The Metal scene from Greece is incredible.

Since we all heard the first echoes from ROTTING CHRIST, VARATHRON, NECROMANTIA, and many others back on the 90s, we instantaneously knew that nothing more would be as it was before. There, amidst the ruins of the ancient Helenian Empire, appeared the first bands that used morbid melodies in their works. So we could state that Melodic/Symphonic Black Metal appeared on those lands. And it's sure that Greece could give birth to more bands like those ones, and one that really can find a way to reach the same peak of those ancients is the quintet HELL POEMER. After two demos and one Split, they come with their first album, the excellent "Arcane Mysteries of Dead Ancestors".

As their ancient compatriots named above, they're a Black Metal band that uses melodies to create their music, but using some elements from Norwegian and Swedish Black Metal, but don't get the wrong idea: they have a very strong personality pulsing under their mixture of harsh vocals (with some clean and morbid ones here and there), very good guitar riffs, and an explosive work done by bass guitars and drums. And they use keyboards to strengthen the morbid and darkened feeling that they want to put in their songs. Even some flutes appear in the middle of the massacre! These guys really have guts, we must admit!

The sound quality is very harsh, but not in a way we couldn't understand what they are playing and what they want to express in a musical form. No, the harsh feeling we have is due the tunes chosen for the musical instruments to sound. And it's just this feature that links the band's work to the roots of Black Metal. And to make it even better, Stefan Necroabyssious, VARATHRON's vocalist, came to give his dark blessing to their work with some vocals on "Triumphant Battle in Hyperion's Winter".

The album is excellent from the beginning to the end, and you can have as their best songs the explosive and aggressive "Exiled in the Fogwoods (Ordo Lycaoni)", with its abrasive approach, but with some harsh melodies appearing on guitars; the brilliant "Temple of the Apollonian Wisdom (Δελφικό Νεκρομαντείο)" and it's slower pace, where guitars (with a very good and melodic solo), keyboards and vocals are creating a morbid and darkened atmosphere that binds us all; and "When Ichor Calls for War". But hear the entire album and chose your favorite ones by yourselves, my dear nephews and nieces.

They are really a great promise, and hope they'll have the opportunity they really deserve!<