Style: Black metal, dark ambient
Primary Emotions/Themes: The realms between sleep and waking, true horror, self inflicted hypnosis and terror
Thoughts: Black metal by it's very nature has an "evil" or unpleasant sound to it. It's something that comes with the genre, it's woven into it's DNA. After a time of listening to it though, that effect gets lost... or diluted - I'm not sure which. Either way the fact that the music is supposed to be evil doesn't really phase me anymore.
To describe Akhlys' third album as "evil" would be doing it a disservice. Calling this "evil" doesn't even begin to explain the sound that comes out of my speakers when the needle hits this record. This is not evil, no... this is something more... something sinister.
As much as I want to describe the music that is on Melinoe, I'm not sure I can. I don't think I have any reference points for this. This album is undoubtedly black metal, yet within this genre I can't think of a single album that comes close to describing the notes, atmosphere, or feelings that come to me when I listen to it.
These riffs, these notes, don't just play... they weave their way into the deepest parts of my mind. The part's where the primal instincts take hold. They grasp onto those base emotions and move them to the forefront of my mind. They become the dominant force in me as the music continues to play. They move me from a state of relaxation to a state of fear and paranoia.
There is other music that I have in my collection that does this, but the way Melinoe achieves it is unique. It's so hard to do anything else but listen in abject horror when this record is spinning. Every. Single. Time. I listen I'm transferred to this world between sleep and waking where I don't know if the horrors I'm seeing are conjurations of my mind, or if they are me seeing the true reality around me. It's genuinely terrifying, very much the same as the music.
I've never heard an album like this before. Even the Dreaming I, the band's second effort (and first black metal record) doesn't come close to this. Out of all the black metal and dark ambient that I have heard in my life, this one stands above it all as the most terrifying record I own and have heard. It is incredible.
Written January 15th 2024
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