Goofy image aside, this Greek black metal act is actually pretty damn good. They don't really offer up anything new or particularly interesting, but their approach is aggressive and tight, with a nice recording that keeps things mixed evenly and crisp, without shedding a bit of a raw edge. More bass in the mix would be nice, but the drums sound pretty good and the guitar tone is perfect for their style. The typical vocal snarls are well placed, too. As far as the writing goes, expect lots of speed (of course), balanced with nice slower passages and tasteful uses of melody. I could absolutely do without the bombastic keyboards (which thankfully don't appear too often), because that shit ruins the atmosphere of their music and adds nothing in my opinion, but the main setback (aside from the occasional use of synths or cheesy spoken vocals) is that many of the songs are tediously long, some clocking in at more than eight or nine minutes. The album's intro, "As the Clouds of War Gather", and "Kalki the Avenger - Lightning and the Sun (Death)" (the latter portion of the larger piece "The Life and Death of Europa") are experimental noise soundscapes created by Nordvargr, which is a nice touch, as is the cover of Ved Buens Ende's "The Plunderer", which seems an unlikely choice, but hey... I like the artwork and portions of the layout because it has a classic death metal sort of look, but the band photos are totally cheesy posed shots complete with corpsepaint and weapons, which is very generic. The lyrics do nothing for me, unleashing a mix of topics bluntly opposing religion, speaking of Zeus and such, honoring the Vikings... all sorts of uninteresting stuff. I don't know why all of the releases on this label contain at least three or four standalone band photos in their booklets, though. It's just a total waste of space. Anyway, this is a good record all in all. They could use some work, but for the bulk of it this is some of the better Greek black metal that I've stumbled across. I could see them appealing to diehard fans of the genre more so than a nitpicky dork like myself.
[Black Lotus]
Running time - 54:54, Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: The Continuity of Land and Blood, The Plunderer, Steppe]
Black Lotus Records - http://www.black-lotus-recs.com
