A MUSIC REVIEW: Ὁπλίτης [Hoplites]-Παραμαινομένη (Paramainomeni)

WARNING: This review is a mess, as i'm trying my best to put how much i liked this album in words.

Ὁπλίτης [Hoplites] is a chinese black metal (to put it on a very strict definition) one man project, more specially, it's the brain child of Ningbo-born Liu Zhenyang, who also makes music under the Vitriolic Sage name. Hoplites is one of the weirdest BM bands in the few years, featuring a really unique mix of Black metal, death metal, thrash metal, progressive metal and mathcore. Accompanied by ancient greek aesthetics and lyrics, which all and all, create a heavy, chaotic, and really interesting sound, that all can be seem in his last 3 albums all released last year. This album being the fourth (no shit) and without a shadow of a doubt, his best and most creative album to date.

It all starts with the tense, folky intro of "Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ παραμαινομένη ἐμοῦ..." until it blows up into a impenetrable barrage of riffage that every person who loves metal knows and expects. But as i said before, this album is no ordinary BM song collection. You can see here in the first minutes the mathcore and progressive influences, with some very clear influences of jazz, zeuhl and totalistic influences. That thankfully are present in the entire album, albeit in lesser extents. Despite it's experimentalist nature, the album still clearly and totally remembers that it is a metal record, and it has the absolute best part of most metal records, that is that little thing called "guitar riffs" and there's plenty of them here and they're all amazing. as this entire album is a triumph of epic metal musicality. From the fast thrashy-but-slightly-off riff near the end of "Παραδειγματιζομένη μουσική" to the VERY off tempo riff of "Συμμαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ" to the absolutely fantastic synth/guitar solo of "Συμμιαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ" to the many sax interludes in the first track, to the atmospheric but still very heavy riffs of "

Συμμαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ" to the tense and folksy final track, "Ἄπαυστα θεία μανία" that near the end explodes in a very heavy and chaotic mathcore song, finishing this album with a very loud bang. This entire album is filled to the core with great musicality, amazing songwriting and very interesting ideas that are all done incredibly well. The vocals are great and even better is the drumming, that i almost forgot to talk about it's relentless, it's brutal, it's very technical but without sounding janky and masturbatory. The production is great, it doesn't sound overly muddy or way too clean like most metal albums of these days do, it's all mixed perfectly. Honestly, i can't even say what i don't like about this album...Some songs could be a few seconds shorter, maybe. Overall just an absolute triumph for this band.

An amazing way to start the year, great album, a nearly flawless experience. Great riffs, atmosphere, drumming, vocals, production. Simply amazing, that's all i have to say.

SCORE:9.1/10