Album Review: Boss Keloid – Float & Aperture (Church Road Records)

UK prog icons Boss Keloid are back with their much-anticipated new album, ‘Float & Aperture’. Out via Church Road Records on October 23rd, 2026.

A more collaborate Boss Keloid, a more experimental Boss Keloid, and a more expressive Boss Keloid, Float & Aperture is a daring release for a band who revel in challenging themselves and the listener. While you can identity key components within this album that is them through and through, it is inarguable that this is also their most varied work to date.

I love it, and if you’re willing to open your mind, so will you.

An elastic listen, Boss Keloid stretch all conventional understandings of progressive rock to near breaking point and then stretch it even further. Opening the record with Breeze, Boss Keloid showcase jerky rhythms, smooth melodies, and a warped sense of chaos that comes with space. What I mean by that is the band allow their instruments to breathe and with that comes increased clarity, especially as the vocal delivery is such a key part of the track. A stunning key part of the track. Alex is such an underrated voice in the UK rock and metal scene.

Filled with dreamy power, eccentric energy, off-kilter harmonies, and a sense of confusion that fits the lyrical tone and content nicely, Pedestal is a deep, smart, and engaging listen. Whereas Landslide is Boss Keloid at their most epic sounding, and the vocals really reflect that, but it’s also them at their most laidback. A showcase of their innate quirkiness, finding new experimental territories to explore, and pushing their sound to more dramatic highs. All this, and more, packed into a nine-ish-minute slice of utter brilliance that is as catchy as it is complex, and it’s really bloody complex.

Things then get a little heavier as Weight has some hefty groove parts, carefully interweaved around proggy energy and melodic vibrancy. It’s beautiful, but it’s also barely contained chaos, and this exploration of drama and danger continues into Aros, as the modern sensitivity of Boss Keloid continues to be a bulging feature of the record. It’s them at their most personal, after all, and that results in their ‘lightest’ sounding record to date.

I love it nonetheless, and found myself fascinated by some of the directions the band head off in. The album also proving to be wholly unpredictable as Accord delivers a certain kind of serenity that both manages to lull and keep things sounding firm. The chunky rhythmic shifts and vocal shouts are so cool, and lyrically, this proves to be one of the strongest.

Alongside the finale of Sanguine, it is short by Boss Keloid standards, but even with that, it proves to remarkably expressive and brilliantly innovative. A bit more ‘oomph’ is welcome too as the album comes to a close.

One of the most inventive bands in the world, Boss Keloid have found a way to expand their own horizons and in doing so, create something that feels familiar and fresh. Float & Aperture is another outstanding release.

Boss Keloid – Float & Aperture Track Listing:

1. Breeze
2. Pedestal
3. Landslide
4. Weight
5. Aros
6. Accord
7. Sanguine

Links

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