FUNERAL STORM – Chthonic Invocations

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7.0

• Bands:
  FUNERAL STORM
• Duration: 00:37:37
• Available from: 10/05/2024
• Label:

• Hells Headbangers

After over twenty years of career, it is now clear that Funeral Storm does not like to rush things, nor feel like they are at the center of too much (underground) attention. It had taken a lifetime to see the Athenian project abandon the split format to try its hand at a complete and substantial work (the debut album “Arcane Mysteries” in 2019), and another five years had to pass before we could welcome it back on the sulphurous notes of this “Chthonic Invocations”, the second stage of a heartfelt homage/recovery operation based on Mediterranean black metal.
A genre that the band of guitarist/founding member Wampyrion, a true workaholic on the circuit (just take a look at the dedicated page of Encyclopaedia Metallum), and frontman Stefan Necroabyssious, always the voice of the legendary Varathron, knows and returns with a impressive wealth of detail, as if we were in 1993 and instead of the Hells Headbangers logo, the Unisound logo was printed on the package, for about forty minutes of music that is once again enveloping and out of time.
A flow that the splendid artwork by Markus Vesper (Attic, Denial of God, Manilla Road) fully immortalizes in its occult and horrifying atmospheres, while in the background the songs review all those stylistic features made famous by masterpieces such as “Thy Mighty Contract”, “His Majesty at the Swamp” and “Crossing the Fiery Path”, with very straight and never too fast rhythms, riffs borrowed from the heavy and thrash tradition of the Eighties and carpets of keyboards with arcane and bombastic tones.
Nothing that comes out of the genre or that shows a strong personality, on the contrary, but the ardor released by these grooves, right from the instrumental intro of “Whispers from the Beyond”, once again becomes the reflection of a written and packaged proposal with all the trappings, less dazzling than that contained in the superb “The Crimson Temple”, but which should not struggle to beat that of the upcoming “Pro Xristou”.
On the other hand, here the guitar work 'turns' properly from start to finish, with insightful solutions and melodies of a certain impact, see the heroic openings of the double “Behold the Dark”/“The Void”, unattainable for the current pen of Sakis Tollis, and in addition to these salient details – also thanks to the usual, passionate performance of Necroabyssious on the microphone – everything in this second full-length actually smacks of competence and genuineness, for a songwriting that is as traditional and simple as it is lively and captivating .
In short, the black metal records of 2024 are and will be different, but for those nostalgic for the old Hellenic scene, perhaps tired of listening to the classics again, “Chthonic Invocations” can only be a recommended listen.