A Post-death/Experimental Death Metal Band from the UK1. On July 23rd, 2019, Acherontia Styx released their debut EP album, “Your Possible Pasts,” which would gratify fans of Arch Enemy, The Haunted, and Soilwork. The album was released through the band’s self-owned label, Dwarrowdelf Records.
Acherontia Styx, Your Possible Pasts: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Your Possible Pasts
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of Acherontia Styx and their album Your Possible Pasts.
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features hateful groovy/death-like riffs that are deep, dark, and full of hooks and tempo changes, with a marriage of hell-bent bass licks. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Involves harsh vocals, while embossing low (deep) rough grunts with a hint of grindcore. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Delves into the vast world of dark, hateful, various tempo changes and groovy bone-crushing beats/raw blast beats.
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion: A heartbreaking story, and human meat consumption in graphic detail.
When the listener hits that play button, the listener is welcomed to the opening title track, Your Possible Pasts, which opens a book of four stories.
Focus on the opening song, Your Possible Pasts, which opens to a dark sound of acoustic and slow drum beats, clean vocals, and the telling of the first story. “A telling of a tale about the heartbreaking death of a loved one, drug addiction, and near-death experience, and the constant battle with personal demons ending in a panic attack – before breaking (approx two minutes into the song) into this bleak blackened death-doom sound, that is heavy and crushing, that’s laced with a mechanical groove-laden/Stockholm death metal soundscape.”
Following suit with the second song and story, Fallen focuses on and tells the tale of “Lucifer’s expulsion from the heavens to the fire pits of hell.” Fallen opens with an incantation/summoning that welcomes the listener to a fiery pit of hell brutalization sound, thus leaving the final two songs and stories.
Lecter is the third song, based on the Thomas Harris character of the same name. Famous for his meticulous nature and fine banquets, the song describes human meat consumption in graphic detail.
Overall, Acherontia Styx has a synonymous signature sound that captures and embraces various elements and influences within its music.
These include technical/Swedish old-school death metal, rapid-fire kick drums with guitar riffs reminiscent of industrial metal, slow sections of doom metal, black metal, experimental artists/experimental music, and various tempos/moods.
The album comes to an end with the last song and final story, Eyes Of Glass. Maintaining the Thomas Harris influence that inspired our name. Eyes Of Glass aimed to take listeners right inside the head of fictional serial killer Francis Dollarhyde, complete with swirling psychosis inspired voices provided by over a dozen guest vocalists from all around the world. Eyes Of Glass features guest vocals from ten additional vocalists into a bouncing whirlwind of hooks and grooves. At the same time, the beautiful fruit of art, Tracy Moore, provides the female operatic voice part and tells the struggle of another of ‘Thomas Harris’ characters, Francis Dolarhyde. It is also a pioneering endeavour by the band to unite musicians worldwide to provide the voices of Dolarhyde, losing his mind to the voices within. He inserts pieces of a broken mirror into the eyes of his victims.
We want to give a shoutout to Acherontia Styx for letting us review their album, Your Possible Pasts. Now, we’re going to wrap it up by talking about the final three sins and concluding the review.
You’re Listening to “Your Possible Pasts”
PlayThe Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins of Acherontia Styx and their album Your Possible Pasts.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia:
For us, Your Possible Pasts are laced with lotions in baskets of extraordinary devilmanship, complex music structure, and four equally solid, strongly composed songs while giving the listener an energetic delight of mechanical onslaught (horror-ish/nightmare-ish) groove/post-death metal.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
Having seen many horror movies, a ring is usually a sign that a ring belongs to a loved one or a deceased loved one—but also an excellent reference to the “glass eye” (aka broken mirrors into the eyes of the victims)
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
Nothing to disrelish within the musical spectrum of Acherontia Styx, and their album Your Possible Past.
This concludes the Acherontia Styx, Your Possible Past review.
Track-listing:
- Your Possible Pasts
- Fallen
- Lecter
- Eyes Of Glass
Acherontia Styx Is:
- Grant “Ron Bassman” Crossan: lead vocals, bass
- Paul “Dinenthal” Taylor: guitar, vocals, bass, and keys
- Jake Burden: drums
- Adam Ashbridge: guitars, lead guitars, production
- Tracy Moore (Primitive Machine): – guest operatic voice
- Linn Liv: guest vocals
- Hailing from the same home town as “Venom, Raven & Tygers of Pan Tang” Newcastle-Upon-Tyne ↩︎
Band/Artist Links:
