Genre: Psychedelic/Stoner
Country: Greece
Label: Mantra Records
Year: 2019
A few years back, when the fact that there’s a group from Ioannina that mixes greek traditional music with stoner rock elements popped up, many questions arose. “How is that even possible?”, “Who are those guys?”, “Why so much hype around their name?”. When their debut “Riza” came out, as well as their “Zvara/Karakolia” single, they become extremely loved by the hellenic audiences (and not only), gaining the title of one of the greatest heavy rock bands of our era, around the greek stages. Their live shows were amazing and people did support them a lot. Then, comes a Rotting Christ cover, “Lex Talionis” and people go nuts, while VIC gained their respect. After a certain amount of time though, this whole thing started to perish. Mostly because (personally speaking, I saw them around 6 times those years), people were tired. Same setlist, a lot of fillers and plainly, a repetitive pattern that raised a few questions, like “what is next?”. Now, as of 2019, this mainstream heavy rock trend starts to die, and Villagers of Ioannina City present to us their sophomore album “Age of Aquarius”. This record is more than just a fix. The compositions are more modest, serious” and mature, without missing all the elements that made those guys loved in the beginning. Themes shifted towards a more stellar and cosmic direction, and the tracks grew much longer. At the same time, there are no fillers, no boring moments. More heavy rock element, better vocals, and larger volume guitars, finally. I wish nothing but the success of “Riza” on the album and I’m looking forward to seeing it flesh and bone in some of the Greek stages in the near future.
4/6
