Before "Pictures" saw the light of day, HamaSaari had to be born in the silence of Le Mans, France, germinating on the ruins of what remained after the band Shuffle. This was no mere side project, but an evolution—a conscious transition from loud youth toward mature, progressive reflection. Their 2023 debut, "Ineffable," was like a first breath: tentative, yet filling the lungs with the fresh air of art-rock. Over the next three years, the band matured in the shadow of their masters, returning in 2026 with a finished work, dense with meaning and emotion.
There are albums that do not merely resonate, but occur—like a sudden rift in the sky over the ocean or a whisper in an empty room. This new offering from the Frenchmen breathes the same air as the purest works of Anathema from their most mystical period. One can hear the same fragile British sensibility and the ability to weave sonic carpets that lift the listener off the ground, only to let them plummet back into themselves moments later. It is a kinship of souls, where technical proficiency yields to pure, almost sacral emotion.
In this journey, the voice and guitar of Jordan Jupin serve as our guide, but it is the power of two guitars—as the leader is joined by Axel Vaumoron—that constructs a dense architecture of dreams. The rhythm section, Jonathan Jupin on bass and Élie Chéron on drums, creates a foundation so plastic that every note seems to possess its own weight and temperature. This is music suspended in the 'in-between.' Between fragile calm and a violent surge of distortion, reminiscent of the elegance of Porcupine Tree and the modern force of Karnivool. When Christelle Ratri joins as a guest on "Frames," the image gains an added depth, as if someone had suddenly let a shaft of light into a stifling room.
HamaSaari do not merely play sounds—they paint with them; they paint anxieties, fears, and returns to a home that is no longer there. I invite you to view these pictures with your ears. Just be careful—some of them leave stains that can never be washed away.
The opening track, 'Below the Lightnings', is more than just a gateway to the band's new aesthetic; it is a brutally honest chronicle of the moment the ground vanishes beneath your feet. It all begins with crystalline, almost oneiric guitars, but this peace is merely an illusion. Here and there, echoes of Anathema resonate—the same kind of subcutaneous tension and suffocating melancholy that forces us to wait for a resolution with bated breath. In this intimate, stripped-back setting, Jordan's voice sounds like the confession of someone who has just endured an emotional shock: 'It drove me wild... It was the first time, it froze my blood.' The Floydian chill of the introduction, seasoned with Anathema-like sensitivity, perfectly captures this state of 'frozen blood.' Halfway through, as a massive, 'biting' riff takes hold, the music ceases to merely accompany the lyrics—it becomes their embodiment. The imagery of a double shot ('You shot me twice but I thought it was a fake') finds its reflection in a dense, post-metal storm of sound. It is here that one truly hears the hand of Jordan Jupin and Thibault Chaumont; the production strikes with the force of a thunderclap, emphasizing the drama of a confession about hitting the ground ('We hit the ground, I was wrong to stand'). It is a painful awakening where everything finally 'makes sense' ('It makes sense now'), though it is a tragic sense. At the lyrical and musical core of the composition lies a desperate question about the darkness hidden within another human being: 'Just tell me why you’re turning mad at night / Spare me from the darkness in your heart.' Following the path of the Cavanagh brothers, HamaSaari masterfully builds tension between earth and sky—between that which is human and fragile, and that which is inevitable and as destructive as a storm. The chorus becomes a mantra for those who have lingered too long in toxic suspension ('All This Time We Spent Below The Storms'). The track’s finale is a terrifying metaphor of 'safe seas' ('We’re drowning in our own safe seas'). It is a paradox that HamaSaari executes with uncanny precision: we drown in what was meant to protect us, ultimately sliding below the lightning line ('We’re sinking below the lightnings'). The music extinguishes the light, leaving us with the echo of this loss in a sterile cold—confirming that while the lightning may have vanished, we are still falling to the bottom.
If 'Below the Lightnings' was a violent impact against the hard ground, then 'The Wild Ones' is the moment we look up from the still-smoking crater. The track emerges from silence, carried by the fragile, almost ethereal vocals of Jupin, who has recorded the confession of a soul yearning for ultimate liberation. There is no longer a struggle with the storm—instead, there is a melancholy observation of those who 'slowly disappear,' having finally found their peace and love beyond the boundaries of our understanding.
Musically, HamaSaari ascends to the heights of Anathema-like mysticism. The guitars of Jordan and Axel do not merely cut through the air; they sculpt it, creating an oneiric aura where every strike of the strings sounds like an attempt to reach out to those who have passed. This is a song about the duality of vision—about 'different eyes staring at the same landscape.' While some remain in silence, others react, yet we are all trapped in the same paradox: we scorn those we simultaneously love.
Halfway through the composition, under the watchful mastering ear of Thibault Chaumont, the sound begins to swell. The rhythm section of Jonathan and Élie provides an almost ritualistic pulse, preparing us for the final illumination. When the lyrics speak of 'drawing other worlds below the stars,' the music ceases to be a mere backdrop—it becomes those worlds. The guitars intertwine into a powerful, luminous braid of sound that—much like the finest moments of Weather Systems—lifts us above 'this bloody place.' It is a painful yet beautiful vision of burning old photographs ('Is there pictures you would like to burn?') to make room for a new, wild purity. HamaSaari proves it can turn the sickness of the soul into stardust, leaving us with the image of the 'wild ones' dancing in the moonlight—far from fear, far from us, yet closer to the truth than ever before.
If the previous images were an attempt to domesticate loss, then 'Our Heads Spinning' is a chronicle of the total loss of control over one's self. The track opens with a nervous, sterile pulse, reminiscent of the mathematical chill of Porcupine Tree during the 'In Absentia' era. Jordan Jupin, as a producer, has encased his voice in an aura of alienation: 'I don’t feel myself anymore.' This is the confession of someone viewing the world as a collection of false projections, no longer wishing to be part of any such image ('I don’t care of a picture of me').
A stifling, Wilson-esque discipline reigns in the verses. The guitars of Jordan and Axel weave a cobweb of anxiety, capturing a state where everything seems created for everyone, yet the individual feels morbidly foreign amidst this excess. It is a desperate struggle to contain an internal explosion ('I’m trying to contain the explosion') smoldering beneath the skin like a hidden fire. Words become hollow ('we speak for nothing'), and the only escape seems to be a retreat into silence.
But in the choruses, the sounds explode, tearing this fragile construction to shreds. This isn't just a standard entry of distortion—it is the sonic embodiment of the nausea Jordan sings about ('I cry no more but I feel sick'). HamaSaari, supported by precise mastering, strikes here with the force of a shockwave. Even if we try to silence our thoughts, the titular spinning of our heads does not cease—the music becomes that physical vertigo, pulling us into a whirlpool from which there is no return.
The finale brings a shift in perspective. Instead of escape—confrontation. A call to stand by the fire and explain how it burns ('Stay beside the fire and explain how it’s burning'). It is here that the music reaches its zenith, providing a backdrop for a painful cry of grief and the smashing of doors ('You scream your grief / Smash the doors'). Yet HamaSaari reminds us of a dark, almost sacral paradox: scream your suffering to the world, but never forget that in this madness, you are not alone. The track fades out in clouds of smoke from this internal blaze, leaving us with the fear of worthlessness and the echo of a question: what should we do now?
We now enter the deepest night of this album. If 'Our Heads Spinning' was a moment of dynamic madness, then 'Lost in Nights' is its dreamlike, paralyzing afterimage. The music slows down, becoming thick and viscous like tar, echoing the most oneiric, 'narcotic' landscapes of Porcupine Tree from the 'The Sky Moves Sideways' era. Jupin, crafting this image at Studio de la Fuie, has focused on a sense of space where every guitar sound feels like a distant echo reflecting off the surface of the water ('Light colours stained the waves'). Lyrically, it is a chronicle of a painful paradox: the safety of home proves to be an illusion when the skin remains dry and the heart wanders in impenetrable darkness ('My heart lost in nights'). It is here that we most clearly hear that 'Anathema-like' ability to build tension with nothing but a whisper and a pause. Jordan sings of tears and thoughts that shine one moment and fade the next, withering in a deep breath of resignation. The music follows those 'howling shapes' that the vocalist perceives within himself. The mastering ensures that these low frequencies vibrate in the listener's solar plexus, constructing an atmosphere of entrapment. The house, meant to be a sanctuary, becomes 'full of grieves and tears'—a place where the heart continues to deny reality ('My heart still denies'). The track's climax is the moment we feel 'caught on the field,' cast out beyond the margins of daylight. HamaSaari masterfully captures the state of being simultaneously 'alive, free and chained.' This is the ultimate alienation—a state in which we feel outside our own bodies ('I’m feeling out of me'), searching for even the smallest sliver of light in a darkness that seems to have no end. This is a frame of absolute isolation, where the only companion is the echo of past laughter and mourning.
'Frames' opens a window onto a restless ocean. The longest track on the album, clocking in at nearly seven minutes, is a compositional masterpiece in which HamaSaari challenges its own boundaries. We enter a space where the line between waking and dreaming finally dissolves. We hear singing from afar ('I can hear their singing… From far away') and feel shadows feeding on our shivering during sleepless nights.
This is where the pivotal dialogue occurs—Jordan Jupin is joined by Christelle Ratri. Her voice appears like the shaft of light we longed for in previous tracks, yet it brings no simple consolation. Together, they weave a tale of a mind that is 'capsized' ('Spellbound mind capsized'), filled with hollowed fear. Jordan, as the engineer, has achieved an incredible depth here—we feel as if the artists' voices are circling us, whispering of things that cannot be clothed in words ('There’s something more that I can’t share with those words').
Musically, 'Frames' is a display of progressive architecture. The guitars of Jordan and Axel build tiered constructions that—following the finest works of Anathema and Steven Wilson—ascend with mathematical precision, only to explode in a finale of math-rock elation. Chaumont’s mastering ensures that every 'line drawn by fear' ('how fears drew the lines') is heard with crystalline clarity.
The track’s finale is a moment of metaphysical release. As 'the tide goes out' and our dust rises over a 'field of breathing,' the music achieves a state of weightlessness. We touch both sky and ground, brilliance and darkness simultaneously. This is no longer merely sadness—it is a spirit emerging from the fire, seeking an outlet beyond the cramped frames of past anxieties. HamaSaari paints here a picture of the ultimate transition: from shadows in the heart ('Shadows from my heart') to the blinding glare of the ocean that washes away everything redundant.
If 'Frames' was a monumental journey into the unknown, then 'Under the Trees' is a return to roots—in both a literal and figurative sense. Musically, HamaSaari abandons sterile chill in favor of warmer, organic textures that evoke the spirit of early Porcupine Tree. This is the most 'earthly' fragment of the album, where the guitars of Jordan and Axel rustle like the crowns of trees, creating a half-shadow—the only sanctuary from a world that has grown too loud.
Lyrically, however, this is a track filled with primal dread, an almost sacral cry for closeness. Jordan Jupin, in recording these parts, stripped away all masks, exposing an existential horror dressed in seemingly gentle sounds. The central point of this confession is the fear of nothingness ('Afraid of being nothing'). In the world of 'Pictures', where everything is merely a frame or a reflection, the protagonist shudders at the thought that once he steps outside the frame, he will simply cease to exist. This plea—'Stay with me my friend. Don’t leave me alone'—is a desperate attempt to anchor oneself in another human being.
Jordan masterfully sketches the duality of day and night—destruction comes from both sides: 'Nights broke my hopes / Days burned my skin.' There is no safe time of day; night steals dreams, and day brutally exposes wounds. The only salvation is to be 'in-between,' under the protection of trees, where the past ceases to be a prison ('Stuck in our past / Lost behind'), though nostalgia still resonates in the music like a heavy anchor. It is here that a poignant confession of displacement falls: 'the wrong people' ('We’re the wrong people'). HamaSaari suggests that the world they dream of—where 'love is all'—does not fit our reality. The trees become the only place where this envisioned world briefly becomes real, leading us to the ultimate truth: 'And we were us.' This is the most beautiful and simultaneously the saddest phrase of the album; proof that authenticity is possible only in isolation, in the silence of nature, far from the glare of camera flashes. Under the watchful mastering ear of Thibault Chaumont, this forest whisper becomes a monumental hymn to the right to be oneself—if only for a moment, before the final curtain falls.
We reach the end of the gallery, but instead of a soothing finale, HamaSaari presents us with an image of ultimate dissolution. 'Home' is a monumental, post-rock monolith that rises from the silence like an iceberg. Musically, it is here that the legacy of Anathema and Sigur Rós pulses most fervently—at Studio de la Fuie, Jordan Jupin has conjured a space so vast that we feel small, almost insignificant within it. The guitar duo builds a wall of sound that does not suffocate, but rather blinds with a radiance carried by Thibault Chaumont’s precise mastering.
Lyrically, 'Home' is a chronicle of a tragic paradox: shining in the darkness, yet unnoticed by all ('You shine in the night… but no one called you home'). It is a vision of a world that has lost its colors—where greens have turned to grays, and fertile fields to graves ('The fields turned into graves… and sorrows'). Jordan sings of attempts to grow up in a sun that never sent us a single ray. This is the album's most painful moment—the realization that the 'home' we sought is a place we all forgot while standing on the edge of the abyss ('We’re close to the edge and we all forgot… our home').
The music swells and thickens, becoming an almost sacral noise, only to bring a sudden shift at its climax. When, after a series of falls and struggles, the phrase 'But someone called you home' appears, an emotional breakthrough occurs. This is no longer home as a building or an address; it is home as the state of being 'summoned' by someone who has truly seen us. The track’s finale is a sonic shockwave that washes away all previous fears, leaving us in a sterile, white light. HamaSaari closes the album with a question about our identity at the edge of the end of the world, reminding us that the only rescue from becoming 'raw as stones' is hearing that one, single voice that points the way back.
With 'Pictures', HamaSaari has achieved something rare—an album that is simultaneously technically sterile and emotionally raw. It is a production masterpiece where the guitars do not fight for space in the mix, but instead collectively weave a dense, post-rock fog. From Anathema-like elations to Wilsonian chill and powerful, almost metal-tinged detonations—the band navigates the map of progressive rock with the confidence of old masters. This is a selective, expansive, and breathing sound that never allows the listener's concentration to waver.
Lyrically, this is one of the most intimate journeys I have recently undertaken within this genre. Jordan Jupin’s lyrics are not mere songs; they are chronicles of borderline states—from the paralyzing fear of nothingness to the pain of isolation and the desperate cry for a home that no longer exists. HamaSaari pulls us out of the safe frames of everyday life and forces us to look our own 'howling shapes' in the eye. This is raw lyricism, devoid of cheap optimism, yet saturated with an authenticity that leaves a lasting mark on the listener.
'Pictures' is not an album to be played in the background. It is an album-experience that demands we turn off the lights and put away our phones. The Frenchmen have proven that in 2026, progressive rock can still be fresh, painful, and beautiful all at once. This is a record about the 'wrong people' who, in a world full of noise, are searching for even a single pure note.
If you seek something more in music than just a rhythm—if you seek sanctuary, confrontation, and the truth hidden between layers of guitar noise—'Pictures' is the address you must reach. Let yourself be called to this home. Even if it proves empty, the echoes you hear there will stay with you for a very long time.
It is hard to shake the feeling that we are living in a unique moment for non-obvious music. It is truly fantastic that almost at the same time, two such powerful and wonderful albums saw the light of day—'Pictures' by HamaSaari and the long-awaited 'In Verses' by the Australian visionaries of Karnivool. Both albums, though operating with different sensibilities, seem to broadcast on the same high emotional frequencies. This is a true feast for those who seek not only technical perfection in progressive rock, but above all sonic depth and existential weight. HamaSaari, standing shoulder to shoulder with such giants, proves that their place in the pantheon of modern prog-rock is fully deserved. I highly recommend it.
