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.
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.
Norwegian black metal legends Satyricon prepared an interesting project merging their music with paintings of Norwegian legendary fantastic painter Edward Munch and the result, as a soundtrack to the exhibition and project is this opus containing just one song in time of just under one hour. Any fans who are looking for songs or black metal here like they are used to from Satyr and Frost will be disappointed here. This is an art album, or rather album supporting art and music which serves to add up to the atmosphere of paintings and I am sure it fits perfectly with exhibition, but I lack the seeing of paintings here so I will have to concentrate on music only. There is a lot of perfect synth darkened minimalistic melody here with some dark ambient influenced passages marking the musical landscape. When guitar kicks in, it delivers black metal riffs and parts but somehow in connection with synth parts they hit even stronger and more grandiose than your average black metal tremolos. Acoustic guitar passages accompanied by dungeon synth melodic dark ambiental music brought me to some other dimension. Sometimes calm, sometimes angered black flame burning parts are the mirror to ones own soul and black heart. I love this one. Not for everyday listening, but a black gem indeed.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 