Several years ago, at the time of MetalEyes, I was favourably impressed by a Canadian one-man band, Old Graves, so much so that I reviewed both the 2015 ep This Ruin Beneath Snowfall and the 2016 full length Long Shadows. After about six years, Colby Hink, the musician behind the project who disengaged with other good acts such as Boreal Hymn and Wormwitch, returns to give continuity to Old Graves’ atmospheric black metal with this new solo incarnation of his called Thebes. As in the aforementioned albums, it impresses with the mastery and ease with which the North American musician manages to create, over the course of the ep Ziggurat Beyond The Unseen Shroud‘s scant half-hour duration, engaging and never banal melodies drawing on black metal as well as doom and folk. Once again I am pleasantly compelled to express myself in an enthusiastic manner towards the work of the talented Colby, who is always able to maintain a high quality and tension level from the first note of the opener Strength Of The Base Of The Pillar to the last of the coclusive Pheonix Burning, Golden Age, and it is not by chance that I mention these two tracks as emblematic of the work’s goodness, thanks to an atmospheric, epic and intense procession. Those who are attracted to the many sweetened and plasticised versions of this subgenre, instead would do well to give Thebes a chance.
2022 – Vendetta Records
Mournful Sounds 
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