Band:	House Of Atreus
Album:	Orations
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	February 2024

01. Orations / Reascension Of Misery
02. Thy Wounded Sovereignty
03. Under An Accursed Dynasty
04. Morphos Of Degeneration
05. Cathedral Of Ancestry
06. Riding The Storm [Running Wild cover]

Gentlemen, please contain yourselves. The new Dune movie is still 2 weeks away.

House Of Atreus came on my radar in 2018, when they dropped their sophomore album with the artwork featuring
John Martin’s “Pandemonium”. While I would be remiss in not pointing out my disappointment with the fact that the band doesn’t actually write about Frank Herbert’s Dune Chronicles, House Of Atreus offering Roman mythology as a lyrical theme instead wasn’t a bad alternative. For the most part, I quite enjoyed the album. Now, about 6 years later, these purveyors of SPQR Metal (for lack of better term) are back with Orations, a half hour – ish EP.

Point blank? It’s not quite as good as their previous LP, From The Madness Of Ixion, and the fact that it isn’t is reflective of a trend that can at times happen with bands pulling the “EP between two full lengths” move… said EP in turn doesn’t quite match the quality of the full length material. Sometimes noticeably, sometimes only slightly so. Thankfully with House Of Atreus, it’s more so a case of the latter. Orations ain’t as powerful as its predecessor may have been, but perhaps by a mere 10 – 15% margin of error.

The sound on this EP is noticeably a bit less brutal and unrelenting as was From The Madness Of Ixion, a bit less death metal oriented, and more embracing of a sound more akin to First Wave Black Metal. Very riffy, chugga chugga type, barelling songwriting that may very well remind the listener of bands such as Goatwhore or even some of the earlier, rawer material from Skeletonwitch. There may even be some influences of hard rock or heavy metal – type riffage lurking here and there, if you listen deeply enough for them, and in that, funny enough, House Of Atreus would certainly not be the first death metal band this year to embrace such external, non – death metal influences for their compositions. In a sense, this certainly makes their sound more original, having a very bouncy, groovy air to it at points that almost makes one think that this is somewhat like what a death metal version of Kvelertak would sound like. And the fact that the band chose a Running Wild cover to close with, I think, may indeed be a little wink wink nudge nudge * in this exact direction.

The downside of Orations lies in something of a situation like what happened with Bølzer when they released Hero. That is to say, in making their sound more melodic and more embracing of non death metal influences, House Of Atreus in turn make it a good deal less brutal than it was before. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (in the ear of the listener?), and this is a facet of Orations that will inevitably please some engaging with it, while simultaneously displeasing others. As far as this reviewer is concerned, however, while this may be more of a “good but not great” type release for House Of Atreus, it’ll still probably end up standing as a worthy intermission in between From The Madness Of Ixion and whatever LP they have cooking for us next.

Jupiter is calling, and He would have a word with you.