Death is June - ESOCTRILIHUM : " Eternity of Shaog"

The big thing that this one man band gets right is that it doesn't sound like it is a one man band. The drums are played with comparable skill as the guitars. It also does not adhere to what most death metal coming out of Italy sounds like either as despite the Lovecraft theme, this never sounds like the sound track to a horror movie. The first two songs are excellent. The song writing is nailed while still allowing for experiementation and melody. The third song finds chaos reigning and the results are not as friendly to your ears.This is largely forgiven as   midway into it he pulls his shit together and begins writing a song again. Not blackened death metal, but I can hear how the chaos lends itself to those comparisons.  Not the fastest or darkest death metal. Sometimes the drums do fall further into the mix than they should to make room for things like strings and keyboards which are uneasy compromises . Though more often than not it is pulled off.

There were some folk metal elements introduced on the previous song and those return to a greater extent on "Aylowenn Aela". They are more disonant than frolicking. Suited for the themes of madness that need to be present for Lovecraft. There is a classical piano interlude that I am not counting for the purpose of this review as it does not go any where for it to feel like a song. There are great many dark sonic layers draped over these songs. This works out rather wonderfully for "Amenthlys". The black metal touches are in the scowl of the vocals here. When the song really kicks in two and a half minutes into this it's blazing fast with anger that also recalls black metal , even more so than the chaos of the third song. "Shayr-Thas" blasts out of the previous song. There is a great deal of atmosphere even amid the ragingin blitz.

There us a more straight forward chug on " Namhera". Straightforward is fine at this point considering how weird things have gotten . The song is also only 4 minutes so it works . The title track also falls closer within the more conventional metal bounds thanks to a reocurring riff that could have been from a demo version of an 80s 0zzy track. The last song does have odd touches of atmosphere , but is largely not too far out in left field for death metal.  I will give this one an 8.5, the production could be better , but for what this is it's pretty dope ass death metal that will not bore you. Out on I Void Hanger