Ἀ​ν​τ​ι​τ​ι​μ​ω​ρ​ο​υ​μ​έ​ν​η

Hoplites has quickly made a name for itself in the metal underground due to solid modern black metal and the insane work ethic of JL, the young man behind this one-man outfit, who released three full-length albums in 2023 alone! And that is aside from his other black metal project Vitriolic Sage, on top of being a full-time graduate student and learning languages for fun.

We could reasonably expect that a young musician releasing so much material in a short time might spread himself thin, but far from that, here we have what is in my opinion Hoplites’ best album. The furiously fast avant-gardish black metal that we got acquainted with on the two previous LPs is here, with lots of layers and high-pitched guitar sounds more associated with post-metal or noise rock than black or death metal, a somewhat mechanical and subdued drumming, and the inevitable Deathspell Omega-style riffing. Oftentimes there’s even an industrial feel, stemming from the coldness and the shrieking sawblade guitar effects.

I’m quite a fan of the sub-sub-genre, with Theophonos and Thantifaxath having released excellent albums in 2023 as well. But whereas some other bands operating in the avant-garde/prog black metal world might rely too much on anxiogenic ambiances, cacophony and dissonance (including, to a decent extent, the other two albums from Hoplites), here there is also a huge focus on extremely catchy simple riffs, like the main riff in Ἡ τῆς ὕβρεως ἄγγελος (the fifth track, for the Greek-challenged folks like me), which never fails to make me clench my fist in auditory ecstasy. This makes the album much more worthy of revisiting, as let’s be real, even people like myself who enjoy low-accessibility extreme metal usually enjoy it in small doses, and here you have a lot of passages that pull me back towards the album. It also has the potential to please a metalhead who typically doesn’t listen to avant-garde dissonant black metal, should he have the open mind to give it a try.

The album is quite fast-paced, without some anguish-inducing noise passages found elsewhere in the Vitriolic Sage/Hoplites catalog, though at times it does slow down a tad and picks up the pace again, either gradually or suddenly. And though the focus is on guitars here, there are interesting moments on the rhythm side of things, such as the part in Track 9, Χάος, which sounds like a homage to Fear Factory, and I particularly like the tempo change in the second and sixth tracks Ἀντιτιμώρημα and Ὁπλῖτις, respectively. Overall, we are dealing with black/death metal beats, unlike previous Hoplites offerings like Ψευδομένη which have droning avant-garde black metal riffing passages with quasi-jazzy or minimal drum patterns.

Regarding the vocals, generally speaking, JL is unfortunately not the best vocalist out there. I feel bad for pointing it out, since I myself sing like a cast-iron pan falling down a set of stairs and also I do empathize with the DIY spirit of solo multi-instrumentalists, especially multi-instrumentalists living in an insignificant city in China with few if any metalheads around, but some of his projects, especially in the more straightforward black metal style of Vitriolic Sage, could have been elevated by the presence of a mercenary vocalist. However, on this album, the vocal performance is excellent and highly complementary to the music. Vocals are either shrieks or shouts or spoken word, far behind in the mix to fit with the cold atmosphere, and there isn’t an overabundance of them, in fact some tracks are 80% instrumental. I gotta also love the Tom G. Warrior “Urghs” before the nice thrashy moments!

All in all an excellent album, one of my absolute favorites of 2023. There’s something in there for aficionados of this particular style of obscure modern black metal, as well as any extreme metal bro who just wants to headbang on some good fast riffs.