Band:	Parius
Album:	The Eldritch Realm
Style:	Melodic death metal, Progressive death metal
Release date:	July 2018

01. Into The Realm
02. Eldritch
03. Phylactery
04. The Binding
05. Between Hell & I
06. The Boundless
07. Crashing Black Moon

Are you ready to get spooked?

Straight from the cover art, it ain't to hard to tell that Parius found some inspiration for their sophomore album from horror movies, especially those B-movies and The Twilight Zone. Tales From The Eldritch Realm already oozes a sense of theatricality and drama. We've already heard The Lion's Daughter earlier this year take inspiration from horror movies, but whereas they took it more with synths, Parius do it with more nerdy dramatics.

So strip away the narration and the sound effects, what is The Eldritch Realm at its core? Death metal. Melodic, progressive, technical, all that jazz. I could namedrop a whole lot of bands they sound like, but bottom line is they're death metal. And because of their progressive aspects, the songwriting jumps from riff to riff and from growls to cleans quite seamlessly, with their noodly tech death and their acoustic interludes as well. Despite not being absolutely bollocks crazy, The Eldritch Realm rarely lingers too long on a single passage.

And with all the technical proficiency that the entire band displays, it would be easy for them to fall in the pitfall of overusing it instead of focusing on the songwriting and the flow of the album, but The Eldritch Realm doesn't feel bloated or rushed, and in the less than 30-minute run time that the album has, it manages to be varied, entertaining, and even somewhat goofy at times, mostly due to the occasional vocal play, but not only. It's quite clear that Parius don't take themselves completely seriously, which makes it so much more of an engaging listen, but this doesn't mean that they fall in the pitfall of being a joke band; they instead show that you can be fun while also taking your music writing extremely seriously, kinda like, say, Slugdge.

This record might actually be too short for its own good, and that's really the only thing somewhat negative that I can find to say about it. I suppose someone who is not into technical or progressive death will not feel a change of heart due to this album, but for anyone else, Parius prove themselves as worth paying attention to.