Hilltops Are for Dreamers – A Soulless Drive
Courtesy of The Metallist PR
A Study in Emotional Precision
There’s a moment in every artist’s evolution where the turbulence settles—not into complacency, but into clarity. That moment is A Soulless Drive for Hilltops Are For Dreamers. They’re back with a three-track EP that serves as a sharp refocusing from previous releases. Due to be released on May 30 via Hilltops Recordings, this one’s leaner, more deliberate, and sonically coherent. A Soulless Drive speaks with less noise and more intention.
The UK/Greece-based trio has always played with stylistic ambiguity, pulling from post-hardcore, black metal, progressive rock, and melancholic blues. But here on the latest, the band dials into something cleaner, more open—a modern rock lens that still allows for introspective shadows to creep in. The EP’s title hints at emotional depletion, but in reality, the record pulses with internal motion. It’s the sound of a soul.
Opening track “The First Day of Winter” makes its shift known immediately. Gone are the harsher vocals or blackened riffage of The Tragedy of Being Human. In their place: a soaring vocal performance that doesn’t overreach, and lyrics that skate a line between introspective poetry and emotional restraint. There’s no indulgent crescendo, no forced epic. Instead, it settles into its skin with poetic lyrics that portray a personal introspection.
“The Oath” is the quietest weapon in the set. What it lacks in drama it makes up for in nuance. The mood here is resignation, but not defeat. It’s a love song by someone who’s long since stopped romanticizing. Of course, I lay that out with a lot of room for interpretation, as the lyrics are also brilliantly abstract. This track’s emotional arc is unmistakable.
And then there’s “Halo Above”, a track that holds a quiet gravity. Officially dedicated to the memory of Miika Tenkula—late guitarist and main songwriter of Finnish metal band Sentenced—it doesn’t lean into overt tribute or mimicry. Instead, it channels the spirit of loss and reverence through atmosphere and emotional undercurrent. There’s a spectral quality to the composition, a sense of something hovering just out of reach. The music allows absence itself to speak, and the result is the EP’s most quietly affecting moment.
All three songs benefit from the sonic architecture built by Vasilis Papageorgakopoulos, whose hand in production, lyric videos, and visuals has been central to Hilltops’ identity since its inception. This consistency behind the scenes allows A Soulless Drive to feel unified, even in its emotional fragmentation. The mastering by Steve Lado and cover art by Maria Kalantzi round it out as a finished work—concise but not rushed, minimal but not empty.
As a closer to a thematic arc that began with The Tragedy of Being Human, this EP completes the cycle not with a bang, but with a held breath this time. There’s confidence in the restraint, in letting the music whisper rather than scream.
If Hilltops Are for Dreamers were once defined by ambition and stylistic breadth, A Soulless Drive marks a new chapter—one where refinement takes the lead. It’s a rock EP, sure. But more than that, it’s a document of what happens when a band sheds every extraneous layer and finds that what’s left is still worthy of being heard.
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