Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal / Post Black Metal
Country Of Origin: USA (Rochester, NY)
Track List:
1. Tempest of Dreams
2. Mist of the Tides
3. Enshrouded in Dawn
4. My Bones Become the Roots
5. Cenotaph
Mavradoxa recently released their first full-length album
entitled “Sojourners.” The aptly titled album will definitely let you reside
inside it for a while. It takes you away to a new place while it’s playing.
Mavradoxa is from Rochester, New York, a city surrounded by woods and water, so
it comes as no surprise that the music gives you that exact feeling. Dense
forests and frozen Lake Ontario come to mind through vivid atmospheres painted
by the guitars. The guitar work on this album is very interesting for a black
metal album. Instead of your traditional tremolo riffs and blast beats,
Mavradoxa opts for mid-tempo plodding guitar riffs that seem to fit somewhere
between Agalloch and Alcest. In fact, Mavradoxa uses tremolo so infrequently
that it really highlights those melodies when they do finally break out. Those
melodic tremolo riffs wind their way into your head and stick there long after
the album is done. In general the band sounds extremely in sync. Many times the
guitar work is so tied to the drumming that it offers additional freedom for
the bass to wander and bring in very memorable bass lines instead of being
drowned out like so many black metal bands chose to do or being forced to
accompany the drumming the entire album. If you’re looking to get sucked into a
black metal forest Mavradoxa’s “Sojourners” is an album you need to check out. This
is definitely a band to watch out for if their first album is this immersive,
powerful, and polished.
