After 25 years of activity, StarGazer has firmly established itself as one of the most enduring Black/Death bands in the Australian extreme metal scene. And although they have remained continuously productive during the last quarter-century, their output is sparse, owing to the band’s meticulous approach to writing and recording. Consequently, the release of every StarGazer album is a momentous event. Recorded during the early stages of the Great Reset, “Psychic Secretions” is just the fourth full-length album in the StarGazer catalog and comes six years after their last album, the brilliant “A Merging to the Boundless”. On this album, StarGazer embraces the more aggressive aspects of its sound, harkening back, in a sense, to the band’s earlier era. But instead of the raw, bestial attack that characterized its earliest work, “Psychic Secretions” is refined and chiseled to perfection. The so-called “progressive” or “avant garde” elements that the band has folded into its sound over the years are on full display, even as the overall intensity of the songs is amplified. The abstruse themes and compositional intricacy of StarGazer’s koanlike music are such that the album demands repeated, concentrated listens before it can be adequately deciphered, and even then, it remains mystifying and obscure.