Abyssus - Death Revival (Transcending Obscurity Records)
There's death metal and then there's proper freaking death metal, Abyssus' are in the latter category. Coming from those early days when thrash gained a pair of balls and everything got a lot more aggressive, Abyssus' sound is drawn from bands like Obituary, Bolt Thrower and even Slayer. Full of rapid pace, razor sharp, thrash metal riffs but cut with technical precision, outright brutality and guttural growled vocals, Death Revival is Abyssus reclaiming their position at the nadir of the Greek death scene.
Despite this being only their second full length album, they are no slouches having released an EP or Split record pretty much every year since their debut Into The Abyss in 2015, and in fact even before that as well. So with this much experience behind them you would expect Death Revival to rip your face off, and it does from the snarling opening moments until the crushing, doom laden, disgusting finale of When Wolves Are Out To Hunt each song bludgeoning you with destructive, formidable death metal. The Beast Within is possibly the heaviest offering at track four with a dirty groove and crushing riffs.
Genocide offers a brief slow down with the intro of traditional Greek music, but mostly this album refines what they set out to achieve on Into The Abyss, increasing the extremity while still retaining those thrash sounds that permeate through Metal Of Death and the raging The Ten Commandments. This Athenian five piece have unleashed one of the toughest death metal records of the year so far. Crank it loud! 8/10
Dark Legion - God Of Harvest (Elevate Records)
Formed by Evil King guitarist Spiros Rizos Dark Legion, Elevate Records delivers the debut album from Dark Legion a band who are 3/4's Greek as Rizos' plays all the guitars with drummer Theoharis Theoharakis and bassist Aristofanis Tzaerlis making up the rhythm section. God Of Harvest is the debut record from Dark Legion and it was styled after the European progressive metal acts with particular reference to bands like Evergrey and Queensryche. Songs such as Inner Fire feeling like those mid-paced dramatic days of Empire.
For this kind of music you need a decent vocalist, so Spiros managed to find Argentinian vocalist Walter Osedin to fill the role of Geoff Tate and he handles things admirably his soaring voice, he brings passion and poise to album midpoint ballad 1000 Miles but also has the melodic delivery of Timo Kotipelto when they ramp up the speed when the record moves into Neo-classical realms on Reign Of Chaos and The Dragon's Saga as we go into the style of bands such as Stratovarius, Rizos' displaying his tasty guitar chops. God Of Harvest is a decent debut from Dark Legion, there's nothing here to set the world alight but there's 10 tracks of melodic metal with some virtuoso playing and influences from some of the biggest in the genre. 7/10
You always know that Greek stoner metal will deliver and Under Them Stones, the debut album from Athenian (I think) stoners Blind Sun certainly delivers if you like feast of crunchy riffs, fuzz bass lines and some gritty vocals. There is very little info about the band available so I have no idea who is in the band but they seem to be a five piece previously called Supersonic Fox. Still that really doesn’t matter as the music here speaks louder than any PR or Biography. Under Them Stones is oozing with swaggering stoner metal, that often manoeuvres into doom on the slow burning Stoned Goddess.
Dysnerved - Man In The Middle (Self Released)
Thessaloniki based Avant Garde style of music that takes from black/death and post metal, they sound as if they have influences from Alcest, Ulcerate and countrymen Hail Spirit Noir. It's been a long time coming having been recorded between 2018-2020, but this debut record has emerged from the darkness with 8 tracks of atmospheric extreme metal that shifts its focus between long repeating single chord pieces such as the opening to Daily Routine Of A Hollow Mind and frenzied snarling extreme metal ferocity on Apophenia.
As the band class themselves as Avant Garde there's a huge amount of experimentation within the songs, drummer Alekos stradies the pace, unleashing violence but also deftness. Kostas' bass growls and grooves on Us, adding a tumultuous uneasiness. While Simos' guitar playing is eclectic, ranging from djent palm muting, black metal tremolo picking and crushing doom.
The three instrumental members of the band make it feel as if it's been recorded against all odds, over a long period of time, the album feels like that, lots of different sounds brought together depending on shifting moods. The constant being Manos' aggressive vocal style, he has a raw, throat shredding execution that is beguiling and terrifying. An interesting record that blends multiple disciplines into slice of extremity. 7/10