Elegeion - Plight of the Heretic (2022)

Unleashing a monolithic piece of highly engaging and melancholy oozing music, today we have Elegeion, with their first full-length release in 17 years, and “Plights of the Heretic”. Hailing from Australia, Elegeion was one of those bands that we got introduced to via the Modern Invasion Music label, the other band was a personal favorite: Chalice. Continuing exactly where they left off, but with a mostly new line-up, we are treated to 49 minutes of heart-wrenching melancholic music.

The release starts with the album title track featuring some engaging and mysterious momentum building percussion. Around the second and third minute of this song, the Elegeion signature melodic riffs and guitar leads come in alongside Kindabah’s solemn and excellent vocals. The band’s sound is quite unique to them, and its creator Anthony Kwan, but for the uninitiated, it's highly melancholic and yet straightforward. The somber melancholy perfectly bleeds into the excellent “Dust” and its lush string arrangements paired with harsh vocals and a very Doomy tempo.

For over 14-minutes, “Somber Skies” unleashes a wide variety of heavy riffs, crafty tempo changes, and plenty of disarming acoustic/instrumental passages. This particular song will send chills down your spine and bring back memories of those 2000’s Gothic Death/Doom days of bands like Theater of Tragedy, old Tristania, etc. One the heavier side with some Depressive/Atmospheric Black Metal vibes, we have “The Blazing Tempest”, however, the band’s signature sound is not far behind as the darkness and gloominess quickly returns in the second half of the song

Closing the release with a more exploratory and yet engaging piece in “The Disease”, we get a nice Doomy piece that slowly closes this magical release. Overall, we never imagined that we would be receiving this album as a promo this year, we actually lost track of the band for quite a while, so it was quite nice to hear they are ‘back’. For those unfamiliar with Elegeion, if you like Doom Metal with harsh vocals, additional instrumentation, and a hefty dose of melancholy and female vocals, it probably won’t get any better than this album in 2022.

Label: Self-Released

Release: May 1st, 2022

Genre: Atmospheric Doom/Gothic/Black Metal

Country: Australia