Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Origin: Colorado, USA
Pleasant dreams and peaceful slumber are ripped away like a scab in the world of Akhlys. Melinoë – the Greek Goddess known for bringing nightmares and madness – delivers night terrors with ominous prescience, mind-numbingly fast yet controlled musicianship, and viscerally brutal black metal shrieks. Led by vocalist/guitarist Naas Alcameth, Akhlys‘s latest wicked chimera strangles its unwitting dreamer night after night.
Melinoë establishes a suffocating atmosphere with eerily repeating melodies that scorch the blackened soundscape at full-tilt. Musical madness whips sheets of crushed guitars and taut double-bass drums before the sleep-shrieker unveils his presence in “Somniloquy.” Coherency quickly devolves into chaos, as swirling whispers implant neurotic paranoia into the paralyzed sleeper.
The juxtaposition of mystery and pandemonium is nefariously contorted throughout Melinoë. Frightening synths are often shoved aside by a violent wraith guarded by a platoon of dream invaders. Naas imposes unholy growls in various formats throughout the record, ranging from spoken snarls at the beginning of “Pnigalion” to prolonged, ravenous howls to abort the orchestral inception of “Incubatio.” Later, the deliberate, tempered pacing of the snare traps the listener in a trance. These slowed passages acquiesce to coma-inducing guttural vocals and hypnotic melancholy that induce hysteria in every (un)waking moment.
“Succubare” re-fertilizes the horror and a crescendo of restless voices spawns a panicked gasp for air, nodding unconsciously to Akhlys‘s earlier work, The Dreaming I. “Incubatio,” is an recurring nightmare of haunting melody and aggression. Balancing nearly two minutes of stifled ambient torture with another four of operatic black metal euphoria, it injects an full syringe of funeral doom before fading to black. The final section is rife with agonizingly measured percussive blasts dividing the orchestral chaos. Ruthless double-pitched shrieks pierce the soul, making it regret having entered a human life-form.
Ephialtes (27:39 - 36:07) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0aAMB26ZKU&t=659s
Standout track, “Ephialtes,” is the cold-blooded, spiteful embodiment of a perpetual nightmare. Named for an anxiety disorder leading one to believe a being literally “jumps on you” during dormancy, sanity-shredding vocals and brooding sirens of danger grow ever more alarming throughout the song. Midway through the track, a lone gong rings out warning chimes before choking growls relish in the final suffocating kill, not before a mocking “breathe in, breathe out.” Akhlys permeates the brain with tangible fumes of dread and meticulously developed mists of evil, exquisitely exemplifying the real terror and mystique that define the black metal scene.
Melinoë hovers voraciously over your bed. You, the listener, know you are unable to defend yourself against her, in your state of sleep paralysis. Akhlys exploits this opportunity, and demonically records the soundtrack to the horror movie looped in your dreams.
FFO: Deathspell Omega, Shape of Despair, Emperor, WITTR