Atlantean Kodex, Finger of Scorn, Sorrows Path // 7Sins, Athens, Greece // 05.10.13
It was a glorious night of an epic doom litany this Saturday, with Atlantean Kodex playing the role of the Heresiarch in this little metal cult of ours. This introduction is of course a pun in accordance with a majestic song from their newest release ,”The White Goddess” , whose gems Kodex came to unveil to their Greek fans.
The first band was Sorrows Path, whose members performed their little known melodic/doom songs in front of no more than 30 or 40 people. Their sound was quite good, the bass and the drums were pounding in our ears and hearts and the singer seemed to enjoy the show pretty much, as he was joking with the audience and playing his part in Sorrows Path appearance with lots of energy and passion. We are talking about a really good voice, although the microphone system of the venue did little to bring that up. That wasn’t the worse incident concerning the microphones of 7sins though, but we’ll see about that later on. Sorrows Path closed their set with a devastating cover of Warlord’s “Black Mass”.
Next upon the stage was Finger of Scorn, a tribute band to the classic epic metallers Cirith Ungol as you might have already guessed from the name. Featuring members from Convixion, Dexter Ward, Battleroar and Demolition Train, this band managed to give us a great deal of shivers down our spine. Spot on to the settings of Cirith Ungol’s instruments and (most importantly) spot on to the tone of great Tim Baker’s voice, Finger of Scorn rocked the house with some of our most beloved songs from that legendary band. They blew the horn for the first headbangs of the night with “King of the Dead”, “Black Machine”, “Blood and Iron” and above all with the song “I’m alive” which they dedicated to the recently murdered for political reasons Pavlos Fyssas, whose case has shocked the world for weeks now. Congratulations to “Finger of scorn” for their epic and full of metal appearance!
Then came the time we’d all been waiting for; Atlantean Kodex. For second time in Greece, the lights go dimmer and the most breathtaking epic metal band of today takes its place upon the stage. And then, annihilation followed and there was no turning back. Their colossal sound made the whole venue vibrate and forced the speakers to reach their limits. It was as if we were faced with a wall of sound, a wave that took up every inch of the room and even captured the air taking our breath away. Monstrous guitars mixed with epic drums, and although the quality of the sound was not that good, they tried their best to convey accurately the sound off their new album.
But when it was time for Markus’s magic voice to sound amidst that haze of epic riffs, an unexpected mistake happened. It seems like the sound engineer of the venue had forgotten to open his microphone and every other microphone on the stage for that matter. It wasn’t so much the mistake that annoyed me, but the amount of time it lasted. It took almost 5 minutes for the sound engineer to a) return to his place on the console and b) realize something was wrong and then fix it. This resulted in Markus being frustrated on the stage for 5 minutes, giving us the “I can’t do something guys, I’m sorry” look. But the Greek crowd knows how to treat the bands it loves and respects. Therefore, we sang almost all the lyrics of the song for him! Based on a brief conversation I had with him after the show, I can say that Markus was more than excited and surprised that the Greek fans had already memorized the lyrics to the new song.
I wouldn’t have persisted so much on the problem above, if it hadn’t happened two more times during the show… I mean come on, a little professionalism never hurt. What a childish mistake that was, absolutely shameful treatment towards the band and the fans!
In any case, to the part of the performance that mattered, the connection of the band with the crowd was truly amazing. Sing – alongs, chants, screams, headbanging, it rather seemed like an arena in there than a concert venue. Atlantean Kodex performed 3 songs from their new album, “Heresiarch”, “Enthroned in clouds and fire” and of course “Sol Invictus”. The last song was also played as an encore because the band didn’t have any more material worked on for a live show and the Greek fans would not leave without an encore from this amazing band. Turning around and seeing everybody screaming their lungs out during the refrain, I can say it was an arrangement that worked for both sides! Of course Atlantean Kodex did not forget their previous work. “A prophet in the forest”, “Marching Homewards”, “Pilgrim”, “The Hidden Folk”, “Atlantean Kodex”, “Temple of Catholic Magick” got the (about) 120 attendants on the tip of their toes and out of their minds, screaming for more. Majestic performance from a majestic band, let’s hope that we will enjoy them again soon and of course that many more people will show up at their concert so that Atlantean Kodex will be able to “Share the madness, the fury and the might”.
Achilles Pantogyios.