I remember Agathodaimon well from second half of the nineties when they released their great albums Blacken The Angel and Higher Art Of Rebellion, both being a masterpiece of gothic influenced vampiric black metal with long songs, perfect mixture of black screaming and clean vocals and great melodies bringing something progressive and fresh into the scene. They released six albums and disappeared and now they are back with new opus and new line-up, but the constant backbone is guitarist/vocalist Sathonys. New opus contains 10 songs of beautiful melodic atmospheric black metal with great songwriting, fantastic melodies but the one thing that really stands out for me is interplay between Ashtrael´s shrieking voice and Sathonys´ clean and gothic voice thus delivering the skinprickling atmosphere of almost touchable darkness. The songs are not so long as in the first albums, but they tell the story of persistence, emotions, darkness, a bit romantic gothic vampirism and longing, eros and thanatos. My personal favorites are Mother Of All Gods which features ex member Vlad Dracul, also Ain´t Death Grand and both In My Dreams conceptual songs. Welcome back Agathodaimon, with a strong return album.

8,5/10