Reviews: Solarus, Memory Garden, Serpent Lord (GR), Kemerov (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

 Solarus – A Dance With Tragedy (Self Released)

I first heard Sarah Dee’s vocals featured on numerous albums by Canadian prog/power metal band Borealis. It was enough for me to start following her own band Solarus who have had the majority of their current line up since 2018. Dee’s voice is a brilliant fit, powerful to classically soar but also with some pop flourishes to mean it’s not just an exercise in technique, but you can feel her voice deliver these lyrics. Their previous albums Reunion and Darkest Days, set them on a path of making symphonic metal music that has much stronger power metal flourishes than many of the symphonic bands. A Dance With Tragedy can be seen as both a continuation and an evolution of the Solarus style. 

The guitar playing of founding member Lucas McArthur and Troy Longe, is a bit meatier than you’d expect, while also relying on lot of  dexterous virtuosity in the solos that stand as examples of the power metal sound. New drummer Chris Demelo is the unstoppable percussion battery on songs such as Shades Of Truth while the bass of Daniel Gebzcynski sets about galloping whenever possible. Orchestral swells make tracks such as The Keeper feel more like Nightwish as Sarah really moves into the soprano range. While The Wandering gives us chugging riff for some excellent lead playing to come on the top. On the title track she is joined by Vicky Psarakis of The Agonist her growls in unison with Sarah’s excellent clean vocal. The ballad Promise Me is also a brilliant showing of Sarah’s voice feeling very much like those early Nightwish records. 

Having been built from a studio project it’s with this third record that Solarus finally feel like the band they have been striving toward being, despite losing their rhythm section just before the pandemic, they have managed to make A Dance With Tragedy an impressive record for fans of power/prog/symphonic metal. Wonderfully epic work. 9/10

Memory Garden – 1349 (No Remorse Records)

 
Having played numerous festivals and shows around the world, Memory Garden have been flying their Swedish doom flag since way back in 1992 during the doom metal boom years. They have previously released a myriad of records on Metal Blade Records and Vic Records but 1349 is their first offering from Athens based trad/doom label No Remorse Records. Their sixth album overall, and their first new music since 2013. 1349 is a concept album that is based around the black plague, so subtly hinting at the pandemic we are in now but from historical point of view. Because it’s conceptual the record can fully use Memory Garden’s style of powerdoom, where the slow crushing riffs are counterpointed with melodic choruses and searing leads. 

For example Rivers Run Black does this very well, piling on the slow moodiness but also having some dual leads, a trick repeated on The Flagellants where the middle section is driven by trad metal influences but the verses are throbbing bass driven doom riffs from Johan Wängdahl and Andreas Mäkelä, who play bass and rhythm/classical guitars on the record. This track, along with a few others are replete with choirs to add to the emotive vocals of founding member Stefan Berglund. Lead guitarist Simon Johansson does a stellar job here, bringing some excellent lead playing to this record even heading into some Iron Maiden/Blind Guardian realms on The Messenger where Josefin Bäck adds some haunting vocals for the first time since their 1993 demo. She isn’t the only guest as Wolf’s Niklas Stålvind appears on The Empiric, which feels a lot like Queensryche, as Göran "Freddy" Fredrikson provides Medieval instruments for a more cinematic feel. 

1349 does have a huge scope, helped by Dan Swanö’s mixing, there is more than a nod to Nightingale, possibly due to drummer/pianist Tom Björn’s involvement with that band. The penultimate offering Blood Moon is definitely one of the best feeling like My Dying Bride, 1349 comes as a powerful return from Memory Garden. 8/10

Serpent Lord (GR) – Apocrypha (From The Vaults)

Occult influenced heavy metal from Thessaloniki as Serpent Lord (GR), return with the follow up to their 2018 debut record Towards The Damned. Here they seem to have upped the histrionics of their sound moving away from the trad metal sound in to a more muscular style of progressive power metal meets thrash, favoured by Nevermore and Iced Earth, in fact former Iced Earth vocalist Stu Block lends his pipes to Divine Plane. 

Recorded without a drummer I believe, the record takes much faster aggressive sound to the speakers, guitarists George Terzitanos and Lazaros Bouroutzoglou laying down thrash styled riffs, that come distorted and down tuned, but also bring plenty of twin guitar harmonies. It’s underpinned by the shifting bass rhythms of Konstantinos Sotirelis, meaning that there’s plenty of the start-stop style that Nevermore do so well. The comparisons to this legendary band don’t stop here though as vocalist Marios Arikas does his best to utilize that Warrel Dane vocal range. 

Apocrypha (biblical books received by the early Church as part of the Greek version of the Old Testament, but not included in the Hebrew Bible – Ecumenical Ed) relies on its occult sound a lot with tracks such as Inner Darkness drenched in Gothic moodiness, while there’s still a strong classic metal vein to Humanity’s End. Improving on their debut tenfold, Serpent Lord (GR) need to now find a drummer and get out spreading their gospel. Until then though this second album will be a real winner for fans of the bands mentioned earlier in the review. 8/10

Kemerov - Anti Hero (Self Released) 

Defiantly walking the Left Hand Path, Serres, Central Macedonia, based Death N Rollers Kemerov have brought together another 39 minutes of vicious death metal that draws heavily from Entombed. This is full HM-2 nastiness, lashings of biting guitar tone, thumping grooves and gutturals, the comic style of the album cover may make you think this record will be a more melodic affair but no. Anti-Hero is pretty much anti-everything. Taking shots at religion, radicalism and the world today, these ideologies are held to account across 9 full on death n roll ragers. 

Guitarist Giorgos Lezkidis, is clearly obsessed with making his guitar sound like a bloody buzz saw, especially in the riffs, the only cleaner sounds coming from the solos on tracks such as Anti-Hero Tights among many others that get that little flash of guitars solo. The rhythm section of drummer Tasos and bassist Spiros Diamantidis are abusive to their instruments, the production making everything sound nice and raw on Nail. Rounding out this ferocious foursome is shouter Matt Karampalios, he barks and snarls like an animal.

Kemerov set a rapid, punk driven pace but when they slow down for tracks like Channeling Hatred, there is still an aggression, a torrid, bubbling aggression that infuses the doom sound of this track. It’s not long before we are brought back to blasting death n roll. The perfect record to get rid of your family at Xmas, when you’ve had enough. Be an Anti-Hero and play loud. 7/10