2023 saw the release of the band’s ninth album Holocene - the heavily conceptual collective’s most exploratory and varied release yet - and the conclusion of the paleontological era they began with 2018’s Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic and continued with 2020’s Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic / Cenozoic. Having flirted more with extreme metal influences on these records than ever before, the arrival of Holocene saw the band - lead by guitarist and mastermind Robin Staps - forge a new path into a world of looped electronics and more subtle melodic experimentation while philosophically reflecting on humanity as always, this time on the nascent realities of a post-pandemic world.