Ελληνικά
Genre: Epic Metal
Country: Italy
Label: Independent
Year: 2019
This album belongs to a special category of albums that is rather difficult to judge it, by strict musical criteria. Since this is almost unavoidable, however, I will mention some key features of the album and expand on some others later on the text beyond musical boundaries. So Wotan plays Epic Metal, loyal to Manowar’s teachings and very similar to Greeks Battleroar style. Their debut “Carmina Barbarica” made an impact and created their first circle of die-hard fans. “The Song of the Nibelungs” is their fourth record, and let’s take a look at the reasons that make it so special. According to the band, they’ve been working on ideas for this album for the last 10 years. The record is double and has 18 songs totaling 110 minutes. We’re talking about Epic Metal which is not the most “digestible genre”. At an era when we judge an album in its entirety, by listening just one and only single song on the Internet, at an era when speed and over-information make us forget and fail to invest on devotion, at an era when you have to compromise to survive, at an era when we are listening music from the internet doing different things at the same time and as a result we are losing our attention, Wotan dares to release such a record. We are not talking about a band that everyone will pay attention to, just because they have released something. Perhaps they themselves will find it difficult to make new fans in this way as few will hear the album in its entirety. However, they will satisfy their fans but primarily satisfy their artistic concerns. “The Song of the Nibelungs” is based on a concept content which is really interesting. Nibelungen’s song is the first heroic epos written in Germany around 1200 and helped to establish the broader type of epic poetry in the region. It is written in German medieval language and its creator remains anonymous. It is based on oral tradition as well as historical events and has spread throughout German-speaking Europe. Wotan’s new album is a complete proposition from whichever way you look at it. It is up to us to pay close attention to this particular venture.
5/6
