Review by Rexorcist for Hoplites - Παραμαινομένη (2024)

I finally got through the previous albums of the Hoplites catalog, all so I can get to the one black metal album of 2024 that RYM seems to absolutely love.  I've been watching the 2024 charts for a while but haven't gotten around to this album yet.  I was focusing on other genres for a while and needed some more albums of different genres in my top 1000 albums.  See, the reason for that is because I was afraid of having too much metal there, and that this album might make it considering how much everyone loves it.  Since I have room for it now, I'm gonna give it a shot.

Instead of the three-to-seven minute energetic busts that we got on the last three albums, Hoplites surprises us with an evershifting avant-garde mess that's not only the most extreme album he's done so far, but is one of his most shifting and intriguing, going from one place to another at rapid pace without breaking the flow.  This is perfect for him since previous efforts have been very repetitive.  Our opening track has some saxophone at the beginning and end providing an extra backdrop for the insanity, for example.  No matter what's going on, the album is constantly going for over-composed insanity on epic scales.

Unfortunately, even though the songs do a lot, the emotional tone and end result of each song is ONCE AGAIN exactly the same.  You'd think with Hoplites' love of molding genres he'd have grown past that by now.  A five-star artist should be able to do multiple kinds of emotional cores if he's going to work with multiple sounds.  It's like the guy only really likes one type of song.  There's a lot of imagination in this album and that ONE THING gets in the way.  Sure, there are a couple of jazzy moments, and we can pretty much say that track 5 is a metalcore song, which is a little different, so there's that.

So despite that one flaw still being present, it's safe to say that Hoplites has made another improvement, and is now steering into Frank Zappa levels of experimental absurdity with overpowering effect.  This is music for those who love extreme music and for those who love extremities in general.  It's no wonder this is one of the highest rated metal albums of 2023.  This is imagination that almost breaks new ground for metal.