AENAON is an Experimental/Progressive Black Metal band, formed in Greece in 2005. "Mnemosyne" will be the band's fourth full-length album, due for release on October 27, 2022. The album contains nine songs. "Psyche" is the first. The sound is unique out of the gates. The music is jovial and melodic and the vocals are clean...at first. Later they transition to harsh vocals as the melody drops in favor of a heavier groove. I am reminded of the genius of IHSAHN, with near equal parts of favorable melodies and dark suspicions.

"Cartesian Eye" begins with a more weighted and harrowing Black Metal sound. The saxophone notes are wonderful and work well with the cloudy black skies moving on the horizon. "Synastry of Heartbeats" is another darker offering with some smooth and ambient moments mixed in. The melancholy sound is just mellow enough to allow you to let your guard down, but the moment you do, you will regret it. I feel that the band is just toying with you on some level here, luring you in with a smile. Mnemosyne is the Goddess of Memory...more on that later.

"Pleiades" is a much shorter sound. Clean, acoustic guitars and mellow saxophone notes open this mesmerizing query. Again, the song lures you in with its plain sounds, but if you listen deeper, you can hear the darkness in the background. "Trauma Cultura" is a slab of darkness with harsh vocals and a groovy, almost Rock-A-Billy guitar riff. How the band combines these two competing elements is amazing...they do it seamlessly. Rounding the half-way mark, the song begins to build. There is a fade-out at the end with piano notes. "Clark Nova" is another short song with fax sax notes and a jovial, almost dancing quality.

"Hysteria" goes back the other direction, with a raucous opening sound complete with pig squeals in the guitars. This hasty song gives you the feeling of a cat chasing his tail and growing closes to catching it with each new turn. The eerie background elements just add to the flavor here.

"Mantledeath" is a combination of harsh elements with more mellow ones.  The saxophone as an instrument can drip with melancholy tones, especially with legato notes. Hateful tones swell and rise like sharp waves and then disappear back to the calm water from whence they came. "Doppelganger" closes the album. A doppelganger is of course just a replica of yourself; usually said with a bad connotation, but not always. This mellow closer is done with mellow saxophone notes, like you are on the fourth day of straight rain and just feel like doing nothing. But, you drag yourself out of the house anyway just to complete necessary tasks, though you do most of the with a sigh.

As I mentioned earlier, Mnemosyne is the Goddess of Memory in Greek Mythology. It seems to me that this album could be a collection of one's memories, both good and bad. The good memories remind you of the happier times in your life, maybe before you had responsibilities, while the bad times remind you of things like regret and with bitterness. The thing about memories, I am told, is that they usually fade with time, so that only the strongest ones really stick out. Before you are aged to the point where these memories are gone, learn what you can from them.