Review by Vladimir on January 18, 2024.

It's time to check out some greek black metal with themes of ancient horrors and deities, and in this review, I'll be covering the band Shavalyoth from Rhodes, with their second EP Μαρχωσιάς, released on October 4th, 2023 via the label Hellenic Metal World.

The EP opens with an ambient track 'Ύμνος Στον Λύκο Της Αβύσσου' which contains drum and guitar build ups and Greek spoken word. After that, it is traditional black metal with tremolo picking riffs, fast drums with double-bass, and harsh vocals that have a bit of dry growling on the third track 'Βάαλ (Ο Βασιλεύς Της Κολάσεως)', but this track in particular also uses some mid-tempo rhythm with melodic riffing and cosmic keyboards. The final track 'Σαμαηλ (Ο Πρίγκηψ Του Ερέβους)' has a nice keyboard intro before being followed with double-bass drumming and tremolo riffing, but switching to mid-tempo rhythm towards the end.

The songwriting is rather simple and they seem to use elements of cosmic black metal bands such as Odium or The Covenant, even with all the themes of ancient gods, horror and evil, however their song ideas do seem to vary a lot from one part to another. For the most part, the songs seem to have some moderately dynamic flow that nicely switches from one section to another, having a consistent and focused arrangement all throughout. The only real downside that I have with this album are two things, that being the vocals. The performance itself feels a bit too forced, despite the fact that they are traditional black metal vocals which express the harsh voice, however personally it doesn't really seem that great. The sound production is raw but still slightly polished, with there being instances of different distorted guitar tones that switch from one to another.

Personally, this isn't really a terrible album or anything, in fact it is rather okay, but in the end it doesn't really leave that big of an impression if you ask me. I think that the band has some good ideas here and there, and they do seem to deal with interesting concepts, however I also believe that the band can certainly do so much better in order to make their work stand out even more.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Review by Tara on February 6, 2017.

If you're any sort of extreme metal fan and aren't familiar with Dark Descent Records, get yourself acquainted with them real fast. The label has been steadily churning out stellar releases as of late from bands such as Krypts, Blood Incantation, Horrendous, and Crypt Sermon to name a few. For me, they've been the "it" label when it comes to death metal. To add even more substance to the label's already mammoth roster, Finnish death metallers Gorephilia's long awaited sophomore release Severe Monolith drops in March.

Severe Monolith is a total homage to the old school American death metal sound, drawing plenty of influences from the likes of early Morbid Angel and Immolation. There are no songs that stick out more than others. In fact, all the tracks seem to blend together which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  This is an album best enjoyed as a whole and there's plenty going on to keep one's interest throughout its entirety.

What Gorephilia have done here is managed to create a highly enjoyable death metal album. Sure, this particular sound and style have been done before but that doesn't make the final product here any less effective. The band is new to me but after spinning Severe Monolith several times, I understand why long time fans have been anxiously waiting for this one.