Isole
Reflection, Heathendom
Musichouse, Ioannina, Greece
08/03/09
On the eighth of March, Swedish Isole teamed up with Greek Reflection and Heathendom to offer their fans an Epic Doom evening. Just a couple days after the release of Isole’s latest album “Silent Ruins” and a few months after Heathendom’s “Nescience” and Reflection’s “When Shadows Fall”, it was a great chance for all the bands to showcase their new music to the metalheads of Ioannina.
Doors opened and Heathendom took their place on stage with a little delay. Unfortunately, about a hundred people were present at the time and it didn’t get any better as the time passed by.
Heathendom opened with the title track of their debut “Nescience” after a short intro and continued in epic doom paths for the next hour. Bad luck hit them soon in their show by the means of a guitar problem, which cost them a couple of tracks performed with a single guitar.
Fortunately it didn’t have any serious impact and the crowd accepted them well and seemed to enjoy their music.
On their side, Heathendom appeared to be well tied together, and played a mix of songs from their demo and debut album, plus a cover to King Diamon’s “Eye”.
Next on the bill were Reflection. The veteran epic metallers, with 3 albums, a 7” EP and a split CD with Inner Wish on their catalogue, are well known throughout Greece and they were embraced with great warmth.
The quintet was very energetic, and took us to a journey through their history, from the classics “Wings Of Fate”, “Children Of War” and “Fire”, to the taken out of the Odyssey album “Who Will Dare To Bend The Bow”, “Slaughter In The Island Of The Sun”, “Sorceress” and “Giants” up to the recent “Ghost Ship”, “Kingdom Of Fire” and “When Shadows Fall”. The crowd went wild at the end of their over one hour set, when they covered the “Battle Hymns” of Manowar and concluded their appearance with their dark and epic “When Immortals Die”.
It was nice to have Reflection back in Ioannina, ten years after their last appearance here, and a couple of line-up changes later.
And finally, the time for the headliners Isole came. Amazed from their latest effort “Silent Ruins” I was eagered for the gig and see how well they could perform live. For one and a half hour, they delivered classy doom metal.
They performed their songs faithfully to the album versions, with Daniel and Crister having a great collaboration on the vocal part. All of them proved to be great musicians, and continued to play passionately even when the crowd shrank due to the late of hours and the working next day. The playlist in no order was “From The Dark”, “By Blood”, “Deceiver”, “Throne Of Void”, “Hollow Shrine”, “Forevermore”, From Clouded Sky”, “Soulscared”, “Beyond The Dark”, “Demon Green” and “Autumn Leaves”.
It was a great night especially for the fans of epic and doom metal. Sound was more than decent and helped us enjoy over three and a half hours of music.
The sad part of the story is that quite a few people attended at an event that three bands gave their best, and this in a city that is not used in metal gigs and almost everyone is complaining about that fact.
Fotis Karagiannis.