Breakcore: Subheroine - End. (2025)

77 / 100

End. is Subheroine’s most immersive and emotionally textured work yet ...

Is being a week late enough to make a new release feel cold and stale? Maybe it’s the effect of our fast-paced modern world and the FOMO trend. Who knows. Whatever.

Alright then, let’s welcome a new breakcore/drum & bass album (though it runs under 30 minutes) from Subheroine: End.!

Released just on November 7 via Japan’s veteran breakcore label, Lost Frog Productions, End. delivers a noticeably more atmospheric vibe this time. So, tagging it as atmospheric drum & bass makes perfect sense, while the “depressive” tag seems to apply only to the cover art. But is that really the case?

As always, there are surprises when reviewing music—those unexpected moments that make certain tracks sound more intriguing than expected. The most prominent depressive elements appear in the sampled voice of an anime girl sounding shocked or weakened in “Level Upper,” and the introspective monologue in “Echoes of Self.” Subheroine also offers catchy melodies on that track, as well as on “Delusion” and “Consider.” Meanwhile, “Decay Loop” and “Glitch Angel” are fairly upbeat, bursting with synthwave-style energy.

For the first three tracks, I honestly had a hard time figuring them out—it almost made me give up, since I couldn’t find much flavor at first. But over time, they began to make sense: “Divine Reboot” carries a hint of trance, while “Soliloquy in the Void” specifically leans toward psytrance. “Decay Loop,” in fact, was a last-minute addition to my upper picks while writing this review. Also, one passenger returns from the previous EP—“hOPe2Sxc”—now remastered and sitting in the sixth spot of the nine-track lineup. It happens to be the most technical piece of the bunch.

Although I faced some initial difficulty, End. ultimately proves Subheroine’s growth in crafting engagement and successfully evokes the atmospheric feel of a dystopian world. I have a hunch that this might mark the end of Subheroine’s musical journey but again, that’s just my feeling. Let’s wait and see what happens next. And if you sense the same, go ahead and enjoy this album before it disappears into a lost archive.