Ὁπλίτης - Ψευδομένη (Self-released)
Up-and-coming bands are starting to recognize the exposure window in these lean months of January and February, but not even Ὁπλίτης ('Hoplites') could have foreseen this debut’s impeccable timing. Right on the heels of the year-end flop from Misþyrming, and just in front of Leiþa's sophomore bore, Ψευδομένη showed those disso/meloblack darlings how to keep success from sucking your spirit. Coming off the blast-beat phantasmagoria on his other project, Vitriolic Sage, 22-year-old wunderkind Liu Zhenyang leapt from moody mysticism to chastened mathcore in the span of just a few months. From another artist (i.e. one not so cryptically hellenophilic), the shift might smack of a pandering opportunism, sniffing out the market for skronk that Pupil Slicer’s deathgrind Dillinger revival ripped wide open. But without any bandmates or label support (let alone one big as Prosthetic), Zhenyang manages with only his brazen charm to sneak a bit of AP calculus by the brooding poets of loner black metal (BM). Other bands have certainly achieved this dissonant alchemy, either with maniacal sheen (Wiegedood) or avant-garde theatricality (Rejoice! The Light Has Come). Few, however, have made so much of raw exuberance and a cheap recording setup, while venturing this far from meloblack tropes. There's never any mistaking Ὁπλίτης for more than a screaming guitar player, but that's plenty, when he's so hell-bent on scribbling down mathematical proofs in tremolo play. This sort of dissonant/melodic BM tends anyway to succeed with dramatic compositions, which is what Misþyrming and Leiþa could learn, listening to the palm-muted violence on "Μάντις" and the fire-alarm cacophony on "Μάρτυς." The fact that Ψευδομένη wipes the floor with Með hamri and Reue should remind those thorny disappointments where their bread was buttered on Söngvar elds og óreiðu and Sisyphus. It wasn't polished production; it was fresh, vivacious hooks.