Now what the fuck is arcane metal and who is Agheros? The promo sheet labels Lord Agheros as arcane metal, but that really doesn’t mean a damn thing, and for a while I fear the guy behind the band calls himself Lord Agheros as an artist name. Thankfully, though, it’s just a band name. But that also makes me wonder who this Agheros fellow might be. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, just something that came to mind. Nonetheless, Of beauty and sadness is this project’s third album, and since I’m not into ambient influenced music I’ve never come across the band before. The promo sheet also describes this as a mixture of the bombastic sound of Summoning, the film score influences of Ulver, piano-led classical music, opera and folkloristic Mediterranean music. Now that’s something…
I don’t find any opera here, but I suppose I might accept the rest of the description, although I’m a bit iffy on the Summoning bit, and would substitute it for Striborg. It’s not really 'just' an ambient black metal album, though, albeit it most definitely carries a lot of common denominators and aesthetics. The riffing, which of course isn’t always present, has a ‘depressive’ black metal touch to it, but the piano lines often reminisce of both funeral and doom/death metal. Together with the slow drum tempo it leads to a sort of black/doom/gothic/ambience/classical music mishmash. The opener Prayer for a memory has the most prominent folk influences, relying very heavily on Arabic sounding landscapes, and doing so extraordinarily well; really creating an eerie atmosphere. The quiet inside the storm has the only fast moment throughout the entire album, with riffing reminiscent of some modern gothically flavoured metal and fast bass drum action. It works quite well in spicing things up and creating sort of a break from the otherwise gloomy and melancholic music, but is far from the most powerful material presented.
Lord Agheros’ strong suit is definitely the atmosphere, often created by slick piano lines, minor orchestrations, a sudden howling scream, some samplings and a slow drum tempo. Everything’s very sparsely used, besides the keyboard, which is present in various ways pretty much throughout the entire thing. The ending track, which is an orchestral version of a song previously released on another album, has a real eerie touch to it, much thanks to the mellow and haunting female vocals. That’s something I wouldn’t mind included a little more in the music, since it could be used to create an even eerier atmosphere, as long as it’s tastefully and sparsely used. As it is now Of beauty and sadness is interesting, but it’s not something I’d put on again anytime soon; it’s not really my kind of music.
Originally written for My Last Chapter