Kings of metal are back with their new opus and it is an e.p. with three songs plus two spoken words. You guessed it from the title, this time our warriors deal with Homer´s timeless epic work, Odysseus and his adventures being the centrepoint of this heavy metal epic opus. Athena´s Theme is an instrumental atmospheric synth intro for Telemachus-Part I, being spoken word in Greek, for which recording Manowar traveled all the way to Greece and they brought help of, among others, none other than Sakis Tolis, mastermind of Greek legends Rotting Christ. Where Eagles Fly is a power true metal ballad with dual vocals of Eric Adams and guest Chiara Tricarico interplay making goosebumps on my skin and my old warrior heart weeping with joy. Odysseus And Calypso is another spoken word by Kostas Kazatos reminding a lot of Orson Welles back in the day. Immortal closes this e.p. and it is an epic anthem in Manowar style just made for enjoying live. I am happy for this e.p. but it is rather a teaser than trailer, with very little music and too much spoken word.
Good people at Shudder continue to bombard us with great movies, this time a feature length documentary about one of the greatest little bands out there. Gwar never made it to front lines of the scene, but they managed to be a legendary band. This movie offers insight about how they came to be, how they did their art and costumes, creating a gang of misfit monster barbarians from outer space. In fact, they are real life outcast bunch of musicians and artists led by great and unfortunately gone too soon Dave Brockie, aka Oderus Urungus who was a main creative and driving force behind this band. Their shows are legendary, with fountains of fake blood and cum and similar body fluids, theatre, sci fi storytelling and above all, great music. This is a nice chronologically done movie, which through archive footage and interviews delivers insight into all ups and downs, fights, disappointments, deaths and reincarnations of these legends. This one if contender for one of the best music documentaries that came out this year. Go see this one.
WarWolf are hailing from Cologne, Germany and this is their debut full length opus. The band was formerly known as Wolfen from 1994 to 2021. This one contains ten songs. The music of WarWolf can be described as old school Teutonic heavy metal with a steely breath of power metal thrown in the song structures for good measure. If I must describe it and compare it to some band it would be a mixture of Grave Digger and Wizard. The first comparison is in order, because the album is produced by none other than Chris Bolthendal, Grave Digger singer. The music is up tempo, warrior stomping metal, with great melodies and vocals that are not so high and screaming but singing, tough yet melodic. Lyrics deal with vampires and werewolves, kind of Underworld movie thematics with songs like Daywalker, Nosferatu, Clan Of The Undead being highlights of this album for me. The title song, besides being the longest song on this opus is also a bit similar in parts to Sign Of The Cross by Iron Maiden. Maybe it is just me, but I can hear similarities in some parts. In all, this is a decent metal album. Nothing special, but decent.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 