Ελληνικά
Genre: Death Metal
Country: Greece
Label: Season of Mist
Year: 2015
Fgvbnvghg… did my jaw when it fell on my keyboard. Listening to Invictus is a jaw dropping experience! Listening to George Kollias and waching him play the drums is a jaw-dropping experience. I still remember my enthusiasm when I first watched Aeons of Burning Galaxies back in 2009 when it was uploaed on YouTube. It was not only his feet speed that was out of this world, it was the fact that both the speed, the technique and the riffs were so well glued together into the song…in fact they were perfectly glued together! No exaggeration,and no showing off. Everything flowed. Since then I was patiently waiting for the official release.
We have seen many drummers going solo (Nicke Andersson, Brant Bjork, Serafeim Giannakopoulos…) and they all somehow abandoned their initial instrument and grabbed the guitar and the mic. Well, here George goes the other way around and is hitting the drums like there is no tomorrow. He is probably performing the best drumming of his life. He is also playing all the other instruments, but for the guitar solos he has summoned some nasty friends of his (Karl Sanders, Dallas Toler-Wade, Yiannis Papadopoulos, Rusty Cooley, Theodore Ziras, George Emmanuel, Mike Papadopoulos and the list goes on).
I would like to stand a bit more on two songs, Voices (vox version) which is -for me at least- the best song of the album, and Apocalypse, which is the most atmospheric one (a combination of’…of Celtic Fire, We Are Born’ by Absu, Jean Michel Jarre and Orfeas Peridis) . These two songs have something in common. The guest musician in Voices is Efthimis Karadimas and in Apocalypse is Bob Katsionis, both of them former comrades of George in Nightfall. I, sometimes, wondered in what ways this lineup could have evolved if they have stayed together for a couple of more albums. Well, here is the answer.
In total, Invictus is a killer with no filler. One by one the songs are masterpieces. I could only compare its essence with The Sound of Perseverance (Death) and Nemesis (Grip Inc.), in regards to the fulfillment you feel afterwards.
PS: And what a cover huh? Manster did a great job…again
5/6
