The Metal Emperor
Sfyrokalymnon
This is a story about a bunch of guys that had it in their mind to form a band that will follow their paramount musical passions, no matter how amateurish it would sound I'm afraid. Wait a second, I believe that it an ordinary story for why a band is formed in the first place. But leave it aside for a moment, because within each story there are differences. These four chaps from Greece, established an obscure Heavy Metal foundation under one of the weirdest names in the business, SFYROKALYMNON, a name that was partially explained as the sound when the hammer strikes the anvil, damn what an echo it has to be. Back to the obscurity, these guys, after a long time break that lasted a decade, recorded a demo as a demonstration of their skills and Metal directive, therefore, "The Metal Emperor" was conceived from the womb of damnation, causing havoc to its listeners, me included.
Crossing between traditional Metal through proto Thrash, Doom and a little of the vintage Stoner ambience, it would appear that SFYROKALYMNON aren't really anywhere, still looking for their identity somewhere. I guess that it would take a while longer due to the low quality of the material at hand. Hardly putting aside the outrageous vocals of Halikion, which came to me as a shock of how this band let this guy sing or if you can call his façade singing, and such an immensely erroneous drumming by Cementor, which was almost completely out of sync with the guitars. Through the closing "Vothronian Echoes From Abyss", you will become aware of the true connotation of being heavily amateurish because there isn't any other way to put it.
The material in general is less to be desired, here and there would be a decent old school riffery that might indicate of NWOBHM or a slice of old US Metal, yet nothing of actual quality and fairly generic at best. I believe that rearranging these songs and reworking on their basis would do them good in order to guarantee a measure of some quality. "The Concrete Creator" appeared serious enough, a moderate epos on the verge of MANILLA ROAD, however it still needs to be worked on, especially on the vocals that are horrid.
I wouldn't tell you to run away from this one, as I would have given this one a fair chance. Maybe diehard fans of old school would find something useful. As a fan of the old era myself, this one was nasty and hard to undergo.
4 / 10
Nothing special
"The Metal Emperor" Track-listing:
1. The Metal Emperor
2. Betonator
3. The Concrete Creator
4. Sfyrokalymnon
5. Vothronian Echoes From Abyss
Sfyrokalymnon Lineup:
Halikion - Vocals
Betonaz - Guitars
Atsalion - Guitars / Bass
Cementor - Drums
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