Reviews
\r\nFinland is one those countries that have drawn much of the metal audience towards its side. And that’s a reasonable reaction. If you think of bands like Amorphis, Sentenced, Children Of Bodom, Nightwish and many more (it’ll take much time to mention them all), you understand why there is so much interest in the sound of the finnish scene.
\r\nArabic Folk/ Black Metal from Bahrain... Is there anything more odd to listen to? This band with the not easy nor catchy name Narjahanam has its first album out under Haarbn Productions. Unfortunately, despite the uniqueness, as we don’t meet releases like this one everyday, things aren’t good at all and Narjahanam need tragic improvement to reach up to a satisfying level. Everything in the album is dreary and ugly, starting off from the sound, going to compositions and ending to an ugly and annoying production.
\r\nDebut album from Ruins Of Faith, which despite the fact that they come from a country which hasn’t offered something in the extreme sound until now, Georgia appears that they enter dynamically in the Metal scene and they present us an album of Pagan Black Metal which however doesn’t remain stuck in the classic forms, but they are experimenting and the result is very interesting. First of all, we must say that the album is small in duration, as it does not last more than 33 minutes.
\r\nAbout twenty\r\nyears ago, there was a spot on TV about a huge Metal festival that would take\r\nplace in Moscow, and that was something that would happen for the first time\r\nbehind the ‘Iron Curtain’. Obviously, as well as all the metalheads of that\r\nera, I watched the show, waiting for the Scorpions and Ozzy Osbourne to go on\r\nstage, but I remember well the opening act, because I couldn’t believe how bad\r\nwas their singer, and how all the tracks had no inspiration whatsoever!
\r\nThere are some times that I have all the good mood to write more things about a band that really deserves it, but unfortunately this is not always feasible. Great example of this, is this specific release, which just came into my hands in order to write a report, but not only it wasn’t included with a press bulletin, it also doesn’t have a site, and moreover everything is written in Russian.
\r\nTiles, the band that comes from Detroit and consists of four members, is back with a new album release titled “Flypaper”, and if I had to define their music style by using another band’s name, then I would chose Rush with a little bit from Dream Theater. Tiles plays progressive hard rock/ metal, though there are definitely more rock elements, and that leads their music to a more “light” direction.
\r\nConcealment come from Portugal and Leak is their debut album. Before that there was an EP. The band is multidimensional and manages to combine many different musical styles. The result is interesting and uninteresting at the same time as there are tracks really remarkable but there are others which are drowned in monotony and repetition. Experimantation is their main characteristic while technical playing exists in every track of the album.
\r\nFifth completed album for MOB, a band which isn’t heard enough in the fields of extreme sound, but we have to do with an appreciable group that it does not do something different from playing melodic Heavy Metal but what they make they do it by heart and thus the result is extremely interesting and pleasant. Due to the fact that I have also heard their previous releases, I can say with certainty that The Greatest Enemy is with difference the best they have presented to us up until today.
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\r\nInitially, the artwork and generally the packing of the record made a good impression to me. However when we get in touch with Keplers Odd’s music, it’s a nightmarish experience! This band comes from Sweden and was formed in 2001. GRO J1655-40 is their debut album which came out at the end of 2007. After that the band made a new album. We have only the debut album so we can’t present the last one.
\r\nKawir was always one my most favorite bands and their new album "Ophiolatreia" a most desirable and long-awaited release for me. Although their previous effort "Arai" sounded a kind of sterile and keyboard overloaded to me, this time around those Hellenic occult pagan black metallers to my ear-pleasuring returned into the raw, primordial beauty from the scene’s glory days of the early ’90s.