THE MEDEA PROJECT has been around since 2003 and only has two members. Pauline Silver is from Nottinghamshire in the UK, and Brett Minnie is from the East Coast of South Africa. Not exactly close to each other, is it? The musical direction they have chosen is classed as Doom/Gothic/Sludge Metal on the Metal Archives site. I can confirm that such is so. And even though THE MEDEA PROJECT has been going for some 22 years, they haven’t actually released anything before 2017. That is when their self-titled EP “The Medea Project” was thrown into the world. In 2020 they gave us their debut full-length album “Sisyphus”, followed by two more EP’s (“Southern Echoes” in 2021 and “Reflections” in 2023). And now, on June 20th 2025, they have opted to enlighten us with their sophomore studio album, which they named “Kharon”.

Musically THE MEDEA PROJECT do just what I was expecting, which is mixing the Doom Metal elements with Sludge Metal parts and then dribbling their Gothic Metal gravy over all of it. And that does give me some very interesting songs and soundscapes that take just under 40 minutes on “Kharon”. This is not exactly music that will lift you up, this is very emotionally draining downcast Metal that will drag you down if you are not in a good place. You need to be prepared for a lot of chaos, darkness and some anger that is being expressed throughout the whole album. And as I haven’t heard anything from THE MEDEA PROJECT before “Kharon”, I don’t dare to comment if they always have sounded so desperate.

Up to this point I like what THE MEDEA PROJECT have to offer, but that changes when I try and have a good listen to what they are offering on “Kharon”. That’s when I have to admit that I just don’t get what they are doing. I understand the sentiments, the feelings and the way they are trying to convey all of that into songs. It’s just that the tunes that I am listening to don’t make any sense at all for me, my ears and my brains. Maybe I just don’t get it, but to me the songs sound incoherent, randomly picked and full of ideas that were just thrown together in the hope that anything good will come from it. Sorry to say this, but to me THE MEDEA PROJECT have failed to do so. This is just noises put together as far as I’m concerned. If they would employ someone to help them put their (rather decent) ideas together into proper songs, I would love to hear what THE MEDEA PROJECT has to offer. For now, I can only conclude that “Kharon” is just not what I was hoping for.