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Band: EQUILIBRIUM
Album: Equinox
Genre: Pagan metalcore
Duration: 44:55
Release: November 28, 2025 (via Nuclear Blast)
Huge thanks, as always, to lightinmirror.de for the awesome pictures!
I never would have dreamed that I would spend almost half a year working on a review… But well, when you’re asked if you want to listen to something, the answer is always “Yes!” Especially when you’ve been waiting for the album in question since 2023. I’ve been listening to the new EQUILIBRIUM album Equinox since June, and I’m happy to finally share my thoughts on it with you in detail!
Introduced by gentle sounds reminiscent of rain drums, the first notes of the album envelop us in the form of the song Earth Tongue, which is then quickly replaced by a harsh song structure.
For variety, there are repeated choral vocals, which, together with the half-whispered spoken word passages, create a shamanic impression. It’s a good preview of what’s to come throughout the album: lots of epic melodies, full vocals, and a penchant for spiritually inspired sounds, artfully interwoven with tried-and-true metal elements.
Overall, I think Earth Tongue is a good opener, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite spark my interest because there are parts where I don’t understand where the song is actually going. But maybe that’s not so relevant to the overall understanding.
Awakening comes along with a whole new tempo, which for me was the first really big track on the album. At the beginning, you hear the melody slowly at first, accompanied by a heartbeat. Then the tempo picks up, so that it seems as if the individual whose heartbeat we hear is slowly awakening from hibernation, and by the first chorus at the latest, it is fully there.
The song impresses with its tempo and power, which rain down on the listener in a powerful and sublime way. You can hear exactly what makes EQUILIBRIUM so special: interesting instruments and a contagious joy of playing that leaves nothing to be desired in terms of epicness. I missed the feeling of freedom and new beginnings that this song conveys in Renegades, and here I finally get it in its purest form.
Only the ending from 3:20 onwards could have been left out. This video game-like coda seems strangely out of place to me and does not contribute to the listening experience.
With an opening that reminded me of the Universal Studio opening, Legends sets out to thrill the listener. Until Fabian’s vocals kick in at 1:12, I find the melody rather arbitrary and not really exciting. If you were still excited after Awakening, Legends is the song that is supposed to bring us back down to earth. Except for a few catchy melodies in the C-part, the song fails to convince me at all.
Unfortunately, the aspect that bothered me so much about Renegades comes into play again here: the idea and the stylistic direction are great, but the final step to make it a hit is completely missing. Live, I had a similar impression. Legends is therefore the song I would always skip on the album.
Anyone who was waiting for a purely instrumental track at this point will be satisfied (at least partially) by Archivist. The EQUILIBRIUM meets WARDRUNA/HEILUNG crossover is an epic song that could appear either just before the big decisive battle, in the middle of a ritual in honor of an earth deity, or in a cut scene from Zelda. I don’t quite understand why this song is already in fourth place, but I’m very happy that a purely instrumental track made it onto the album, even if it could have been a little longer.
I’ve already talked about Bloodwood and I’ll be Thunder in detail on Instagram. Feel free to check out the relevant posts!
However, both songs also highlight what I believe many people fail to recognize about EQUILIBRIUM’s new style: if you want to categorize EQUILIBRIUM in terms of genre, you inevitably end up with Pagan Metal. In the history of this very established genre, it is impossible not to notice that it always revolves around the individual and their relationship to the outside world, especially nature. This is expressed in many different ways, but in the case of EQUILIBRIUM in particular, contrary to popular belief, the nature themes of the early years have not disappeared, but have merely changed in their form. In my view, it makes no difference whether we devote ourselves to observing a tree in Die Weide und der Fluss (Sagas), undertake a search for a sacred place of our ancestors in Waldschrein, or find ourselves confronted with a tree that has become human in Bloodwood. The only important thing is that the question “Where do I stand as a human being in the context of this powerful nature and the all-encompassing cosmos?” has always played a role for EQUILIBRIUM, and this does not end with the change in musical style. It is ridiculous to expect artists to do one thing, become successful, and then never do anything else again. We are all incredibly complex individuals, and it is part of human existence that we would no longer do things today that we did 10 or 15 years ago. I find these aspects completely missing from the debate about the band’s “change in style,” regardless of the fact that, as explained above, this change in style cannot really be called that.
When I read the titles of the songs on the album and discovered the title Anderswelt, I was very happy that there would apparently be a German song on the album. Unfortunately, when the vocals started in English, I was proven wrong. We already discussed this briefly in the interview, and I think they should have chosen an English title here as well, so as not to raise misleading expectations.
Fortunately, that’s the only disappointment this song holds. The light-footed melody is carefree and catchy and gives me a feeling of lightness that I need at this point in the album.
Speaking of lightness: we continue with Borrowed Waters, a song I wouldn’t have expected on this album. A truly wonderful, almost enchanted song that really touches me. Unfortunately, for me it’s also a song that somehow doesn’t belong on this album, because when I hear it, I don’t think, “Yes, this is an EQUILIBRIUM song.” Overall, if you really wanted to have the song on the album, I would have swapped it with Gnosis, because I find it very fitting for Archivist, but then you need more than one song to get back into the swing of things.
As we all know, the best always comes last, and that’s the case here too. Nexus blew me away the first time I heard it, and now I’m just OBSESSED!! This song takes all the elements I liked best in the other songs and combines them into an epic track that’s heavy but not overloaded. If I could, I’d inject myself with this song intravenously!
One problem I always had was that spoken word parts in songs were always performed by men. For years, I hoped that there would be a band that would let women do it, and lo and behold: EQUILIBRIUM delivers! The result is an epic masterpiece that embodies the “quit while you’re ahead” feeling 110%. The fact that the main melody reminds me in places of the scene in the Mulan cartoon where she takes her father’s armor and joins the army in his place also helps enormously here.
Overall, Equinox is an album of balance. It combines EQUILIBRIUM’s tried-and-tested recipe for success, which consists mainly of powerful epicness and catchy melodies, with more modern elements that give the overall musical picture a contemporary feel. It feels like the new beginning that I’ve been waiting for since Renegades. Every single song, whether I like it or not, exudes an irrepressible joy in music that is almost spiritual in nature. Those who miss Sagas or Turis Fratyr will also find some elements here that are sure to delight. It is an album that perfectly reflects the changing times and refreshingly openly shows that artists are also people who change. Whether Equinox is the best EQUILIBRIUM album to date is something everyone must decide for themselves. For me, however, it is the best they could have produced at this point in their band’s history.
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