It’s been four long years since the release of Melinoe and the record has not yet stopped being played far and wide by our favorite players. In the meantime, however, Naas Alcameth he didn’t stay with his hands in his pockets and after a few tours he came to conceive a new chapter of his hallucinatory sonic forays. House of the Black Geminus, the fourth seal marked Akhlysis finally in our hands; chronicle of a masterpiece foretold?
The first two songs are capable of plowing a field. The Mask of Night-speaking e Maze of Phobetor continue the speech of Melinoe with a power and a nastiness that will be difficult to repeat in the future. What comes out of the speakers is unheard of. The artistic coordinates have not changed a millimeter and we still find ourselves in that cursed amusement park managed by sleep and its army of monsters, with the usual sharp and mocking riffing and a rhythm section that seems to be managed by two drummers. Eoghan It’s scary, and offers an even better performance than the one recorded in the previous work.
Through the Abyssal Door turns out to be an interesting experiment, which significantly slows down the metronome by concentrating all the destructive force on the unhealthy and disturbing atmosphere that is now a real trademark of the American band. Another constant of the albums of the Akhlys it is the ambient track, which is always placed as a watershed in the middle of the tracklist and is always a bit like a return to the origins (the first album, Supplicationwas completely ambient). Black Twin It then digs a groove, relaxing the listener for a few minutes but always keeping him on his toes and preparing him for the grand finale.
Sister Silence, Brother Sleep It’s a pleasant surprise: a very aggressive but melodic song. Naas Alcameth he is able to master black metal in all its forms and in this work he comes out in great shape. Eye of the Daemon – Daemon I it is probably the weakest song of the lot: it focuses on the usual aggression but without memorable moments and it’s a shame. It would probably have been better to end with Sister Silence, Brother Sleepwhich is musically much more epic and would have better represented the finale of the opera.
However, these are details, because House of the Black Geminus It remains a fantastic album with the same high artistic value as its predecessor. Melinoealthough it remains an unrivalled masterpiece, has nevertheless drawn a very clear line in the career of Naas Alcameth. Akhlys it started as a studio project without too many pretensions and became a real band over time; Nox Corvus the guitar completes the picture here and the songwriting benefits from it. House of the Black Geminus has a more live and impact-oriented imprint; the compositions, despite their length, are still structurally accessible and able to practically never bore, revealing new details to the listener at every step.
The name Akhlys Today it is an excellence: it is part of those recent bands that have managed, in one way or another, to raise the bar of a genre that, between a Satana 1 and a Satana 2, needed new stimuli. Akhlys Today it’s not just black metal, it’s THE black metal.
