Review by Sonny for Akhlys - Melinoë (2020)

Carrying on the stellar work from 2015's The Dreaming I, Naas Alcameth (aka Kyle Spanswick) has produced another album of challenging, yet still immensely listenable, atmospheric black metal. Compositionally exceptional and atmospherically menacing, this is exactly the kind of modern black metal I enjoy the most. Ambient passages in BM albums usually provide some respite from the blasting, but here they just serve to ramp up the menace to even higher levels - for proof hear how Succubare builds the demonic haunting vibe up until all hell is let loose on Ephialtes. The blasting, such as on standout Pnigalion, takes the (demonic) form of huge, great walls of sound that you don't merely listen to - they invade your ears and swarm your brain like the infestation of flies in The Amityville Horror that so put the shits up Rod Steiger! For me the only album that has created a comparable, albeit very different, black metal atmosphere this year is Paysage d'Hiver's Im Wald and that is pretty good company to be in I can assure you. In common with The Dreaming I this also has one scary-looking cover that perfectly illustrates what you are about to hear within the enclosed grooves and the overall package is a superb exercise in creating a great horror movie experience in music form.
As a proviso, I know and understand that their are ideological questions surrounding the beliefs of Akhlys and I get it that people are turned off their music as a result, but this is often the case in black metal and I have learned to separate artist from art so this is purely a judgement based on the music alone.