Reviews list for Lord Agheros - Anhedonia (2025)

On paper at least, I would have normally avoided Lord Agheros. That album cover screamed gothic metal at me, and so when I discovered no gothic metal on the record, I was immediately caught off-guard. Indeed, opening track, ‘Lament of the Lost’ had me thinking of Wardruna, which was a completely unexpected reference point. Whilst The Fallen is most certainly the correct clan for Anhedonia, there is a lot of different elements musically to digest. Whether it is symphonic, choral, melodic black metal or outright atmospherics, Anhedonia provides lots of angles for the listener to run at it from. It should be noted that some parts of the album sound truly beautiful, being rich in depth.

When they get the arrangement correct, Lord Agheros are quite the accomplished songwriters. However, there are some occasions whereby contrast the compositional aspects of some tracks are clumsy and cumbersome. In the early part of the album, transitions seem to struggle to land all that well. As a result, songs sound like they jerk and jolt around. As the record progresses, this problem does seem to fade in frequency and the second half of the album suffers a lot less from this.

Overall, though, as much as I cannot deny the unexpected allure of this record, it is still dogged by the impression that some sections of the record are a triumph of design over content. I suspect there is some conceptual narrative to proceedings, and this may go some of the way to explaining the sense of some parts being forced to fit together. Credit where credit is due on the ethereal beauty that is inherent behind these issues, they are truly an unexpected bonus. However, they are too few and far between for me when taken into consideration with the whole album offering.