Dreadnought “Wars of Spirit // Wards of Light” Album Review by Rodrigo Altaf

Oct 30, 2026

Electronic experimentation, shifting voices and a struggle for human autonomy shape the Colorado band’s sixth album.

Dreadnought’s Wars of Spirit // Wards of Light brings synthesizers and electronic rhythms into the foreground of a sound built from progressive rock, atmospheric metal and blackened aggression. Released through Vesperian on September 11, 2026, the album follows a protagonist navigating technological warfare and competing systems of control. Its six tracks give that premise a musical setting of processed voices, layered keyboards and sharply contrasting vocal performances.

The Colorado band began in 2012, although its foundations reach further back. Kelly Schilling, bassist Kevin Handlon and drummer Jordan Clancy knew one another from high school and had played together in Kastigation. The arrival of keyboardist and vocalist Lauren Vieira helped redirect their music, prompting a change of name. Dreadnought emerged from those shared beginnings with an interest in combining styles rather than working within a single metal tradition.

Their debut, Lifewoven (2013), was followed by Bridging Realms (2015), A Wake in Sacred Waves (2017), Emergence (2019) and The Endless (2022). Across that catalogue, doom, jazz, folk and progressive rock coexisted with extreme-metal passages, while flute and saxophone expanded the instrumental palette. The earlier records allowed considerable space for atmosphere and extended development; The Endless brought the blackened side of their music into clearer focus. The new album continues that movement while changing the textures surrounding it.

The current quartet pairs Schilling’s vocals, guitars and keyboards with Ryan Sims on guitar and vocals, alongside Handlon and Clancy. Sims makes his first Dreadnought album appearance here, adding both clean singing and deeper harsh vocals. That changes the balance of a band whose overlapping voices have long been central to its arrangements. His lower register gives Schilling’s soaring melodies and piercing screams a different counterpart.

The recording process combined extensive preparation with late revisions. Schilling told Rockportaal that the band spent considerable time developing demos, then worked for two weeks in a Salt Lake City studio, recording synthesizers separately at her home studio. A section of “The Twilight Protectorate” was rebuilt shortly before drum tracking. The band produced the record themselves, with Andy Patterson involved in engineering, Julius Mauranen handling the mix and Jaakko Viitalähde mastering. Schilling specifically wanted Mauranen for his experience combining psychedelia and metal on Oranssi Pazuzu’s recordings.

Conceptually, the album continues the story of The Endless. Its protagonist enters a conflict involving cybernetic avatars and factions seeking control over humanity. An attempt to transmit a ceasefire leads to sabotage and betrayal. In the band’s explanation, the story addresses the preservation of independent thought, empathy and human agency under technological influence. Christian Ward’s saturated, futuristic artwork gives those concerns a visual setting without resorting to the grey industrial imagery that such a premise might suggest.

“Tiamat’s Gate” opens with the album’s longest composition, allowing its contrasting voices and instrumental approaches room to develop. Schilling’s high clean vocals sit above synthesizers and guitars before the arrangement moves into harsher singing, abrasive riffs and blast beats. Piano and string textures soften the closing passage. The track establishes an important structural principle: quieter sections have their own melodic identity, giving the heavier passages something substantial to interrupt.

“The Archive” brings a more compressed attack. Forceful bass and guitar work support the exchange between Schilling and Sims, while robotic voices and electronic effects make the technological setting explicit. Boolin Tunes highlights the processing in its middle section, where the instrumental sound itself appears to distort. That detail suggests a productive relationship between concept and arrangement: the machinery belongs within the music, affecting its shape.

“Colors of Our Broken Hearts,” the other pre-release single, places greater emphasis on vocal melody. Sweeping strings and distorted guitars frame Schilling’s delivery, while Sims contributes sombre singing and spoken passages. The arrangement subsequently pushes into faster, more aggressive playing. Its shorter duration offers no guarantee of simplicity; several layers compete for space, with the mix allowing individual instruments to recede when another needs to lead.

“Serpents of the Moon” changes the pace through a restrained opening built around clean guitars, bass and supple percussion. Schilling’s softer singing leaves more room around the instruments before the track builds toward a blackened climax. Jungle and drum-and-bass elements complicate that development, introducing a rhythmic vocabulary beyond the usual progressive-metal toolkit. Among the album’s stylistic crossings, this is particularly revealing: electronic rhythm becomes another means of generating momentum.

“Aeonwar” pushes those electronic elements harder. A heavy bass groove and synthetic pulses underpin a composition that moves into increasingly volatile guitar work and harsh vocals. Heavy Blog Is Heavy identifies a darkwave character in its synthesizers, while other reviewers emphasise its density and aggression. Its closing piano and string textures provide a release from that pressure. The spoken-word transition is less universally convincing: Metal Trenches singles it out as awkward, exposing the difficulty of integrating explicit narration into music already carrying considerable dramatic information.

“The Twilight Protectorate” closes with comparatively recognisable rock figures before expanding into keyboard-led passages, folk-inflected melody and another extreme-metal surge. Repeating synthesizer patterns and a prominent solo give the finale a progressive-rock character, but the closing stretch retains the record’s heavier language. Its movement between those approaches suits the story’s eventual interest in rebuilding a constructive relationship with technology.

These changes carry a trade-off. The contrast between Schilling’s upper register and Sims’ deeper voice creates fresh possibilities, although Toilet ov Hell notes the loss of some midrange warmth associated with previous lineups. The production also places more emphasis on density and electronic detail. Listeners drawn to the spacious, exploratory character of earlier Dreadnought records may need time to adjust to those proportions.

Wars of Spirit // Wards of Light offers several clear entry points into its revised sound: the extended development of “Tiamat’s Gate,” the concentrated force of “The Archive” and the rhythmic experimentation of “Serpents of the Moon.” Across these different approaches, Dreadnought retain their interest in unstable structures and contrasting voices. The electronics give that established musical curiosity another direction, with enough detail to make the album’s forty-minute duration feel substantial.

Get your copy here: https://dreadnoughtdenver.bandcamp.com/album/wars-of-spirit-wards-of-light