Gigafauna - Eye to Windward

Angry Metal Guy

Established in 2015, Swedish progressive sludge quartet Gigafauna toiled in obscurity, releasing a couple of albums and marching bravely forward into a heavily contested field. This is the first time they’ve graced our little corner of the blogosphere, reaching out to us via our contact form, pushing their third record Eye to Windward. Equipped with a gorgeous cover by the largely unsung Moonroot Art, what otherworldly creatures lie before me in Gigafauna’s Eye to Windward? ONWARDS!

Gigafauna’s style is one unfettered by frills and fiddly fancies. Instead, it delivers a no-nonsense, stripped-down crunch reminiscent of early Mastodon and Warcrab. Balancing clean, proggy noodles with deathly chugs and vicious roars, Eye to Windward boasts a well-rounded palette of songwriting elements to give these 44 minutes plenty of ground to cover without exhausting Gigafauna’s stock of ideas. Tight writing, clever transitions, and engaging twists and turns make Eye to Windward a thoroughly enjoyable experience overall, while its dry and warm production invokes a certain grit to the affair that adds textural depth.

Much of Eye to Windward takes full advantage of the full breadth of skills Gigafauna possess, but some of its best moments come from when Gigafauna’s songwriting is at its most focused. Highlights “Pyre” and “Beneath Sun and Sky” embody this truth with great aplomb; the former pushing the record’s heaviest material with an unearthly musculature, while the latter transcends physical heft for a more sophisticated, progressive lean. In both examples, chunky riffs form each track’s strong backbone, while multifaceted vocals span the gamut between death metal roars and sneering cleans to add variety, and unsettled rhythms contribute a tasteful complexity to keep things interesting. Longer format entries like “Plagued” and “Vessel” take advantage of their more expansive estates to house all permutations of Gigafauna’s sound in one unified piece. While “Vessel” is decidedly more successful in this regard—its main riff is one of the best on record, and the noodling leads in the back half contrast brilliantly with a bass counterpoint—both pull off the feat with respectable form.

Where Eye to Windward falls a bit short is in excitement and distinctiveness. Opener “Drowning Light” is the most quintessential progressive sludge song ever, reminiscent of Mastodon as often as it is of Boss Keloid. The problem is that it is too reminiscent of those artists, and thereby fails to establish its own voice as Eye to Windward’s opening act. “Exogenesis” and “Withered Husk” perform admirably inside these boundaries, but once again struggle to break out of those confines and stake a new claim for their own. There are hints of evolution occurring there, especially in the soaring chorus and blackened rasps that pepper “Exogenesis,” but not quite enough to constitute a differentiated variation. By the grace of Gigafauna’s universally solid performances across the board, very little of this primary shortcoming negatively impacts the album experience in the moment, as Eye to Windward is thoroughly enjoyable while it plays. It’s only upon closer scrutiny that I recognize that Gigafauna needs to push a little harder to find their own voice if they want to stand out in the crowd.

Overall, Eye to Windward is a solid installment in the progressive sludge pantheon. With hooky choruses, muscular riffing and rippling leads, rumbling bass counterpoint, and varied rhythms, all of the pieces exist to craft a killer record. The biggest roadblock to that goal is distinctiveness in songwriting. Gigafauna are on the cusp of finding a voice that stands out, clear and unmistakable, in every song they write. However, they haven’t nailed that level of consistency just yet. You’ll hear it in flashes, and those flashes pop with excitement and vitality. I look to the future with great expectations that Gigafauna will release a record that pops that way from start to finish.



Rating: Good
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self Released
Websites: gigafauna.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/gigafauna
Releases Worldwide: May 16th, 2025

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