Only the fourth album from this Colorado-based project and as before an exploration of the darker side of dreaming, Akhlys have once again created something special here. House of the Black Geminus may not on the surface be as outright disturbing as previous releases - that cover art is nowhere near as ominous and threatening as before, for instance - and the slightly more epic and grandiose tone to the music obvious from first track The Mask of Night-Speaking may give rise to a suspicion that the band have toned things down a little. Yet as that piece develops across its nearly twelve minute runtime the truth emerges, a slight John Carpenter-esque vibe to the backing melodies atop the doomy base metal admittedly giving it a cinematic feel on initial approaches, yet the layered ambience and droning feedback revealing itself as something darker, never mind the burst into galloping blackened noise around the four-minute mark. It's there that the album truly takes off, the Emperor-esque barrage beating the listener relentlessly as the nightmare grips - not so much repetitious as a series of hypnotic waves that slam into your ears again and again, each more excoriating than the previous.

A fine opener to a fine album; one that perhaps is more violent that most peoples' dreams are, yet certainly a solid exploration of nightside emanations. Maze of Phobetor is another teeth-grinding endurance, battering you in a similar way, perhaps taking a little too long to do so in what for some will be the main drawback of House of the Black Geminus; it's an experience to be endured, not an album to rock out to. So where is the real spooky stuff, you ask! If we wanted nothing but aggression then Marduk or Anaal Nathrakh will do the job perfectly? This is where Through the Abyssal Door hits perfectly, a nine minute piece that takes a step sideways into a more dissonant, slower-paced form of darkness, soon dipping into outright ambience before bursting back into near-orchestral blackened noise that is at once heavy and near-ambient in its effect on your ears, as with previous highlights. It's the closest to those past works and a real highlight here, something like a deranged version of The Ruins of Beverast's gigantic blackened doom sound when compared to the more cinematic pieces earlier on the album.

And although past releases from Akhlys have experimented to lesser effect, everything seems much more impressive here. Black Geminus, the shortest piece on the album at just under six minutes long, is the most ambient, rising and falling synth lines in the distance atop an ominous hum of noise, like listening to the ocean's natural rhythms in an odd way. Sister Silence, Brother Sleep is a wakeup siren afterwards, a resumption of the dissonant blackened wall of noise that does another fine job of grasping you in its bony embrace and refusing to let go. It is far more dynamic and shifting than the opening two tracks, even with a touch of the horror movie synths returning towards the end of the piece, seeming far better-implemented and less repetitive overall.

After that, closer Eye of the Daemon - Demon I (and what a terrible song title that is, when viewed in isolation!) is a rumbling statement that repeats tricks from earlier in the album albeit does so very well, placing them as effectively as possible to make it feel like a summary rather than a retreading. As with previous efforts from Akhlys, House of the Black Geminus is a flawed yet worthy album that does its job well. It is very much an album to listen to with headphones in a darkened room (the live Akhlys experience needs to be expert indeed to have a similar effect on its audience) and even though some will find it repetitive, the effectiveness of the ordeal wins through. Keen listeners to the band may hear echoes of previous works, true. Yet like a recurring nightmare, the terror still holds you tight each time.