Athos "The Awakening Of Athos" CD

'The Awakening Of Athos'' was released in CD format (500 copies) by ''Candarian Demon Productions'' (USA).Clean Vocals in the Song ''In A Temple's Ruins'' by Michael Tasos
Original Synthesis of the song ''A Tale Of christian Love'' by Lord Azaghal.

I think Athos hail from Cyprus, but nevertheless they are a Greek group. What we have here is a black metal album that lyrically deals with ancient pride and the devastation christianity has caused upon the hellenic culture.
The album opens with The last ritual on mount Athos, a pre-christian place dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, now a christian place forbidden to women. You can hear some chanting to ancient gods as well as some modern christian prayers... the forceful transition from hellenic paganism to christianity.
The next song, The awakening of Athos, is a raw black metal song, with very “dry” sound, with no sound volume at all. You can mainly hear the guitars and the drums and it is very hard to hear the bass, that's why the music sounds so volume-less. The rest of the album follows the same musical formula, fast guitars, dry sound and furious drums. There are mainly catchy fast riffs but you also get slow and rhythmical guitars, especially in the middle of the songs as the speedy music breaks to reveal slow and agonising guitars with majestic keyboards and clear vocals narrations, sometimes in ancient greek language. This is actually a very positive feature of the album, the slower breaks with the keyboards and the narratives. It sounds like you completely change scenes, from raw and furious blast beats to slower and more atmospheric music, with mesmerising guitars and dreamy keyboards.
Another nice thing is that there is enough melody in this album, especially when the slower parts occur. Fast riffs stop or fade out and then the melody kicks in along with the keyboards and the piano (yes there is also some piano from what I can hear). The bad thing is that the melody doesn't last for long, it just kicks in with the keyboards for a few seconds and then you get back to the berserk guitars.
There are also some epic tempos in this album, epic style music paces with black metal sound, especially in the song The 300 Spartans, when the chronicles of the 300 Spartans (and 700 Thespians) are recounted and you have the epic tempos in the background. Very powerful feeling.
The vocals are typical black metal vocals, screams, gruntings and howlings, although, as I said above, you get many clear vocals (even female ones) when chantings take place.
In general you need to listen to this album a few times in order to really understand it. It's not that it's something unique in black metal but it certainly has some very nice ideas. If you are a BM fan chances are that you will find it interesting.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...