May 2026 - Feature Release - The North Edition

For this month's The North feature, I'm going to go with this gem of Hellenic black metal - "Dawn of Martyrdom" (1996) by Agatus. Somewhat overshadowed by classic releases from the likes of Varathron and Rotting Christ, personally, I'd argue Agatus belongs in the same pantheon. The debut full-length in particular executes all the standard Greek black metal tricks expertly, enhanced by longer compositions with the epic-ness cranked to maximum. Strongly recommended!

https://metal.academy/releases/26115

I like the looks of this one, so will definitely give it a spin at some point.

With all the modern variations of black metal it is easy to forget what made it so appealing in the first place. For me, these frosty, often quite simple, tremolo riffs with minimal bass influence, pummelling drums and blastbeats, croaky, cracked vocals intoning lyrics of fantastical occultism and thin and reedy, cheap-sounding synth overlays are a much-appreciated reminder of what it was about black metal that initially spoke to me. In truth, I think a lot of early black metal was actually far more accessible than it is given credit for. It wasn't always the home of the dissonant and avant-garde boundary-pushers it plays host to a lot of the time now and its roots in thrash, speed and particularly death metal were often quite apparent. Of course this is all relative and at the time it was more of a revolution than it appears in hindsight aided, no doubt, by a lot of the myths and legends that surrounded some of the prime movers. What I am getting at with this lengthy preamble is that listening to "Dawn of Martyrdom" for the first time, thirty years after its original release, has been a major positive experience for me, reigniting some of the fire that I felt when first getting into black metal, a fire that has been doused somewhat by a genre that has moved well beyond its original boundaries into areas that too frequently now leaves me unmoved.

In common with many from the Hellenic black metal scene, Agatus sit at the more melodic end of the black metal spectrum with riffs that are generally mid-paced rather than frantically pummelling and which owe a lot to traditional heavy metal's inherent melodicism, allowing each track an identity of its own and giving them quite a high memorability factor alongside a greater degree of accessibility than some of the more kvlt acts of the 90s. Now, personally I think there is plenty of room within the black metal realm for both the melodic and the kvlt with no contradiction in enjoying both. There is a definite tinge of Immortal to the Greeks' debut, a band that proved that you didn't have to only have ultra lo-fi production and relentless blastbeats to sit at black metal's top table, with tracks such as "Spirits From the Depths of Earth" and the opener "Under the Spell of the Dragon" feeling like they would be perfectly at home on the Norwegian's "At the Heart of Winter" album. I am not implying that this is by any means over-produced, not at all, it is still quite sparse production-wise, but it does have just enough meat on its bones to melt some of that nordic frostiness and infuse it with some Aegean brine instead, feeling less like disembodied voices from snow-covered forests and more like natural spirits calling down from mystical island mountaintops.

Very much in similar vein to Immortal's Ravendark mythos, "Dawn of Martyrdom" feels like Agatus are pulling you into an overarching saga rather than just praising satan and cursing religion, unsurprising from a band that calls the bithplace of Homeric epic home. Three of the tracks are quite lengthy, the two already mentioned and the nine-minute "King of the Forest", and these more epic affairs are where Agatus really excel, allowing their penchant for epic storytelling free rein and being my favourites as a result. This isn't the whole story of course, the short, frantic "Black Moon's Blood" sees the band proving that they can kick it with the Darkthrone's of the world and following track "When the Macabre Dance Begins" and the closer, "Nostalgia...", are interludes that sound like the music to formal medieval dances, but generally speaking, they stick to the mid-paced and melodic formula that seems to suit them so well.

I have been on a bit of a trad metal kick over the last few months as I have gone back to metal's 80s heyday with some targeted listening and I think that has really set me up to appreciate this chunk of Homeric Black Metal and its more melodic approach to black metal songwriting. Listening to this has made me wonder why I have never dived deeply into the Hellenic BM scene, a state of affairs it has made me determined to rectify. If you fancy Immortl with a bit of a medieval bent then give this a blast and I don't think you will regret it.

84/100

Who the heck are Agatus? According to the internet, they have been at it for nearly thirty-five-years, yet I have never heard of them. Albeit they inhabit a geography of black metal that I rarely visit, in the Hellenic scene. They certainly sound like they are from that scene but do sound a tad colder in their style when compared to the still similar sounds of Rotting Christ and Varathron. Like those fellow Greeks, the simplicity of Agatus’ sound is endearing, somehow taking the clumsiness of Bathory and the attack of Absu and making pleasing output from them. Those melodies are the key to the overall success of Dawn of Martyrdom though. That is where the memorability gets an upgrade from those basic structures and stabs of keys.

It is hard to describe the record as being amateur. Despite it not really stretching its legs all that much, Dawn of Martyrdom still is welcome to stay the full length of its near fifty-one-minute runtime. Once it is playing, I find it hard to turn off, even though it is doing nothing remarkable. This style of black metal is important to remind us all that black metal grew around this bare aesthetic over many decades, but I missed the inception of this genre and so most of the time when I find a record that I have missed from the 90’s, I roll my eyes a little and think “oh, this sound again”. However, Agatus just have a real authenticity to their sound making their debut difficult to resist.

It is no hidden gem or missed classic for my money as these ideas have all been done already and done much better in fact. That’s not to say that I fail to enjoy the album though. Agatus can more than string together a tune, even if the variety factor suffers here (albeit it’s a black metal album so I must base part of my rating on how well it maintains those conventional tropes of repetition and mundane grimness). I would say the standout factor is the attack of the album, which is dogged in its determination to say the least. It may have melody galore and picked string passages drifting around the place but ultimately the album is on the front foot for a lot of the time. If you like the Hellenic scene then you cannot go wrong with Dawn of Martyrdom.

3.5/5