Yet another label that we've just started to carry, Epidemie is kicking my ass with their diverse and mindblowing catalog of avant-heaviness that often
defies description. While most of the bands that Epidemie releases are undeniably metal, this disc is one of the exceptions, although it's also one of the
heaviest albums that we've picked up from the label.
Crushing industrial doomscapes and haunting orchestral ambience make up this album from the Czech duo Aghiatrias, which was formed by composer Vladim�r
Hirsch and sound-engineer Tom Saivon in 1999 as an offshoot of their symphonic industrial band Skrol. Ethos is the fourth album from Aghiatrias, and
it is about as heavy as this kind of classical-music informed industrial gets, layering dark ambient electronics, samples and electronic noise over slow,
grinding machine rhythms and blasts of epic orchestral instruments. Each of these tracks are massive, flowing seamlessly into each other as one epic extended
soundtrack, as booming timpani drums thunder behind loops of apocalyptic symphonies of what might be French horns, strings, piano, and crushing metallic
drones, blasts of harsh, abrasive noise and ghostly operatic vocals rise up from deep black ambient electronics, and when the rhythmic elements appear,
Aghiatrias suddenly become monstrously heavy as drums and machine pistons lock in together into a flattening industrialized doomdirge, or a massive
wall of tribal percussion. Total end-of-the-world filmscore stuff...imagine Christopher Young's score for Hellraiser II performed by members of
Lustmord, Test Dept., Wolf Eyes, and Godflesh. Released in a limited edition of 500 copies in one of the thickest, heaviest digipacks I've ever seen.