We know from the first three records released by Melan Selas (Melan Selas, Ῥέοn, and ΦΑΟΣ) that this black metal band is capable of quite significant variations and contrasts in their music, but what perhaps tends to stay most firmly rooted in memory are the songs where the band let the adrenaline throttle all the way out and fly toward elevated heights.
There is where they most powerfully reveal themselves as part of the modern vanguard carrying forward many of the old traditions of unmistakably Hellenic black metal, with its embrace of classic heavy metal riffing, epic keyboards, and an atmosphere that’s just as magnificent as it is fierce and ripping.
As it happens, that’s the kind of Melan Selas song we have for you today, a heart-palpitating and highly infectious track named “Dreadful Dome” off the band’s new album Zephyrean Hymns, and it’s presented through a lyric video.
Photo by by Georg Iffert
Lyrically, the song narrates (in scorching shrieks) a grim, haunting, and ultimately revelatory travelogue, as if climbing with the narrator up the steep, forest-steepled hills in the video, beneath the misty skies that form the looming dreadful dome of the song’s title. As for the music, it’s sinister but wildly exhilarating.
As the protagonist ascends in that fateful journey, the song charges ahead from beginning to end, propelled by furious drumming, and from the beginning the music sweeps like the breadth of skies. But even less than a minute into this electrifying foray, the other ingredients of the song begin to be revealed — flurries of jittering and darting fretwork and vivid doses of pulsating heavy metal riffage.
Moreover, the drumming, while given to bursts of jet-fast blasting, also startles with fleet acrobatic fills and episodes of start-stop militaristic snare-work, anchored by a vivid bass pulse. This may be a steep climb on foot, but musically the song takes wing like a raptor, rising on synth thermals and exultantly flashing forward high above the earth, the veins beating with the drive of a savage heart.
For those who may be encountering Melan Selas for the first time, it’s a duo consisting of D.K. (Riffobia, Katavasia), who handles all instruments, and lyricisit/vocalist Astraea (Oletir).
Their new album Zephyrean Hymns will be released by The Circle Music on September 22nd of this year. “A quest through space and time, an ascension to something greater… Zephyrean Hymns lead our cause” — this is how the band describe the new album. And once again, the album isn’t all the same thing. In addition to raging riffs and scalding screams, it’s also capable of engrossing listeners in seductive vocals traveling with dreamy melodies.
The album is available for pre-order in different formats: A5 Digipack CD (limited to 500 copies), black vinyl with printed inserts (limited to 500 copies), and in a black box edition embossed in silver (limited to 100 copies) that includes the vinyl, the CD, and a zip hoodie. For more info, check the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
A5 Digipack CD: https://thecirclemusic.gr/product-category/the-circle-releases/?filter_artist-name=melan-selas
Black vinyl: https://thecirclemusic.gr/product-category/the-circle-releases/?filter_artist-name=melan-selas
Black Box embossed in Silver: https://thecirclemusic.gr/product-category/the-circle-releases/?filter_artist-name=melan-selas
Black T-shirt: https://thecirclemusic.gr/product/melan-selas-zephyrean-hymns-t-shirt/
Black Zip Hoodie: https://thecirclemusic.gr/product/melan-selas-zerhyrean-hymns-zip-hoodie/
MELAN SELAS:
https://www.facebook.com/MELANSELAS
https://melanselas.bandcamp.com/music