It was a bizarre evening, nonetheless. Three remarkable Greek Heavy Metal bands on a gentle winter's Sunday evening with - unfortunately - not more than 80-90 faces gathered inside An Club (Athens downtown). The beer was extremely cheep, too, you suckers. Anyway, RAGENHEART, VALOR and HEATHENDOM performed on a co-headline gig and what was left after the last act off stage was that it does - as it seems - have to be a 'big' name playing to make a metalhead wave his sofa goodbye for a couple of hours...

The 'stylistic' Heavy_Power Metal quintet hit the stage as scheduled and delivered a 45-minute set based on their one-and-only (so far) demo CD called In The Name Of God (2006) plus a string of currently unreleased material. Again they were in good mood and, in addition, exposed a more 'clear' face related to their previous appearances, while the sound was spread rather smoothly; their take on Blood Of My Enemies was unique, with the keys providing a rather 'heroic' atmosphere.. The vocalist of the band was again exceptional and their QUEENSRYCHE-meets-CONCEPTION-meets-SYMPHONY X blend was gladly welcomed by the fans around at the time. RAGENHEART carries an identity in their music and we really hope they'll soon succeed in releasing their first 'normal' CD. If only they were more vivid onstage...

It has again been said that VALOR achieved a tremendous upgrade from their The Nameless One MCD (2004) to the previous year's Destiny's Path album. Letting kinda aside their 'barbaric' initial sources the (now) melodic Heavy_Epic quintet walks on a more well-worked yet equally passionate metallic music style. It was another chance to listen to 40-45 minutes of guitar-oriented 80s Metal stuff enriched by fabulous bass lines and some impressive 'mature epic' vocals, pleasing up the total of spectators applauding strongly in each and every song. Honoring both their releases VALOR performed again the k-i-c-k-a-s-s cover on ACCEPT's The King and stood proud in filling up the venue with harmonic leads and - to sum it up - nothing less than dignified music played by neat Metal musicians.

No reason was enough for half the fans walking away on HEATHENDOM's set. In spite of this 'weak' view, the Athenian quintet stormed out of nowhere with an impressive fat sound and enough horsepower to bombard any unsuspected victims. Truth is their style is kinda difficult to win a metalhead not in prior familiar to the band; HEATHENDOM - whose first Nescience CD has received rave reviews from all around the world in late 2008 - performs a mix of CANDLEMASS / MEMENTO MORI, SOLITUDE AETURNUS and 'doomed' KING DIAMOND that features various tempo changes and a 'blackened' atmosphere full of metallic passion. While not being a fan of the specific sub-genre, it was obvious the band has worked a lot on their compositions' structure plus they have also put exertion on their sound consistency. The Eye Of The Witch (KING DIAMOND) cover they performed was heavy as fuck and - in the end - proved they have all the dynamics needed to proceed to a wider globe spectrum. Again, HEATHENDOM's music is not that easy to 'swallow' at first audition...

Self-organized Metal gigs is the spine of the Underground. Nuff said; thanks to all the bands honoring Metal music on a lucid Sunday evening.

(no pics taken - digital cameras my ass...)