Anasarca — Achlys Review

Eleven Hymns of Grief and Bereavement

From the very first moment the listener presses play, Anasarca plunges them into a suffocating forty-minute descent into the abyss with Achlys.

The album takes the listener on a labyrinthine journey through eleven hymns of grief, the paralysing weight of bereavement, and the arduous, often agonising process of surviving profound loss. It is brutal, unrelenting, and deeply human, matching the devastation of its lyrical themes with a crushing sonic architecture.

As “Mike” states in my interview:

 “I’ve said, grief is an experience that EVERYONE goes through at some point—and it’s then, if not before, that you truly realize what it means to lose a loved one. We can try to act tough, projecting an image of being untouchable, strong, and above it all. But in that moment, everyone becomes an emotional wreck—whether they realize it or not.

And it takes time to pull oneself back out of that state. I want to help listeners understand that having your loved ones by your side is neither “normal” nor something to be taken for granted …”

From Funeral March to Sonic Devastation

The album opens with a haunting gateway into its bleak emotional landscape through the introductory hymn, Beyond the Passing. It greets the listener not with a conventional metal intro, but with a chilling, solemn adaptation of Chopin’s legendary Funeral March. Led by a mournful, solitary piano melody and underscored by eerie spoken-word elements, it immediately establishes a funereal and oppressive atmosphere before the true storm breaks.

Following suit as the second hymn, My Reality plunges the listener headfirst into the agonising shock phase of grief. The hymn violently erupts from the solemn ashes of the intro, transforming into a whirlwind of blast-beat-driven auditory violence. It is armed to the teeth with aggressive, piercing tremolo-picked riffs and lightning-fast palm-muted passages rooted firmly in old-school death metal construction.

Beneath the guitar work, the drumming is relentlessly rapid and punishing, characterised by dizzying tempo shifts and an abundance of thunderous drum fills and snare rolls that keep the listener perpetually off-balance. Aiding this sonic devastation are the vocals — a cavernous, deep guttural growl that drags the listener into the abyss, punctuated occasionally by savage mid-range roars deployed strategically for maximum emotional and visceral emphasis.

The Ancient Spirit of Misery

The album descends into its darkest and most harrowing depths with the third hymn, Achlys, the embodiment of sorrow itself. Named after the ancient Greek spirit of misery and the eternal gloom of death — this hymn serves as the true compositional centrepiece of the record — a balance of extreme speed, memorable chorus movements and dark melodic content.

Achlys features a devastating torrent of high-speed riffing that tears through the mix with relentless ferocity. Yet beneath this suffocating brutality lie haunting melodic overlays and sweeping mid-tempo passages that give the hymn a tragic, almost majestic weight. The percussion matches this volatility, seamlessly shifting between blinding, chaotic blast beats and relentless, double bass-driven foundations that propel the song forward.

Above the musical tempest, the vocalist delivers a crushing onslaught of deep, resonant growls, executed with razor-sharp rhythmic phrasing that ensures every syllable cuts through the instrumentation.

Burdens of Sorrow and Mourning

Carrying the crushing emotional weight and accumulated grief and sorrow, the fourth hymn, Basket of Burdens, emerges as a dynamic sonic exploration defined by a drastically more varied riff vocabulary. It weaves intricate groove-oriented sections with sweeping, deeply melancholic melodic passages that evoke a profound sense of loss.

Beneath these weeping melodies, the bass guitar anchors the rhythm with a tactile, pulsing groove, while the drums provide a volatile and shifting foundation — seamlessly alternating between blistering, chaotic blast beats and driving, mid-tempo double-bass rhythms that propel the hymn forward.

The tempest of despair bleeds directly into In Memoriam, the fifth hymn. The composition opens with a sweeping, doom-inspired melodic passage that immediately establishes a suffocating, atmospheric dread before gradually escalating in intensity and sheer aggression. As the song progresses, long, sustained melodic notes clash with relentless, heavy double-bass support and cavernous, mournful growls.

It is this striking juxtaposition — the seamless, agonising contrast between mournful, crawling doom-metal melodies and sudden, explosive bursts of death-metal violence — that makes the hymn profoundly haunting and devastatingly effective.

The Unrelenting Persistence of Grief

The persistence of grief after the funeral and mourning period defines the sixth hymn, Pain Remains. Beneath its harrowing exterior lies a surprisingly strong and haunting melodic undercurrent, driven forward by sweeping, tremolo-picked guitar passages that bleed a sense of endless sorrow. The percussion is dynamic and volatile, shifting abruptly between trudging, mid-tempo pacing that mirrors the sheer exhaustion of mourning, and sudden, ferocious bursts of blast-beat attacks that represent acute spikes of overwhelming anguish.

Amidst this musical tempest, the vocal delivery remains fiercely aggressive, yet it evolves to become remarkably more expressive, carrying a raw human vulnerability that cuts straight through the wall of heavy instrumentation.