‘Ordo Aurum Archeia’ by Symphony of Heaven
‘Ordo Aurum Archeia’ by Symphony of Heaven
Southern Indiana’s Symphony of Heaven has been on a journey to craft an album to follow up their 2017 debut, The Season Of Death. It takes a lot of time and effort to create an album that captures the band’s mission of crafting what their Bandcamp page describes as “Crushing, epic, torturous, and extreme. Christian extreme Melodic Blackened Death Metal from southern Indiana.” 2024’s Ordo Aurum Archeia does just that. Band members Pathos, Turadh, and Asaph push Symphony of Heaven’s sound into more harmonic and orchestral frontiers with Ordo Aurum Archeia, which transforms the band’s blackened death metal sound into a more thuggish and crushing form of melodic death metal.
“Archeia” showcases this transformation from the album’s start, as it incorporates more harmonic synth work and technical guitar riffs between the standard chugging and blast beats you expect from a blackened death metal act. The follow-up song “With Sword and Spear” continues to build on these new elements, making Symphony of Heaven take on an almost Amon Amarth or Ensiferum influence. Instead of Vikings, we have Christian saints and Old Testament prophets. Both the thematic territory and inclusion of more atmospheric elements create a rather dynamic album compared to Symphony of Heaven’s earlier work. “The Hunter” continues this trend while beginning to lean more into the thrashy breakdowns and dissonant death metal chugging. Even the instrumental “Serenity's Embrace” shows a more vibrant and majestic sound with layers of sweeping crescendos, twinkling guitar solos, and gothic synths working under thunderous drums.
However, the band never loses sight of its blackened death metal roots with songs like “In Anger’s Midst” and a cover of “Nomad” from Sepultura’s absolute ripper, Chaos A.D. Those familiar with Sepultura’s work will know that the track employees more thrash metal elements mixed with infectious caveman grooves than previously mentioned bands, and “In Anger’s Midst” pairs excellent with this cover as it also relies more on groovy, heavy riffs repeated beneath deep growls and machine gun fire drums. Both songs make for an outstanding, knuckle-dragger closing to the album.
A wonderful thing about Ordo Aurum Archeia is that not only is the sonic territory fascinating to traverse, but its lyrical and thematic territory is rich, too. Ordo Aurum Archeia operates as a concept album of sorts, with the title roughly translating to “Herald the Call of The Golden Order of The Almighty.” Most of the songs seem to have a particular figure in mind that belongs to this order. “With Sword and Spear” appears to be about possibly Saint George or Saint Michael, and “Portent of Flame” seems to be about the prophet Elijah. However, the album goes beyond Christian mythos to include figures like Van Helsing from Bram Stoker’s Dracula in “The Hunter.” The final two songs leave the exploration of specific figures to explore themes of perseverance and discipline, with the “Nomad” cover being about native people being expelled from their lands and “In Anger’s Midst” providing a call to be sustained by the Spirit through hard times.
Torment, suffering, and hard times are the complete themes throughout the whole album. As Symphony of Heaven calls out to their fanbase, “Come suffer with us.” The band uses these songs as a type of catharsis to face life’s suffering and difficulties with inspiration from those before and beyond us. Ordo Aurum Archeia is the kind of album you want to have to push through the last difficult set at the gym. It’s the kind of album that lets you feel the totality of suffering without letting you succumb to it. It marches you through it. Symphony of Heaven has proven themselves a genre-blending force to reckon with on Ordo Aurum Archeia. It’s an incredible steppingstone for the band, and it’s exciting to think what the next step might unveil.
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