Dekadent - The Nemean Ordeal (2019)^{Release ID: 24177}

Slovenians Dekadent's fifth album has been four years in the making and it shows in the maturation of the songs and their performance. Their frontman, Artur Felicijan, claims that they "really wanted to go the extra mile with The Nemean Ordeal, to showcase what we’re capable of.” I am happy to report that this is no idle boast and that the band truly are stretching out and adding a real progressiveness to their melodic black metal sound, the result of which is an intelligent and complex album that is at once both visceral and uplifting, the darkness woven through with soaring melodies as exemplified on the final track, the masterful The Nemean Ordeal (Death of a Lion). Highly recommended for anyone with a love of progressive black metal.