UMUR "World Builder" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Texax based post-metal/progressive death-doom metal act Stillbeing. The album was independently released in July 2023. Stillbeing formed in 2021 under the AEGOS monicker and released the April 2021 "The Great Burst of Light" album, and the November 2021 "The Current" single under that monicker before changing their name to Stillbeing.

As Stillbeing is essentially the same project moving forward under a different monicker, "World Builder" is not really a debut album, or at least it´s not a newbie type debut album. If you´re familiar with "The Great Burst of Light" it´s obvious it´s a blueprint for "World Builder", although AEGOS and Stillbeing are slightly different (or maybe more correctly Stillbeing have evolved). Jei Doublerice (Despite Exile, Abiogenesis) again handles the growling vocals, but "World Builder" also features clean male- and female vocals (and spoken word sections).

Featuring four tracks which are all over 10 minutes long, the material on "World Builder" is quite creative and rather eclectic too, drawing influences from all sorts of musical genres. The basis of the band´s music is heavy riffs and rhythms, but the tracks are also greaty atmospheric (often created with keyboards or lead guitars) and at times even epic in scope. The tracks can rightly be called progressive in structure and they feature many intriguing ideas and elements.

"World Builder" features a well sounding production job, and even the programmed drums (I assume they are programmed because that´s how they sound) feature an acceptable sound production. They are sometimes a bit too simplistic though and to my ears the music could have prospered from a human drummer playing the drums. I wouldn´t be surprised if "World Builder" is actually a bedroom project created by one man, with guests handling the vocals.

Upon conclusion I´d say that "World Builder" is a step up from the previous AEGOS releases, although I wouldn´t call it a giant leap. The riffs are little sharper and more memorable, the atmospheric sections have more impact, but the tracks still feature sections here and there, which aren´t that interesting. If Stillbeing can eliminate the stale sections, and write slightly more memorable parts instead (and have a real human drummer play on the next release), they could well produce something spectacular in the future. For now a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.