Today, Greek black metallers Thyrathen premiere the new track “Religious Agonies” at Decibel magazine’s website. The track is the second to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated second album, Lakonic, set for international release on November 1st via Floga Records. Hear Thyrathen‘s “Religious Agonies” in its entirety exclusively HERE.
Formed in 2011 but not making their public debut until ten years later, Thyrathen nevertheless are a vanguard for ancient Hellenic black METAL. That debut, the full-length ThanatOpsis, featured a godly lineup – drummer Corax S. (ex-Nocternity and Jackal’s Truth), guitarist A.Z. (ex-Kawir and Obsecration), and vocalists Stefan Necroabyssious (Varathron, Funeral Storm, Katavasia) and Alexandros (Macabre Omen, The One) – and the results were, unsurprisingly, godly. Here was that classic Greek sound, given deeper and darker drama through a framework of both fantasy and philosophy, but looking within for inspiration rather than without. Put another way, Thyrathen slotted well into the lineage its principal members helped shape, but ThanatOpsis was entirely its own creation. A Mount Olympus to eclipse, as it were…
Somehow, Thyrathen have scaled that mount once again, and indeed have eclipsed the feat with their second album. Titled Lakonic, the band’s sophomore full-length stays true to their noble foundation, but goes bigger and bigger and BIGGER. Thyrathen here create a vast and epic landscape that’s poetic and philosophical in equal measure, illuminated by the torch of That Classic Greek Sound but skillfully maximizing the METAL aspect of black metal. Once again, neither keys nor synths have been used. Instead, as on the debut, ancient lyre and choirs & voices constitute the lyrical part of Thyrathen‘s music, giving an impossibly rich texture to their heavy metal hymns that’s solemn, ceremonial, and simply stunning. The lineup sees the return of Corax S., Stefan Necroabyssious, and Alexandros, and also the arrival of Noch from Greece’s Black Winter on guitar, bass, and choirs and Thanasis Kleopas on ancient lyre and voices. Together, these men weave a tapestry of sound that engages upon first listen and then works an ever-more-entrancing spell as successive spins seduce the listener.
Both counterpart to and continuation of ThanatOpsis, Lakonic goes one step further and consolidates the unique character & music style of Thyrathen as “diachronic, lyrical black metal,” in their own words. With seven songs in 47 minutes, this second album is a coherent, poetic-epic, and theatrical journey: it creates images, it flows joyfully in its entirety, and it adds further to the brilliant canon Thyrathen are building.
In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “Religious Agonies” exclusively HERE, courtesy of Decibel, North America’s only monthly metal magazine. Also hear the previously revealed “Η Πόλις (the Philosophical Poem)” exclusively HERE at the Black Metal Promotion YouTube channel. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Thyrathen’s Lakonic
1. The Throne of Micro-Cosmos (Foolishness) [5:45]
2. Religious Agonies [5:13]
3. Matter, Void, Sperm [6:29]
4. De Rerum Natura [5:51]
5. Η Πόλις (the Philosophical Poem) [7:49]
6. Void, Matter, Sperm [6:51]
7. Scales & Sword (the Fall of Justice) [7:16]
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