Love this band. I'm not a music historian but reportedly this band does actually implement some medieval European songwriting techniques along with all the modern metal elements in quite a bit of their songs. They also have a couple of interlude tracks that are just harp instrumentals which are great.

these guys are amazing. from what i understand theres two main songwriters at work here; where they both contribute the standard instruments for a metal band, one of the guys actually plays the harps and other classical instruments that you can find on some of their other tunes. three full length records from these guys over the years, and they are all incredible in my opinion. they are singularly talented at building interesting melodic harmonies with guitars in this genre. cannot wait for more music from em

The perfect word to describe this band is idyllic, the atmosphere and lyrics perfectly depict the feeling of escapism that Greek poems about idyllic bucolic landscapes or even romantic paintings depicting landscapes where nature overcomes human technology and life

Wow, what a great track. I hear a lot of various inspirations and hints of various genre that for me are very complimentary

Actually this song made me feel sorrow and elation all at once. Which is quite rare for a song to do, at least for me. As most songs do not evoke such strong yet contrary emotions at the same time. Though I do love folk metal, this hybrid is among the best things I have known.

This band is so fucking good. No one else sounds like them

I get your point about the vocals. I wonder if you'd appreciate the vocals more on their debut album - my personal favorite of theirs. The production on that one is rougher and a bit more muffled, but it makes the vocals sound like part of the soundscape instead of sounding like they're floating behind it. If that makes any sense. It's called Suspended in the Brume of Eos if you want to check it out sometime.

Interesting that you didn't get much out of the bass. There's loads of interesting stuff going on with it, if you ask me! Very playful, emotive playing. And yeah, to get the dynamics of this band, you need to listen to an album, which alternates songs with ideas more like these with the medieval instrumental songs. That's where you really see how their melodic ideas evolve over longer spaces.

I had a double take on this when I first saw it. I was not aware of the new material... it has been like over ten years. So happy I discovered this, and their live performance from their mountain fest. Legends.

To answer your thumbnail’s question, blackened country? (The closest I can think of is Panopticon’s bringing bluegrass elements into black metal, so maybe it can be done, but I’ve never seen it.) Maybe blackened swing (the conflict between the swung 8ths of swing and the straight beat of black metal seems like a tough fusion, though I’d absolutely be down to hear someone try.) Blackened polka? (though I wouldn’t be down to hear someone try)

thank you, i love this band

I had to listen to this twice to quite "get" this song. It's quite a mix of things. At some point it reminded me of Agalloch (which is a good thing, because that's my favorite band).

the less predictable a song is the more refreshing it is

This sounds remarkably like early Opeth. Opeth's first two albums were quite different than what came after (you heard one of these back when we did old-new week), and they had these more higher-pitched growls with extremely melodic guitar work with a general "progy blackened melodeath" vibe. I always thought those two albums, while quite rough, had a lot of unique, positive qualities that I would've liked to see another band develop further, and this sounds like exactly that: a much more sophisticated take on that sound. Really good stuff, and another band to add to the infinite list. I'll also say I love the esoteric words in this one, though I did know most of them. Auroral, I assume, is the adjective form of aurora (as in "borealis"); aureate relates to gold/golden; thuja I didn't know; clarion means clear (like a bell); effulgent is bright/shining; sidereal relates to distant stars (I've used that one myself in a poem before). This is somewhat similar to both the poetry I liked to read and write, what the critic MH Abrams called "Natural supernaturalism," or the idea of "God" being found in nature.

Hyacinths grow in Middle East and Balkans, so perhaps the vocalist refers to these places?

Bryan please react to A Reverie to Quell the Giants by Others By No One! They're one of my favourite bands and I'd love to hear your opinions!

Would love to you hear you react to Vektor - Recharging the Void. (Not to be confused with the similarly titled Charging the void) Hard to classify. I’d say it’s a blackened, progressive, thrash metal space opera? 😂 With a Pink Floyd-esque interlude? Not sure if that description is intriguing or a total turn off, but I find it to be one of the most versatile, energetic, technical, at times beautiful, pieces of metal I’ve ever heard. It’s long, but my favorite long song ever.

i have a bad habit of calling everything experimental prog