Argesh are among the many bands run by main man Azghal, only this one took about a decade to actually release anything and appears to be their most ambitious project. They work in a style they dub Apostate Black Metal, and they certainly try to live up to that grand title by taking the heavy dissonance of Deathspell Omega and mixing it with the overblown atmosphere of mid-period Dimmu Borgir and the clinical aggression of Behemoth. That makes this sound overwrought and irritating, and the intro track kind of is, but when the band just gets down to business, they make some pretty solid Black Metal. This has a lot of melody to it while mixing in enough dissonance to keep it from going symphonic, all while adding in clean, chant-like vocals to add to the overall atmosphere. This can be done brilliantly, but while some of the moodier bits are fairly killer, here it leads to a lot of the songs feeling overstuffed and lacking in focus. Argesh maybe could have gotten away with this more a decade ago when this style was more novel, but the pool of more experimental Black Metal is becoming pretty crowded nowadays, so much so it's tempting to say that they're not so much experimenting as they are sticking to a now-standard formula. This is a solid album from a band with promise, but it's a little overcooked.