Album Review: Parius – The Eldritch Realm (Self Released)

Released in July 2018, The Eldritch Realm is the latest album by death metal amalgamation band Parius.

The classic occult horror movie style that adorns the front cover of The Eldritch Realm is complimented by the crackling of a gramophone starting up and playing out a short gothic tune. It’s the intro Into the Realm and flows wonderfully into the keyboards of Eldritch which goes hard and heavy quickly. Death metal with complexity, the fire burns brightly with the fuel provided by the sharpened squeals of the riffs, blast-beat drums and feral vocals that go deep and guttural as well as back up to clean highs. It’s a whirlwind of a start nailed to perfection by Parius.

No about turns with Phylactery, pushing onwards into the depths even further but offering a fleeting chance of survival with a smattering of guitar solos. It’s a hell of a layered track, in exactly the same way as the previous track was but with a much richer sound.

The halfway point is a short hyper blasting no nonsense track in the form of a The Binding. Over almost as quickly as it begun with not much to takeaway from it.

That’s certainly not the case with Between Hell & I and The Boundless. The former a defiantly heavy track that is comparable to both death and black metal sounds. The slower pace enriching the sound leaving nothing but strong feelings afterwards. Whereas the latter is balls out anger and fury played out in Parius’ exciting and memorable way. The brief guitar solo that crops up is so unusual that it’s hard to not laugh.

There is a hell of a lot of talent in the ranks of this band and it shows with an album that has variety for days while never drifting too far from the core ‘death’ sound.

They show this with one exceptional final effort, Crashing Black Moon. An 8 plus minute finale that aims to put everything Parius are capable of into one track. A bit of death metal, a little bit of black, a little bit of heavy metal, a little bit of rock, a little bit of melody, a little bit of progressiveness…it’s incredibly inventive and likely to stick around on playlists for some time afterwards.

Parius – The Eldritch Realm Full Track Listing:

1. Into the Realm
2. Eldritch
3. Phylactery
4. The Binding
5. Between Hell & I
6. The Boundless
7. Crashing Black Moon

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