Review by Maverick on February 1, 2024.

The formula of Eyes Of Fenris’ The House Of Hades is an thematically interesting one, but the execution in terms of music is simply standard. Of course, musically it is not terrible, but it reminds me of the “metalcore without breakdowns” melo-death camp that seems to have been gaining traction in the 2010s, like Nightrage, myGRAIN, and the Unguided. Now, with that said, it sort of puts the band in a precarious position once one can digest the first two tracks. This is not to say that it is a terrible album, but only that this kind of melo-death music has already been tried and that it has been worn out. This would make for an incredible live show, but not necessarily a groundbreaking extreme metal album. Let me break it down:

First, the riffs are what one would expect from All That Remains (minus the breakdowns), and at times it throws some brutal death flare in there. I suppose this formulaic attempt is probably to balance it out, or maybe to sound more brutal – in which case it only sort of waters down the cohesiveness and unity of the album. 'Cerberus' for example sounded like something one would get on a standard brutal death metal album. The riffing on this album is for the most part just a hodgepodge of metalcore and melo-death riffs. The track that should get praise is 'The Pit Of Tartarus' which has a lot of catchy moments, complex riffing and melodic-psychedelic type riffs—I am not sure why there was not more of this in the album.

Second, the drumming is standard too. I mean there really is not much to say about it. It was yet again formulaic, nothing that no one has ever tried. However, as I noted before 'The Pit Of Tartarus' was a pretty good song, and here the drummer does pummel his heart out – blast beating, punishing, and epic. It’s just a shame that this isn’t the consistent delivery throughout the album.

Third, the vocalist is pretty good, but his execution again sounded like something that I was a bit confused about. In 'Set Them Ablaze' for example, it does not seem like the vocals really correspond to the speed of the riffs. It reminds me of Nightrage’s "Insidious" album, but it was somewhat slower and out of sync; it’s only like 3 minutes into the song where it feels like the vocalist starts picking himself up in terms of speed and energy. Albeit I will admit that it might be the instrumentation that creates that impression. The fact that this confuses me kind of backs up what I said initially – that this is an inconsistent album. One is constantly second-guessing themselves when listening, it’s like – dude please stop trying to be a mathcore band, you do not have the genre-license to run roughshod on your musical execution. Come on dudes!

Finally, there are just so many brilliant moments here as much as there are inconsistencies and atrocities. This balances the album out of course but does not make me want to listen to it again. Modern metal is replete with bands that do the same things, and for crying out loud, with a band like this – with such raw talent and power, one would necessarily expect this to be some kind of demo. In the words of Andy Bernard, from the Office (US), they “schruted” it in terms of finishing this album off. This is quite disappointing, but maybe someone listens to this and enjoys it. The monotone unity of the album, however, condemns them, and on a thematic note – this album is probably going to put my patience in the House of Hades. A decent album, but it’s just a bit all over the place.

Rating: 7 out of 10