Black Fate: Ithaca (Rockshots Records) [Simon Black]
Ithica is the fourth album from the Greek Power Metal five piece. They've been around since 1990 and this album it seems is a little darker than previous outings from the brief foray I made into their back catalogue. Greece seems to be quite a tough market to break out of compared to many northern European ones, but a tight in-country scene nonetheless, where these guys are credible players. That said, four albums in thirty years is not what you would exactly call prolific…
Most of the songs are fairly robust power metal affairs from the Kamelot school of Power, with clear emphasis on the instruments and vocals and some quite nicely understated moments of technical excellence in some of the instrumental/solo breaks. To be honest I struggled with this one as a whole however. Although you can’t fault the playing and production and the song structures are robust enough, but the whole thing lacks that magic spark that makes me want to keep repeat listening. Part of this I suspect is due to the relatively new addition of Themis Koparanidis on keyboards to the line-up. He’s clearly a technically proficient player, but they very much keep him in the background for most of the album, which is a shame, because this recording is screaming out for some more showy interplay between him and guitarist Gus Drax (in the Dream Theater vein). The moments we have hint that letting rip in this area would allow them to really step up a notch.
Rainbow’s End is probably the strongest track on here. It’s an out and out ballad, and works because the song-writing seems to step up several notches to create a song that you actually want more of on this album, which in many other respects is pretty much a cookie-cutter Power Metal affair. Until, that is, we get to closer Circle Of Despair. This one is a different beast, and the interplay between the instruments that I have been craving elsewhere on the album I delivered with panache here. Guitars and keyboards bristle off each other in a frenzy of skill, but in a power metal vein rather than the old cliché of neo-classical tit-for-tat. If there were more tracks in the calibre of these two highlights, then I would be rubbing my hands with glee. Let’s hope that this new line up proves more prolific, and has the confidence to experiment more in this direction, because when it works, it does so brilliantly. 6/10
Chaos Divine: Legacies (Chaos Recordings) [Simon Black]
Ithica is the fourth album from the Greek Power Metal five piece. They've been around since 1990 and this album it seems is a little darker than previous outings from the brief foray I made into their back catalogue. Greece seems to be quite a tough market to break out of compared to many northern European ones, but a tight in-country scene nonetheless, where these guys are credible players. That said, four albums in thirty years is not what you would exactly call prolific…
Most of the songs are fairly robust power metal affairs from the Kamelot school of Power, with clear emphasis on the instruments and vocals and some quite nicely understated moments of technical excellence in some of the instrumental/solo breaks. To be honest I struggled with this one as a whole however. Although you can’t fault the playing and production and the song structures are robust enough, but the whole thing lacks that magic spark that makes me want to keep repeat listening. Part of this I suspect is due to the relatively new addition of Themis Koparanidis on keyboards to the line-up. He’s clearly a technically proficient player, but they very much keep him in the background for most of the album, which is a shame, because this recording is screaming out for some more showy interplay between him and guitarist Gus Drax (in the Dream Theater vein). The moments we have hint that letting rip in this area would allow them to really step up a notch.
Rainbow’s End is probably the strongest track on here. It’s an out and out ballad, and works because the song-writing seems to step up several notches to create a song that you actually want more of on this album, which in many other respects is pretty much a cookie-cutter Power Metal affair. Until, that is, we get to closer Circle Of Despair. This one is a different beast, and the interplay between the instruments that I have been craving elsewhere on the album I delivered with panache here. Guitars and keyboards bristle off each other in a frenzy of skill, but in a power metal vein rather than the old cliché of neo-classical tit-for-tat. If there were more tracks in the calibre of these two highlights, then I would be rubbing my hands with glee. Let’s hope that this new line up proves more prolific, and has the confidence to experiment more in this direction, because when it works, it does so brilliantly. 6/10
So, album number four from Australian Prog Metallers Chaos Divine. For those who haven’t come across them, they really are a direct fusion of Prog and Melo-Death metal, so although instrumentally the Prog is dominant, vocally there is a fairly even split between clean and death vocal styles. Bizarrely it works quite well despite the contrast as singer David Anderton switches effortlessly between the two styles. If anything the cleaner sound does predominate, as the Death style isn’t always included and is powerful and emotive throughout. They have corner of the market in their home territory, which has allowed them the luxury of working with some fairly well known bigger bands on the support slot circuit and it goes a long way to explaining the richness and confidence of their sound. This may well help them get noticed in the much more crowded global marketplace.
Musically this is not as overt and showy as many if the genre, with the focus on well-structured song craft rather than fret-board masturbation. The tracks know how to keep the audience – when ambient and most melodic such as the excellent Unspoken the raw emotion grabs you by the heartstrings. The pure Melo-Thrash/Death of Colours Of War just grabs you by the throat and bangs your head for you, but interleaves some of that raw emotion in along the way in the chorus, with one of the most technically effective instrumental breaks to be found on the record. This is by far head and shoulders the best track on the album, despite being the most in your face and that’s coming from me, Mr Clean vocals fan. Then just to throw you off, just when you have them pigeonholed, you get tracks like Beacon, which is straight out of the HM/AOR playbook, and works brilliantly as well.
The quality of the recording is top notch, and the whole effect of all these influences and sounds is to create the sense of a band with a really original and unique sound. 7/10
Nightstryke: Storm Of Steel (Skol Records) [Matt Bladen]
When an album is called Storm Of Steel you can pretty much nail what sort of music you are going to hear on it, especially when you also take a look at the Frazetta-esque album cover it's wrapped in. This is classic metal or power metal as it's more often known these days, Finnish band Nightstryke channel the chest beating, sword swinging of Hammerfall and Riot along with the galloping edginess of the NWOBHM bands such as Enforcer and Cauldron. Storm Of Steel is their second album following on from the debut Power Shall Prevail in 2017 and the band lose none of their power, as Read The Omens starts off with a riff that while new is strangely familiar to the ears all throbbing bass and dual guitar harmonies.
When an album is called Storm Of Steel you can pretty much nail what sort of music you are going to hear on it, especially when you also take a look at the Frazetta-esque album cover it's wrapped in. This is classic metal or power metal as it's more often known these days, Finnish band Nightstryke channel the chest beating, sword swinging of Hammerfall and Riot along with the galloping edginess of the NWOBHM bands such as Enforcer and Cauldron. Storm Of Steel is their second album following on from the debut Power Shall Prevail in 2017 and the band lose none of their power, as Read The Omens starts off with a riff that while new is strangely familiar to the ears all throbbing bass and dual guitar harmonies.
With the production and mixing of Bart Gabriel and Cederick Forsberg, giving it an analogue hiss of the 1980's, the album shifts at a fair pace through it's 10 tracks the only real issue being that singer/guitarist Rami Hermunen is not the strongest singer in the world his voice working better when snarling on the speed metal assaults such as Deathstalker rather than when he tries to adopt some power metal histrionics, still I have heard much worse recently and it does fit the music. Storm Of Steel is NWOBHM pure and simple, no frills needed. 6/10
Astrakhan: Astrakhans Superstar Experience (Black Lodge Records) [Matt Bladen]
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very proggy boy!" I like to think this is what Andrew Lloyd Webber was thinking when he was writing Jesus Christ Superstar, long before it was West End super smash it was originally written as a progressive rock concept album in 1970 before being brought to the stage in 1971. It charts Jesus life from his entry in Jerusalem until his Crucifixion with a love story surrounding Mary Magdalene, it's a bit of rip roaring musical as you'd expect from Lloyd Webber however it was conceived as prog rock record with Ian Gillan of Deep Purple taking on the role of Jesus in the original album and West End run. So this brings us to Astrakhan band that features some noted members of the rock/metal scene such as Pain of Salvation, Royal Hunt and House of Shakira , they have been performing Gethsemane as an encore for a while and this has led to the Astrakhan Superstar Experience, a fully realised live performance of the original album performed as a concert rather than a full blown West End performance.
The focus here is on the music and they have imbued the Lloyd Webber original with some storming progressive rock/metal as rampant organs run wild, guitar solos soar and there's even a drum solo too, it's all the bombast and cinematic mastery of the original filtered through a much more rigid prog rock lens. What helps is much like with the original the lead roles are taken by Astrakhan's own Alexander Lycke as Jesus and Mats Levén (every band ever) as Judas, they give this record it's hard rock edge Lycke especially hitting those huge Gillan-like highs on Gethsemane while the band nod to Ian's involvement in the original by setting Damned For All Time to the backing of Highway Star, with great effect.
I'll admit I'd never heard of Astrakhan before but on the back of this great version of JCS I'll be investing some time into their back catalogue. This album though as I said is played excellently and takes back JCS from the West End luvvies into a powerful prog rock epic it was meant to be. 7/10
Astrakhan: Astrakhans Superstar Experience (Black Lodge Records) [Matt Bladen]
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very proggy boy!" I like to think this is what Andrew Lloyd Webber was thinking when he was writing Jesus Christ Superstar, long before it was West End super smash it was originally written as a progressive rock concept album in 1970 before being brought to the stage in 1971. It charts Jesus life from his entry in Jerusalem until his Crucifixion with a love story surrounding Mary Magdalene, it's a bit of rip roaring musical as you'd expect from Lloyd Webber however it was conceived as prog rock record with Ian Gillan of Deep Purple taking on the role of Jesus in the original album and West End run. So this brings us to Astrakhan band that features some noted members of the rock/metal scene such as Pain of Salvation, Royal Hunt and House of Shakira , they have been performing Gethsemane as an encore for a while and this has led to the Astrakhan Superstar Experience, a fully realised live performance of the original album performed as a concert rather than a full blown West End performance.
The focus here is on the music and they have imbued the Lloyd Webber original with some storming progressive rock/metal as rampant organs run wild, guitar solos soar and there's even a drum solo too, it's all the bombast and cinematic mastery of the original filtered through a much more rigid prog rock lens. What helps is much like with the original the lead roles are taken by Astrakhan's own Alexander Lycke as Jesus and Mats Levén (every band ever) as Judas, they give this record it's hard rock edge Lycke especially hitting those huge Gillan-like highs on Gethsemane while the band nod to Ian's involvement in the original by setting Damned For All Time to the backing of Highway Star, with great effect.
I'll admit I'd never heard of Astrakhan before but on the back of this great version of JCS I'll be investing some time into their back catalogue. This album though as I said is played excellently and takes back JCS from the West End luvvies into a powerful prog rock epic it was meant to be. 7/10