Year : 2024
Style : Epic Heavy Metal
Country : Greece
Audio : 320 kbps + front
Size : 108 mb
Bio:
Achelous was born in Athens in January 2011 by Chris Achelous as an one man project. After the release of 2 demos in the atmospheric extreme sound it was time for the project to evolve. It was November of 2013 when ex-Recflection singer Chris Kappas, joined forces and made Achelous a band. In April of 2014 the band released its first demo "Al Iskandar", which was sold out (500 copies) in a three month period. At the end of 2014 the band entered "The Music House" studio in order to record it’s first EP entitled "The Cold Winds Of Olympus". The EP was released in February of 2015 and got very positive reviews giving the band the opportunity to promote it by performing live all over Athens, in clubs like Arhitektoniki, Kyttaro, Modu, Crow, etc with great local and international acts such as Forsaken, Martyr, Reflection, Powercrue, Mystery, Valor, Tidal Dreams, Fortress Under Siege, etc. The year 2018 found the band finishing the recordings of it’s first full length album entitled Macedon, under the wings of producer/Reflection guitarist Stathis Palvlantis at the Music House Studio. The album was released on September of 2018 by Metal Fighters Records and was received with great reviews. As a part of the album’s promotion the band made a live appearance at the 10 years anniversary Malta Doom Metal Festival alongside huge bands like Demon, Ancient Rites, Necrophobic, The Skull, etc. At this moment the band is in the studio rehearsing and getting ready to hit the road once again for various gigs all over Greece, starting with a live appearance at Kyttaro Club, supporting Lonewolf (Fr) and the legendary Battleroar. See you all on stage …
Album:
In case you missed it, a couple of months ago ACHELOUS did a pre-listening session for their new album called “Tower of High Sorcery”.As expected, Forgotten Scroll webzine was there, and you can read my first impressions in the tasty-lenghty article I wrote.Having the chance to listen to the album a couple of more times I feel that the first impression was the most accurate. “Tower of High Sorcery” is a diverse, yet interesting album of epic metal (I feel that we should focus on the term and I will explain this later), that serves as a natural evolution to the band’s sound.Should you be familiar with ACHELOUS first demo you couldn’t help but notice that there was always a friendly rivalry between fast straightforward metal songs and mid-tempo epic ones. However, it was obvious (especially in the band’s first album “Macedon”) that classic power metal tracks had the lion’s share in the album’s tracklist. Yet now I feel that the tide is changing: While ACHELOUS tend to feed and strengthen their classic metal roots with songs like “Dragon’s Wings”, “The Oath” and the impressive “Into the Shadows” (a song featuring the legendary Harry “The Tyrant” Conklin), the impressive features of the album are the mid-tempo epic ones: “Isthar”, “Forest of Sorrow”, “Pagan Fire” and “When the Angels Bleed” where ACHELOUS unwraps their epic tendences. Most of these songs are lengthy, complex, feature acoustic/dreamy parts and other classical orchestrations and there is a fair dose of female vocals, elements that should impress anyone into DOOMSWORD, BATHORY, PRIMORDIAL, ATLANTEAN KODEX etc. And while I am not a hardcore fan of this kind of metal, I felt carried away with them, since ACHELOUS managed to write songs full of sentiment: rage, anger, despair, hope. I left the title track for the end since I consider it to be the absolute highlight of the album, a doomy mid-tempo song that reminded me of Chris Kappas early years in REFLECTION and his primary roots SOLITUDE AETURNUS and FORSAKEN.I loved the band’s focus on their vision for the album. As I said in the pre-listening most bands nowadays tend to write the same formulaic songs over and over again, ACHELOUS dare to risk making a diverse yet consolidated album that each song is the natural continuation of the previous one.I feel that this is an album that was meant to be heard as a complete work of art not the usual “two-three hit tracks and some filler ones”. And this is the path that ACHELOUS should tread. Don’t miss it.“Tower of High Sorcery” will be released on March 22nd by No Remorse Records.
Line-Up:
Chris Kappas - Vocals (2013-present) - See also: ex-Reflection
George "Mavros" - Guitars (2018-present) - See also: ex-Destiny Denied
Haris Dinos - Guitars (2018-present) - See also: ex-Decemberance
Chris Achelous - Guitars, Bass, Keyboards (2013-present)
John Roussis - Drums (2018-present) - See also: Obduktion, ex-Minuetum
Tracklist:
01. Whispering Forest (Introduction) 01:39
02. Dragon Wings 03:57
03. Istar (Blood Red Sea) 06:09
04. The Oath 04:43
05. Tower of High Sorcery 06:26
06. Fortress of Sorrow 04:10
07. Into the Shadows 04:40
08. Pagan Fire 03:52
09. When the Angels Bleed 09:13
Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/
