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Aphelion – II [EP]

aphelion – ii [ep]

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Aphelion don’t wait for too long with releasing material. I already wrote some notes about their first Ep “I”. In the same year they also released their 2nd EP “II” and expect nothing than Death/Black Metal!

After some Burzum’esque like intro the crushing old school Black Metal Of Death hits with anger and continues where they left with “I”. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower but always taking care to have the right balance and even throwing in some more Heavy Metal riffing in it like in “Weathered”.

The morbid atmosphere is graveyard like on “Vacant Throne”, probably my favourite track (Mayhem  comes to mind…). If you want to know how the suiting soundtrack to an audience with death can be, then listen to “An Audience with Death”, the more melodic side of Aphelion, pushing forward with fast blasts and slightly oriental riffing before morphing into a more like Prog Black Metal track with clean guitars, Negative Plane like, progressing more and more into Maiden like territories (gotta love that bass). Would love to see the band trying more of this.

There is no doubt that Aphelion are excellent musicians and know how to incorporate interesting ideas from other subgenres as wellt o keep the music flowing and captivating. The song with the highest amount of variety is probably “Fed to Fathoms”, which continues where the previous track has left and pushes the melodic and progressive aspects even more, always being aware of the core, Black Metal, which then goes back to more Nordic and frosty sounds on the last track, beautifully arranged and full of killer riffs (that main riff!!) and twists.

Last time I wrote about Winter like weather while writing, this time it’s not only cold but also raining a lot, so this kind of Black Metal is definitely the fitting sound. Cool! (DPF)

Self-Released

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