The best thing about running the Black Metal Archives, besides not having a boss, is that it helps me keep ahead of the curve when it comes to the underground metal/music scene. Over the past year and nine-ish months, I have been lucky enough to build a network that means I, usually, know what’s going on within most branches of this thing of ours, but even with all those eyes and ears sending me updates from the four corners of the globe, certain things slip under my radar. For example, Hungarian melodic death metal. Did you know that was a thing? No, me neither.

But that is the beauty of this business. Every so often my mind is opened to something I didn’t know existed, and that beauty is always appreciated when something like Elízium by Agregator drops in my lap.

If being Hungarian melodic death metal wasn’t enough of an eyebrow raiser, the fact this EP is the band’s take on the Ancient Greek belief that when the virtuous, heroic and demigods die, they shuffle off to this place, should alone be worth a moment of anyone’s time.

Still not convinced? Alright, then let me state the following. Elízium by Agregator is, quite frankly, a bloody good record.

It’s melodic death metal that isn’t. It’s heavy as fuck, has all the right elements to be melodic death metal, but at the same time is so steeped in songwriting that focuses on being a collection of good tunes more than it does on being the fastest or most extreme, that it manages to transcend that genre and offer the listener a much deeper, more entertaining experience than just going, “Hey! Look at us! Aren’t we clever!”

And that’s where Elízium really starts to work.

The EP is only four tracks long, but Agregator haven’t treated it as an excuse to throw together four interchangeable slabs of riffing and call it a day. There is a genuine emphasis on songwriting here, with melody and atmosphere given room to develop rather than being used as decoration around the heavy stuff.

The guitars have plenty to say, obviously, but they’re rarely there simply to remind you that you’re listening to a metal record. Melodic passages actually contribute to the identity of the songs, while the darker sections give the material room to move without turning into those obligatory atmospheric interludes that modern metal occasionally seems to believe are required by law.

It all feels considerably more natural than that.

And then there are the vocals.

Obviously, I’m coming at this from a slightly strange position. The lyrics are in Hungarian, and unless Duolingo has suddenly added a course called “Useful Hungarian Phrases For Understanding Melodic Death Metal,” I’m not qualified to tell you precisely what every line means.

The band’s own description gives us the broad thematic territory: loss, temptation, memory and the parts of ourselves that are difficult to leave behind, with their interpretation of Elysium taking a considerably darker path than the traditional vision of a peaceful afterlife reserved for heroes and those favoured by the gods.

What I can judge is the sound of the vocals themselves, and they fit the music beautifully. Because I can’t fall back on understanding every word, I find myself paying much closer attention to the delivery: the phrasing, the rhythm and the way the voice works with the guitars rather than simply trying to decode the lyrics.

And while four tracks obviously don’t give Agregator enough room to completely reinvent the wheel, that’s clearly not what they’re trying to do. Instead, they’ve taken the ingredients associated with melodic death metal and put the emphasis where it belongs: on writing songs that are actually worth listening to.

There is no desperate need to prove how talented they are. No endless technical gymnastics demanding that you admire the musicians rather than enjoy the music. No sense that every riff has been engineered to make somebody on the internet shout about how “brutal” it is.

And thank fuck for that.

Elízium is heavy, melodic and atmospheric, but more importantly, it is a genuinely enjoyable work. And perhaps that’s why the melodic death metal tag feels increasingly inadequate as the EP progresses. Agregator certainly provide enough evidence to justify it, but they’re doing considerably more interesting things than simply ticking the boxes.

The band have already announced that Elízium precedes their next full-length, Por és hamu, expected in 2027. If this EP is an indication of where Agregator are heading next, then Hungarian melodic death metal has just moved from the “Wait, that’s a thing?” pile to the “Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me about this sooner?” pile.