SPACE!

So while 2016 has been a terrible year for many reasons, with all of what's been happening around the world including the deaths of many legendary musicians, it also appears to be a fantastic year for new music. KHONSU straight away made me think of another two man band, MECHINA, who have a similar idea with making music that transports you straight in to the cold abyss of space. However where MECHINA makes me feel like I'm aboard a ship floating through nothingness, KHONSU feels more like I'm stranded on a hostile world or smack band in the heart of a star. It's aggressive, dark, and haunting, and where MECHINA brings the Mass Effect videos games to mind, KHONSU makes me think more of Dead Space with how dark and black metal it can feel. The historical feel also brings images of Stargate. Altogether, in the many ways it's similar to that other band, it varies on many important levels, which makes KHONSU stand out as a great band.

"The Xun Protectorate" is the second album from KHONSU, and tops the first in every way. While "Anomalia" was a good album in its own right, it didn't quite seem to have the direction that "The Xun Protectorate" has mastered. From the artwork, to the dark and bleak music, to the haunting far away vocals, everything about this album screams "Sci-Fi Horror". It's hard to pick a genre for such a band, with many elements stemming from black metal, with bits of death metal, doom metal, and more forms of the more extreme kinds of metal thrown in. Bands like KHONSU defy genre, and seem to create a place for themselves, possibly being called sci-fi metal or something along those lines. Because of this strange feel, there aren't any songs that would exactly lend themselves to radio play, but it's through word of mouth that KHONSU should find their place among the stars thanks to their incredibly unique sound.

The tracks are all of decent length yet somehow, because of the atmospheric feel, they never felt like they were too long even with the exceptional "Toward The Devouring Light" which is just under twelve minutes long. Sure this isn't a long track when it comes to extreme metal, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as long as it is, simply because of how great it is. The opening ambient sounds transport you to the bridge of a starship which due to the bleak nature of the music, you can't help but feel is dying a horrible death. Again those images of Dead Space or Alien Isolation come to mind, and honestly whenever a band can bring such clear and strong images to mind, you know that they are doing something right and that they are on to something special.

I feel like I've talked about the atmosphere a lot here, but for a band that excels in atmosphere, it's just incredible how they force images of a dark and desolate place with absolutely no atmosphere so to speak.

For fans of progressive black metal, for fans of horror and space, and for anyone wanting to try something incredibly unique, give KHONSU a go. You will not regret it.

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