Review by Vladimir on January 18, 2024.

It's time to check out some greek black metal with themes of ancient horrors and deities, and in this review, I'll be covering the band Shavalyoth from Rhodes, with their second EP Μαρχωσιάς, released on October 4th, 2023 via the label Hellenic Metal World.

The EP opens with an ambient track 'Ύμνος Στον Λύκο Της Αβύσσου' which contains drum and guitar build ups and Greek spoken word. After that, it is traditional black metal with tremolo picking riffs, fast drums with double-bass, and harsh vocals that have a bit of dry growling on the third track 'Βάαλ (Ο Βασιλεύς Της Κολάσεως)', but this track in particular also uses some mid-tempo rhythm with melodic riffing and cosmic keyboards. The final track 'Σαμαηλ (Ο Πρίγκηψ Του Ερέβους)' has a nice keyboard intro before being followed with double-bass drumming and tremolo riffing, but switching to mid-tempo rhythm towards the end.

The songwriting is rather simple and they seem to use elements of cosmic black metal bands such as Odium or The Covenant, even with all the themes of ancient gods, horror and evil, however their song ideas do seem to vary a lot from one part to another. For the most part, the songs seem to have some moderately dynamic flow that nicely switches from one section to another, having a consistent and focused arrangement all throughout. The only real downside that I have with this album are two things, that being the vocals. The performance itself feels a bit too forced, despite the fact that they are traditional black metal vocals which express the harsh voice, however personally it doesn't really seem that great. The sound production is raw but still slightly polished, with there being instances of different distorted guitar tones that switch from one to another.

Personally, this isn't really a terrible album or anything, in fact it is rather okay, but in the end it doesn't really leave that big of an impression if you ask me. I think that the band has some good ideas here and there, and they do seem to deal with interesting concepts, however I also believe that the band can certainly do so much better in order to make their work stand out even more.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Review by Adam M on September 10, 2019.

Hath perform a very interesting form of death metal that has a lot of layers to it.  The music has a typical death metal feel, but with interesting sections added in to make it feel broader in nature.  It has really crazy guitar riffs that make it almost a technical death metal release at times, but they are held in check by solid songwriting that makes it more like a typical death metal release.  Add in acoustic portions and changes in heaviness throughout and you have a fairly diverse album that is one of the better ones from the death metal genre so far this year. 

The track lengths are fairly long which enable the band to demonstrate their songwriting skills and depth to adequate measure.  There are equal parts Cryptopsy and Morbid Angel here.  The technical portions are counterbalanced by moodier portions that make this a varied and interesting release. There are extended sections of noodling, but they are kept in a confined position by the structure of the work.  It still isn’t perfect and tends to lose out a bit in the progressive death metal stakes as it isn’t completely committed to that facet.  Thus bands like Death have material that is more interesting and fulfilling than what is found here. 

Still, with such a colourful, varied and impactful sound, this ends up being one of the more rewarding death metal albums of the year so far.  If it wasn’t for the vicious vocal style, this would be more comparable to an older Opeth release with all the dynamics present.  Still, the music is definitely heavier sounding than Opeth at even its most extreme and brings some huge chops to the table.  Of Rot and Ruin is definitely a thoughtful and impactful death metal release.

Rating: 7.7 out of 10