This will be the fifth album by Germany's dark metal band Agathodaimon. Yes, dark metal that is what they call it themselves. To me it is as interesting as the inside of a horse’s ass what you call it. As long as it is metal it will do. The CD kicks of with the song "Heliopolis". First two bands entering my mind are Children of Bodom and Cradle of Filth. Halfway through the song I understand why they want to call it dark metal; I guess it is because of the slower more dramatic, gothic kind of parts with clean singing in some of the songs.
Very frequently they add those clean dramatic vocals to their songs, just listen to the second track and you will understand what I mean. In most of the heavy songs we hear the keyboard which puts a nice melodic layer underneath the music. "Decline" is a song in Children of Bodom-style, but Agathodaimon adds clean vocals and melodic, dramatic singing parts to the song. "Ghost of a Soul" starts very heavy and Ashtrael's blackened vocals make it a melodic black-metal song. But Agothodaimon would not be Agothodaimon if they didn't do something unexpected in the song, such as a short duet between the clean vocals and the black metal screams.
"Winterchild" combines Type O Negative and Nightwish with Children of Bodom and Cradle of Filth. Again the keyboards see to that even in the heavy parts the music stays very melodic. "Throughout the Fields of Unshaded Grace" is a real kick in the balls, this track is the one leaning mostly towards melodic black metal. The limited first edition digipack includes two bonus tracks (the soundtrack - contribution to "Alone in the Dark" in the original ballade version and a brand new version).
Agathodaimon mixes black, gothic, death and adds a lot of melody. When you are looking for a mixture of Children of Bodom, Nightwish, Type O Negative and Cradle of Filth and don't spit on some dramatic clean singing you should begin to wonder why you are not excited yet. Playing time with bonus songs: over 72 minutes!
