| CD REVIEW Arkenstone |
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Band : Arkenstone With Arkenstone, we leave the ancestral homelands and step our feet...our rather, set sail...towards the mythical town Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete! Hah...what a dramatic intro, you might say...but then it was indeed intended to catch your attention, eh? To get back to Heraklion...it's in this ancient town that, on a sunny day in 1999, a band by the name of Arkenstone (hum, what might that come from, I wonder...some additional research will be requiered) was formed. Although the line-up changed somewhat over the years, the fact that the band is based far away from Athens...which is, after all, the city to be near when you wanna make it in anything but traditional folk music in Greece...has made the band members persevere to continue. In their early years, the band played a traditional Heavy/ Power Metal, which could be heard on the first demo releases (2001's Whispers Of Fire and 2003's The Sentinel Of The Dwarven Gate). Through endless gigging in their hometown and island, the act also made a steady fanbase, and occasionally opened for well-known Greek or international bands passing through on the island (including Rotting Flesh, Septic Flesh, Jag Panzer and Brocas Helm to name but a few). The band took their music to heavier parts when, in 2005, singer Endal joined guitarist (and also clean and brutal backing singer) Herck, guitarist/ backing singer Beast, bassist Machine, and drummer nVital...because it was his envigorated shouting/ screaming vocal style which defined the band's eventual development to their current status of modern Thrash entity. A first proof of that already came with the 2005 EP Embraced By Guilt, and is now extended with the band's first official full-length release! By August 2006 the quintet had gathered enough material and travelled all the way to Germany's Prophecy and Music Factory studios to record the 10 tracks (with a nice 'n' lengthy duration of no less than almost 52 ½ minutes) on the album (well, actually they recorded earlier the drums at ProSound) with producers Christian Schmidt and R.D. Liapakis (Mystic Prophecy). 2007 was apparently a difficult year for the band (no details given, but the fact that they didn't find any Greek label willing to distribute the album may have had something to do with things), and earlier this year the band finally managed to erect their website arkenstone.gr next to their already existing MySpace profile. Eventually, it were again the daredevil people at Casket Music/ Copro who showed interest in bringing the band's album to people worldwide. And indeed, what with the big Thrash Metal revival of the last years, it's somewhat surprising somebody else didn't snatch the band away first. Hum...maybe some tried, but failed to offer the band what it needed to get out of Greece? Because that's one thing the band is absolutely willing to do, and they hope the help of a European label will help 'em to bring some of the sunny disposition of their island to places all over the rest of Europe (and maybe even beyond?). Well, with their well-written melodic and multi-style vocalled Thrash Metal they certainly deserve to do so. At the moment, no dates have been posted yet at myspace.com/arkenstonebob (where you can listen to a total of 4 songs off the album and even view two live videos, one of which for an older track), but I'm sure a list of English venues will be up soon enough! 86/100 Tony. |