrain. The record’s invitingly complex song structures beg to be unraveled over repeat listens, and “The Abomination Renders the Poor Man Speechless” is a particular highlight: an indictment of powerful people who spread hate and violence, it builds the intensity of its intricately layered rhythms and textures and rides out on a wave of furious abandon. January in Chicago can be icy, but Farseer’s headlining set at Reggies Music Joint ought to be pure fire.
Farseer Dismalimerence, Lungsplitter, and Lost Tribes of the Moon open. Fri 1/9, 8:30 PM, Reggies Music Joint, 2105 S. State, $20.87, 21+
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