Æolian have quietly gone about making the most exciting and impressive melodic death metal in ages since their 2018 debut, Silent Witness, without a whole lot of fanfare, partly because they're located in the tiny Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain, and the only real difference with their latest release, Echoes of the Future, is that it's refined almost to complete perfection. Sure, they've never been a very original band, as their mission statement is to pay tribute to the past greats of Scandinavian melodeath like Dissection, Children of Bodom, and Eternal Tears of Sorrow among others, but who gives a rat's ass about that if they're capable of matching them at the heights of their unholy power? This is a band that understands it's all about crafting instantly hooky melodies to go with endlessly catchy songwriting, and they do it with startling professionalism and passion as they give as much reverence to the glory days of the Swedish scene as they do the Finnish, like with the face-ripping opener "Hominis Obscura," the folky "Dreams of Reality," the—actually, I'll stop right there because I'd be reading off the whole damn track list at this rate. You want to know what makes melodic death metal great even now, decades after people got sick of it? Just slap this sucker in and be blown away by how little you need to reinvent a wheel when you know how to steer it down the path of greatness. Definitely a contender for Best of 2023.