Akhlys is a Colorado black metal duo consisting of frontman, guitarist, bassist & keyboardist Naas Alcameth alongside drummer/percussionist Eoghan. Emerging together 15 years ago off their 38 minute single track debut Supplication, I personally wouldn’t be introduced to their music until their 2015 sophomore effort The Dreaming Ia month before I graduated high school. Their take on atmospheric, dissonant black metal & dark ambient throughout was so excellently crafted to the point where it quickly became amongst the best albums in that style of extreme metal of the previous decade & Melinoë at the end of 2020 continuing to build upon the sounds of it’s predecessor conceptually revolving around nightmares. 3 & a half years later, Naas & Eoghan are back again for their 4th LP.
“The Mask of Night-Speaking” starts with an infernal 12 minute atmospheric black metal opener standing now before a great barren hearth whereas the 2nd & final single “Maze of Phobetor” screams about being the wayfarer continuing the atmo-black vibes. “Through the Abyssal Door” concludes the first half of the album by fusing dark ambient & black metal together wanting to feel the Asterion’s gaze, but then the instrumental cut “Black Geminus” puts a bigger emphasis on ambient industrial. “Sister Silence, Brother Sleep” gets back on the atmospheric black metal talking about being at 1 within the House of Dreaming behind 1,000 masks revealed & “Eye of the Daemon” concludes House of the Black Geminus inhabiting every waking shadow.
Almost a decade after their breakthrough, Akhlys displays their frightening dominance on House of the Geminus drawing from esoteric & mythical traditions where the land of dreams is placed within the darkness of the underworld through labyrinthine halls, shadowed corridors, cellars of dread & attics of epiphany as ordeal & ecstasy meet at the vertices where each beholds his own daemon. Combining intense black metal with elements of dark ambient & death industrial, Naas & Eoghan unite psychological horror, orchestrated bludgeon & eerie foreboding on a harrowing journey into pandemonic majesty resulting in their most all encompassing, destructive & diabolically grand-sounding offering of the 4 in their discography.
Score: 4.5/5
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