Draconian, Elysion, Caelestia, Immensity // Kyttaro, Athens, Greece // 14.02.2016
What a great way to spend a Sunday night watching one of your favorite doom/death metal bands along with three very promising bands, from Greece. On arrival, fortunately on time, I see about thirty people inside the club but no worries, cause things turned out really nice, soon enough!
IMMENSITY had the difficult role, to wake up the audience that came to watch them, and they surely did that, up to a point. Their music, is a mix of doom, death and progressive metal. Breaking the “rules” of the supporting acts’ sound, theirs was of high standards. With their songs surely having a Draconian feeling, in a more modern way. Andreas’ harsh vocals, are great, but for me (and this is the only bad aspect in their appearance) his clean vocals still need a lot of work. Regardless that their performance was in very high standards.
Next came CAELESTIA on stage. A band with many influences, all filtered through their own perspective. Symphonic, progressive, death, black and even a bit of thrash is in their mix. The result is very, very promising but a bit confusing at some points. They also had very nice sound on stage and their somewhat theatrical performance made it a bit more interesting. Oh, and their new material sounded a lot promising, as well.
Last in line, were ELYSION. A band with a more modern approach on their sound, reminding me of Evanescence. With Christiana on vocals, who’s impressive to say the least. For forty, more or less, minutes they played songs from their two studio albums and a cover song from Rammstein (loved Christiana’s harsh vocals on the “Mein Herz Brennt” refrain). The band, was in great mood and the audience was having a really good time, as well. Their almost over half an hour set list passed very quickly, and it was time for the Swedish headliners to come on stage!
With no great intros, DRACONIAN took place on stage and the first sounds of “Stellar Tombs” made Kyttaro shake. The sound, was a bit confusing at the beginning, but in the process it got as it should be. “A Scenery Of Loss” is next and yes, it’s official, I fell in love with Heike’s voice. Anders’ harsh vocals, are also one of my favorites out there. Their, beauty and the beast, mixing of these two, elevates DRACONIAN to an even higher level.
“Heavy Lies The Crown” is definitely one of the highlights of last year’s “Sovran” but as Heike said, “Paled Tortured Blue” is her own favorite and who am I to disagree? It was clear, that their set list would lean on “Sovran” and they were most welcome to do so, but having two of their members changed very recently, and the lack of time to prepare properly, made them cut down their performance, to only one hour in length. So, knowing that, I realized that this very dream, would shortly come to an end.
Continuing, with “Rivers Between Us” with the help from their new bassist on clean vocals and “Bloodflower” from their not so long past, the night was soon coming to its end. And there wouldn’t be any better closure track than “Death, Come Near Me”.
This whole night was great. All bands, were in great mood, and eventually, the venue became a bit crowded,which is always good of course. IMMENSITY, CAELESTIA and ELYSION, proved once more, that this country, has good quality music and musicians. And of course, that DRACONIAN, deserve to be considered part of the elite on the doom/death metal genre.
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Check C.Alossi Photography for more photos.