There are few countries more epic than Greece (look at that history) so it suits Achelous to play epic metal songs given that they hail from Athens. Initially a one-man act, the band now consists of five members with founder Chris Achelous covering keyboard duties. Since their demo in 2014, they have released an EP (The Cold Winds of Olympus) and a full album (Macedon). A second album is in the works, and “Northern Winds” is the first track from it.
As a way of looking both to the past and to the future (I’d try and throw in some smart arese remark about Janus, but he was Roman not Greek), they decided to bridge the gap to the album’s release with this EP. “Northern Winds” is the future while the other four tracks come from the band’s past. “The River God” is from their original demo Al Iskandar, and has been re-recorded and reworked. The other three tracks are live versions from the EP and album. A nice stopgap until the next full release.
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The title track is very well produced, grand and pompous as well as heavy. It’s slow and pounding, and just gets more brash and uplifting as it continues. You can see how they’ve maintained their sound over the years by comparing it to the new version of “The River God” which has a bit more pace, but a similar beefy presence.
The three live songs are well recorded with plenty of crowd noise. Despite “Macedon” starting off acoustically, the guitars are nice and loud and not drowned out by the audience clapping the rhythm. The main track is an absolute bouncer, folk metal-y in its catchiness. “Myrmidons” is the fastest song on here with plenty of classic metal guitar breaks, while “Warriors With Wings” is more of a mainstream metal track. Of the three it’s the roughest recording with the music not quite gelling with the vocals but after the first minute or so you really don’t notice. It’s rough and ready, the way metal should be.
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The forthcoming album, judging by “Northern Winds”, should be worth keeping an eye out for. It’s called The Icewind Chronicles which should immediately prick up the ears of Interplay and TSR nerds fans as it’s based on R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale trilogy, which itself gave rise to the classic computer game.
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