ALBUM REVIEW: Zephyrean Hymns – Melan Selas
Even within Greece’s fantastic black metal underground, MELAN SELAS are one of the most impressive and promising acts, having crafted a lot of magnificent music in a very short space of time. As early as their 2018 debut album Ῥέοn, the band’s sound was clearly defined as incredibly melodic, heavy metal-inspired black metal that sounded extremely warm and bombastic at points, with this and its follow up, 2019’s Φάος, establishing the band as a force to be reckoned with. Now, after four years of creative dormancy, the band are back with their third full-length, Zephyrean Hymns, a stunning record that not only refines their style, but expands on it significantly, with the end result being arguably their best work to date.
Mountain Tops is an incredibly powerful start, with tight guitars and steady, percussive drumming backing up dramatic vocals that duck and weave between spoken word and shrieks with ease, providing a solid focal point around which the slicker elements are built as ambient keyboards inject an ethereal edge into this impressively epic and slow-burning affair. Frozen Lake serves as a spirited take on the formula of the opening track, with bursts of intensity and a preponderance for harsher vocals punctuating the light and punchy sound. Its grandiose leads and muscular rhythms create an urgent but thoroughly catchy sound that couples searing blackened flourishes with a sharper, dancing heavy metal undercurrent.
Humble Soil, with its thunderous drums and bleaker guitar sound, pushes the music further into black metal territory, with the bombastic side of the band’s sound taking a backseat in favour of bellicose vocals and subtly jarring hooks, whilst remaining firmly within a mid-paced, atmospheric approach. The denser guitar sound and prominent bass add depth to an already meaty sound, turning this into a brooding offering that brilliantly lets the band’s sombre side come to the fore. Trumpets Of War takes on a biting, speed-driven style that departs significantly from the sound of the preceding three tracks, with short, sharp shocks of cacophony, blistering riffs, frenetic drums and visceral vocal lines pushing this into the realms of blackened thrash, with the melodic touches that have dominated the music so far being stripped away for the most part and replaced with belligerent chords. It’s still focused and impactful, but shows a fiercer, more aggressive side to the band that makes for a change of pace that immediately grabs the listener’s attention.
Dreadful Dome, a shorter but nonetheless vicious outing, takes the ferocity of the last song and pairs it with grandiose keys and melody-driven guitars, heading towards symphonic black metal without straying from the underlying heavy metal influence, twisting the formula of the last couple of songs into a stringent and domineering one and blending together a range of styles that have been present so far to result in a track that is not only the album’s hardest so far, but arguably its most memorable. Darkened Cliff reverts to a ponderous pace, layered musicianship and hypnotic spoken word vocals, adopting the style of the album’s opener but presenting a darker, more melancholic version of it, with chaotic passages and acoustic flourishes balancing the band’s lighter sound with their more noxious one to become easily one of the album’s most eclectic numbers.
Wanderer, a fleeting interlude centred around keyboards, soaring vocals and acoustic guitars, serves not only as a musical break from the rest of the album, but also a magnificent segue into the album’s final track, Ancient Scrolls; this is a great closer, with chunky guitars and rumbling drums lending this a doom-laden quality that contrasts perfectly with the shrill vocals, crafting a monolithic sound with a grating element to it, and capturing the epic side of the band’s sound with some rabid touches to bring this album to a close in a bombastic way that caps things off brilliantly.
This is one of those albums that feels, even from quite early on in the record, like hearing a band that are finally hitting their stride musically and consolidating their sound and becoming far more confident as songwriters. Unlike a lot of Greek black metal acts, who have a tendency to find their lane and stick well within it, MELAN SELAS do a great job of throwing enough variety into this album to make it far more engrossing, from the solid blackened heavy metal of the earliest songs through to the caustic blackened thrash, doom and even folk elements that creep into the sound later on, all of which contribute to an album that it is much easier to get immersed in. The broadening of the band’s core sound pays off, and with any luck this diversity of influences will be continued on whatever they have planned next.
Rating: 9/10
Zephyrean Hymns is out now via The Circle Music.
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