7/10

'Trickster' is the sound of MonDeGos throwing open the doors to an entire universe. Across twelve immersive tracks, the Helsinki five-piece weave alt-rock, progressive ambition and cinematic scale around the ancient Trickster archetype, using it as a way to explore illusion, memory, identity, power and the stories people choose to believe. But rather than following a neat and tidy narrative, the album moves through symbols and shifting perspectives, making uncertainty all part of the experience.

It's an approach that gives the band plenty of musical freedom. Highlight ‘Joker’ is a strong invitation into the record’s distorted carnival, where colour, masks and instability become part of the language. Whereas ‘Astral’ reaches further outward, pairing male and female vocals with a gradual expansion from intimacy into something far more sweeping. But not before ‘Saints’ delivers one of the album’s biggest moments, driven by synths, heavy guitars and a chorus built around resilience and hope.

The heavier passages carry echoes of A Perfect Circle and Alice in Chains, while the album’s stranger turns reveal some of the restless imagination associated with Faith No More and similar outfits. But MonDeGos prefer to use those influences as launch points rather than destinations, shaping them into a sound that feels increasingly tied to the band’s own mythology.

But what makes the record especially convincing is the balance between concept and immediacy. For all the symbolism, these are still songs designed to move, swell and hit with sheer force.

In all, 'Trickster' is an ambitious first full-length with enough confidence to aim beyond simple genre boundaries. Here, MonDeGos have built a doorway, and it feels like there's much more waiting on the other side.