Acherontas: Faustian Ethos (2018)

Here we have the last of the Acherontas albums of the box set.  This was a much smaller set, focusing on the Reptilian albums, and Faustian Ethos does seem to tie into those somewhat.  And I have seen something somewhere where this one was officially the sequel to the previous two albums, but I am not sure where that was, so perhaps it is more obviously the case that this was a trilogy of albums.  It would certainly explain why they were packaged together.  If I had bothered to actually look at the box before beginning this post, I would have picked up on that.

Musically, as could be expected given that this is a continuation of the story of the previous albums, it is very similar to the last couple releases.  Which is to say, completely unpredictable and all over the place from a composition standpoint.  Once again there is a lot going on here, though much of the album is at least threaded through with tremolo riffing, giving the album some cohesion. 

The vocals again are also all over the place.  There are a variety of vocal styles used, from clean singing to chanting, to a much more typical black metal rasp.  And once more the difference in style is often done to mark changes in the story line of the album.  Though I have admittedly not done a ton of looking into the album to figure out what exactly the story is.

This album is a little strange.  I am not sure what exactly differentiates it from the previous two albums.  It just feels a little off and I am not sure why.  It is a decent release, but it does not really live up to the previous two albums.