��The second album from avant-garde Greek metallers Aenaon, the follow-up to their killer debut Cendres Et Sang that was featured on the last C-Blast new arrivals list. I loved the band's imaginative fusion of ambitious prog rock, dark jazz and violent black n' roll that made their debut one of the more unique offerings from Code666 at the time of it's release, and unlike a lot of bands that come from a similar black metal background whose music ends up moving into proggier directions, Aenaon continue to retain a strong connection to their blackened roots. Much of Extance features the band's crushing mathy angularity and blazing blackened aggression, but the eleven songs on this album are infested with strange outside sounds, taking their music into even more surreal directions than before.

�� On Extance, Aenaon continues to forge a strangely elegant sound that mixes an interesting assemblage of influences (classic prog rock, Hellenic black metal) into something that has gradually grown into a distinct sound of their own. You get plenty of the crushing mathy riffage, chunky staccato grooves and blasts of violent blackness that teemed throughout their debut, with those vicious raspy screams trading off against clear, harmonized crooning that brings a heavy dose of dark drama to the music, those vocal arrangements even sometimes shifting into a kind of maniacal, operatic delivery. The songs feature surges of spacey futuristic electronics, fragments of ragtime piano and strange alien glitchery amid the blackened prog, along with atmospheric classical piano sequences, jazzy vibraphone accompaniment, sudden descents into whirling Middle Eastern folk music, choral chants, soulful harmonica playing, and best of all, more of that searing moody saxophone that strafes Aenaon's violent metallic crush.

�� Fans of Enslaved, Sigh, and the recent solo albums from Emperor's Ihsahn will dig the killer progged-out black metal that emerges on songs like "Deathtrip Chronicle", especially when that crushing angular assault suddenly swerves out into a long stretch of sumptuous atmospheric jazz layered with swooping saxophone and washes of trippy Hammond organ. And songs like "Grau Diva" lay down some monstrous grooves, as that discordant, off-kilter blackened heaviness slips into a savage, infectious black n' roll riff. Aeneon infuse the whole album with these off-kilter moments and their knack for stirring melodies, with haunting minor key elegies drifting out of the complex blasting churn, the guitarists more concerned with memorable and emotive melodies than simply spewing out a self-indulgent shred-salad. Some interesting guest appearances show up, too; various tracks feature the talents of Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), Sindre Nedland (Funeral) and Haris (Hail Spirit Noir), and on "Funeral Blues", vocalist Tanya Leontiou from Greek evil doom-prog band Universe217 contributes her soulful, powerful voice over a song that does indeed get pretty bluesy, laying down a huge Sabbathian hook around a night-sea of glimmering pianos and blackened tremolo buzz. Along with Hail Spirit Noir, Aenaon are producing some of the most interesting and innovative black metal-influenced music coming out of Greece at the moment; anyone into the proggier end of contempo BM should definitely check these guys out.