The Dreaming I

An endless nightmare!

Akhlys started out as an ambient band, however, after releasing one mediocre ambient album, they ditched the idea of full-on ambient music and incorporated that ambient background into a unique atmospheric Black Metal style.

Their first proper release, titled "Dreaming I", is a fantastic soundscape, in one word. It takes the listeners into a never-ending nightmare, and leaves them there! The overall sound of the album is mostly chaotic, but there are some intervals in between to let the poor souls that listen to this take a break and relaxation moment before hitting them again!

One of the biggest strengths with this album is easily the vocals. I've rarely encountered vocals as well executed as this. The guitar work is another amazing aspect, The hooks are incredibly primitive but effective. The synth work gives an incredibly dark, lost-in-space kind of atmosphere to it. This said, the synths and ambient parts are so down in the mix and rare, that it doesn't enter symphonic Black Metal territory. The drumming is incredibly well executed. It's very chaotic and fast, but it does it in a very classy and controlled fashion!

This album is very unique, in the sense that it has the atmosphere of a Symphonic / Atmospheric Black Metal album, but still sounds extremely heavy and chaotic (no holding back!).

The highlight of the album is by far the third song, "Consummation". It has one of the best guitar works in recent metal history! The high-paced melody makes a very powerful soundscape.

Overall, I think the album has some little flaws, like the low bass guitar sound in the mix, and some of the songs go on for too long (especially with their ambient parts), but this is a very insane showcase of a band that merges the two opposite worlds of Symphonic / Atmospheric with the really fast and insane acts. Recommended.