Hades

Production: Warm rounded production that emphasizes bass and vocals while maintaining a comfortable space for guitars and drums, creating relatively little distortion between those levels. Production is somewhat flat and tape-y, losing dynamic range on some sounds. Overall reasonably representative of the style of the music.

Review: In pursuit of the Viking ethic of rock Hades have like many contemporary bands have explored minimalistic dirges that echo the stomp of marching men or oars in a warship, using simple beats and resonating downstroke riffs to bring an atmosphere of primitive warfare and social conquest.

The atavistic mandate underlies the sentiment of despair and the feral hopelessness of nihilism, but at the core this is ethnic pop music, roaring out simple beats with a broad strum barraging chords into the ear over the simple walking beat of highhat syncopation to a slapping stridemarker, breaking riffs into ascending and descending pieces or emphasisizing the consistency of an aggressive beat.

Most rhythmic patterns are absolutely regressive in nature and are constructed from a motion awareness of an overall rhythm, rather than composition of relative rhythmic intervals to create a grid of definitive rhythm.

Consequently it sets a space in which the riff is glad to intrude, forcing the dominant downstroke pattern as the part of the guitar playing that is heard that is not a distorted overflow of recombinant melody.

This is not articulated to the level of, say, Burzum, but Hades easily better Storm and Isengard at this technique and compete well with DarkThrone or Throne of Ahaz for this sound of metal. Useful accompaniment by both guitars, and clean acoustic interludes, garnish an engaging meal.

The music is relatively predictable but has its surprises, and articulates well its emotion. Three songs: Unholy Congregation, Hecate (Queen of Hades), and Alone Walkyng, of which the second was on their full-length debut.