Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Language evolves, it becomes corrupted, it takes on the influence of others who seek to overthrow and undermine, and sometimes it flirts with extinction, and arguably dies, exhaling its last moments in a struggle between distinction and meaning.
Language though, the essence of communication between human beings never truly dies, it just changes, it roars, it attains glorious heights, and it enthuses even beyond the grave, regardless of its origins, the ceremony and ritual it is granted pushes all to seek one thing, to be understood.
In Lord Agheros’ first full release in six years, the Sicilian melodic black metal sound is once more impressed upon the world as Koinè makes it’s stand and Gerassimos Evangelou revels in its deliver; and it is a sound that is more in keeping with the ceremonial and the rite of passage than perhaps anything the genius at the heart of the music has placed before the listener before.
To be more intimate with the offering is to place emphasis on ease and the luxury of effortlessness, and yet as the language rises like a rogue wave on the Mediterranean Sea, as it pacifies like a sun-drenched day in summer, the shimmering heat radiating off the islands highest peaks as if caught in some surreal and world forging experiment by the God Vulcan.
It is in the atmosphere provided that Lord Agheros’ Koinè resonates, a seemingly unlimited power of imagination unleashed as language and expression take their place at the forefront, and as the music digs down into the soul so it is to the songs that enlightens, which sends broadcasts and messages out to be deciphered and praised.
Not so much tracks but incursions into the world, launched upon creation in part discovery and part trade, but with domination on their mind, the Walls Of Nowhere, Hold The Line, Sleep Among The Stars, and Litany Of The Hermit, all capture the knowledge that Gerassimos Evangelou is aiming to reveal, that language does not die, it moulds, it merges, it indicates its desire to procreate and assimilate and in this case as East meets West, the extreme surrounding of the music announces itself with a crash of thunder that can be heard across the world.
A creatively superb album, Lord Agheros is back with the sound of a much-awaited storm, one that enhances the heat provided and the shimmer of legend to its fullest.
Lord Agheros release Koinè on February 18th via My Kingdom Music.
Ian D. Hall