It is a truth universally acknowledged that the black metal genre tag is used more widely and wildly than any other. As someone who’ll listen to just about everything described as weirdo black metal, this is both a curse and a blessing. Take today’s case study, Lord Agheros and their seventh album, Anhedonia. It’s listed as black metal just about everywhere one can look but is it actually a leading component?
You know this is a build up to a no.
The standout component of Anhedonia is the various forms of vocals. There’s a children’s choir on “Harmony of Despair” here, some soaring Lisa Gerrard-esque vocals on “Lament of the Lost” there, some more of them supported by chanting on “Lost Dreams Ritual” and “Ancient Echoes”, and so on. There’s also a fair amount of rasping screams that are admittedly black metal-esque and provide a pleasing contrast. It’s impressive and enjoyable although I am quite skeptical of the claim that Lord Agheros‘ sole member, Gerassimos Evangelou, is responsible for all vocals. To support this, Evangelou gives us plenty of mainly quiet and withdrawn melodies, with lots of shimmering piano and some somber violin on “Eclipse of Hope”. The beauty and beast song compositions does mean we rarely go that long without some distorted guitars, but even here the riffs often sound more doom metal. When they do go for a more black metal tremolo, as with “Sorrow’s Shroud”, the production has a tendency to bury that and any double bass going on in a wall of noise and over-loud cymbals. I can hear my fellow writers going “production issues sounds pretty black metal to me” but this is the wrong type of production issue. In any case, it’s not ideal but doesn’t do that much to detract from enjoying Anhedonia as a beautiful piece of gothic atmosphere. But as black metal?
Anhedonia clearly stretches the black metal genre tag a very long way. Yes, you can hear practices inherited from black metal bands in Lord Agheros‘ work, but they’re all quite divorced from the traditional framework. Yet without using that genre tag, without expressing a desire to belong to that movement, I’d have maybe missed this and that’d have been a shame. Muddy loud sections aside, Anhedonia is an elegantly pleasant companion to these long nights. Jumping at weirdo black metal bands mightn’t be a good way to find black metal, but it does solid work in finding something interesting and dark. And Lord Agheros’ Anhedonia is just that.
