Releasing a musical melting pot with one leg in Atmospheric Black Metal and one leg in classical music, Italian band Lord Agheros follows the trajectory on which its whole musical career has been based: melting Sicilian culture shaped by all ages into yet another sublime album.
I thought that the lone musician behind the band name, Gerassimos Evangelou, had managed to reach the highest creative point in his musical efforts with his last album Koinè - an album with music that thrills with its expanding creativity. But three years after that release, he delivers another pinnacle with genre-blending music that makes me think that musicians immersed in the Black Metal genre and its subgenres may be some of the most visionary, creative, and fearless musicians these days. Just sit back and think what such bands have done over the last ten or twenty years, how they have widened the scope of the genre and shown us the immense possibilities that can be found in the genre.
Never getting tired of listening to Lord Agheros’ new album, searching in the layers and their singular beauty - both soft and harsh - made me reflect on his, and others’, immense imagination of what music can give us. Hailing from Sicily, Lord Agheros uses his musical creativity to bring to life Sicily´s heritage molded by Greek, Arab, and Norman influences. But, I also think, he takes some inspiration from the opera composer Vincenzo Bellini who was born in exactly the same Sicilian city of Catania where Lord Agheros resides.
My thoughts floated to this possible inspiration as I listened to the sixth song on the album, ”Soul’s Descent into the Void”, which opens with a warm and deep classical piano, retrieving some inspiration from the opening of the album´s first song, ”Lament of the Lost”, as the tones from each key fly by. Then strong operatic female vocals emerge, singing and hovering above the warm piano tones. For me, it resembles the song ”Casta Diva” from Bellini’s opera Norma. As if taking the cue from classical music, the sound of a cello begins to follow the aria that the vocals resemble. This symphonic music sense lingers even as the drums set the pace for the melodic flow. The music pans out wide and undulating until it melts together with a surge of distorted riffs. Layers of sound form a powerful theme at marching rhythm with choir and organ. The growling vocals insert themselves and are embraced by a vast soundscape with strong female vocals weaving into the layers of the music rising above it as the song suddenly breaks off.
There are, as mentioned, influences by ancient cultures and musical heritages. The album is filled with music that purveys the esoteric sense of tribal and yearning somber vocals evoking the forgotten past. That might be why the promo text for an earlier album, Of Beauty And Sadness, coined the term Arcane Metal for Lord Atheros’s music. Adding to that, the melodic theme of each track is often buried deep in the layers of the music. For example on the bass-driven song ”Sorrow’s Shroud” - the theme is formed by fast hits on the bass strings setting the scene for the hoarse growls with sound effects surrounding the flow of music. When everything comes to an abrupt stop, Dark Ambient waves spread out and a tribal theme slowly resonates forward until a new surge of Atmospheric Black Metal swallows the whole thing and a choir of female vocals sweeps through the distorted music swaying above the growling vocals.
The mix of ancient ritualistic music, Classical, Opera, and modern Black Metal is perfected on this album - in every song. An example is ”Lost Dreams Ritual”, which opens with vocals resembling the throat singing that Darkestrah has made famous. It is backed by a choir of vocals immersed in an ambiance of synths. A strong female vocal emerges in the cinematic soundscape, vocalizing indistinct words. The throat vocals run deeper while the female vocals disappear and make room for tribal drumming and somber male choir voices, a staccato rhythm pushing forward. Far away, a lone female voice is heard. The rhythmic space increases and male shouts are heard in the flow of music. The rhythm grows stronger with a fast bass before it all melts into distorted Atmospheric Black Metal with hoarse growls.
From the clear female vocal sung through vocoder effects in the opening song to the somber Gregorian chants-influenced choir on the last song, ”Ancient Echoes”, the music on this album evokes our distant past. At the same time it is very modern when it melts the ancient with the modern Atmospheric Black Metal, with growls and dense distorted guitar, even inserting an unrushed fuzzy guitar solo in the song ”Tears in the Silence”.
