I’ve never personally visited the realm of Hades, but the fourth album by Athens-based post-black metal act Sun of Nothing gaslights me into thinking I’m a regular in the underworld.
Maze is an intense listen. Opening track “Liars in Wait” sweats guilt through the extremes of doom and black metal. Vocalist Ilias Apostolakis screams like murder atop the dark, Cult of Luna atmosphere.
Equally cold and haunting are the following tracks “After the Fall” and “Ghost,” which terrorizes musical territory once ruled by Neurosis, Daughters, or Wolves in the Throne Room. Not too far from the dense, blackened debut Odium by Greek group Wothrosch, Maze’s layers of dissonance reaches true discomfort.
Side B of the record is where the pressures of post-metal reach peak immersion. “Voidhanger” simulates an unhinged, nocturnal manic episode, where “Buried Endeavors” soaks in the comedown with Paradise Lost-like death-doom moments.
Some albums require a certain challenging headspace. Maze may not be our most accessible recommendation, yet is undoubtedly a moving listening experience, harrowing and insistent. If you can handle the severely extreme atmospheres, we plead for you to surrender your time to Maze and Sun of Nothing’s catalog.