Archaic Oath are a duo from Belgium that plays a melodic mixture of black and death metal and this is a review of their 2026 album "Determined To Death And Beyond" which will be released in April by AOP Records.
Dark soundscapes start off the album before going into a heavier direction while the vocals also add in a lot of high pitched black metal screams. When the music speeds up a great amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard along with the riffs also adding in a lot of melody.
Most of the music is very heavily rooted in the 90's Swedish era while also mixing in elements of death metal, A great portion of the tracks are also very long and epic in length along with the album also adding in a good mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts and all of the musical instruments also have a very powerful sound to them.
The solos and leads are also done in a very melodic style as well as some growls also being used at times and synths are also utilized in certain sections of the recording along with one song also introducing spoken words onto the album. A couple of tracks also adds a small amount of clean playing and acoustic guitars which are added on a brief instrumental and clear singing can also be heard briefly and the closing song is an Emperor cover. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover darkness, horror and witchcraft themes.
In my opinion Archaic Oath are a very great sounding melodic mixture of black and death metal and if you are a fan of those musical genre, you should check out this duo. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Above The Light" "Abysmal Ascent" and "Ye Entrancemperium". 8 out of 10.
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