Year: 2023
Total Time: 41.20
Label: Drakkar Productions
ASCENDING OLYMPUS is a new modern Death Metal band created in 2019 just before the COVID-19 quarantine. They released their first full length album “Frontlines”, a few months ago. Its members are seasoned musicians like Ioiannis Dre in bass (JADED STAR, FATED CIRCLE, WAR DANCE), Dimitris Rouvellas in drums (AHERUSIA, JADED STAR, KINETIC, SORROWFUL WINDS κ.α.) and Kostas Papadopoulos in guitars (DOUBLE SQUARE, KARMA VIOLENS, MEMORAIN) and the newbie Andreas Logiotatos in vocals.
The first thing that draws our attention is clearly the amazing artwork from Giannis Nakos. The cold colors in the bottom half of the album cover and the burning Olympus in the center give us emphatically a sense of “ascension”, a clear reference to the band’s name. Regarding the theme of the album, they choose a safe and typical (usually for Epic and Power Metal albums though) war theme which becomes obvious right away by the songs’ titles (“A Call To Arms”, “Until The War Is Won” etc).
The band is a typical Death Metal band with many modern elements but not many surprises. Maybe this is what threw me off when I first listened to the 10 songs of the album. I would love to find out more variety like the melodic, somewhat doomy intro of “Hell Is In My Eyes” or the excellent guitar solo in “Until The War Is Won”. Moreover, I am always in favor of beautiful collaborations like the one with Mario Dupont (LUCIFER CHILD, KARMA VIOLENS) in “A Call To Arms” so I definitely highlight that. I got the overall feeling that the band emphasized to the very good drumming skills of Rouvellas. Not sure if it was by choice or just because of the mastering but I would love to listen more to some guitars or a little more aggressive vocals from the talented Logiotatos.
All in all, “Frontlines” is a very interesting debut from ASCENDING OLYMPUS and can become a very good starting point for their career. The ideas are there, the talent is obvious and the experience can give them the final boost. I am waiting with excitement the next steps as well as the live presentation of the album, which I believe can skyrocket the songs.
Rating: 7/10
Editor: Kostas Boudoukos
Related Link: ASCENDING OLYMPUS – Bandcamp Page
