Nuclear Blast

Rating: 9 /10

Waw! I had no fucking idea about what the hell was Agathodaimon, but the last months months they have become one of my faves in my hi-fi!!! How such a great band has been anonymous for so much time?! In reality, I know nothing about this band. All I know is that “Blacken The Angel – Nemuritor Si Rece” is their first album and that their Romanian-origined singer, Vlad Dracul, after a trip to his hometown Bucarest was denied to enter the European Union. So the recording was made with his substitute Akaias, who is a great singer, mixing whispers, screamy and growly vox. Agathodaimon’s music is melodyc and majestic and haunting as the inmense Carpathian forests with reallly Transylvanian atmospheres :), while other parts are faster and more passioned (“Banner Of Blasphemy”) and yet others are more relaxed and tranquil, sometimes bedeckened with beautiful female vocals. Many melodies are based upon synths, over which guitars flow nitidly and sometimes melancholially, with some metalllic riff as in “Ill Of A Imaginary Guilt”. The album is excellently and madurely performed, and production is great as well with loads of classical music arrangements that bring majesty to this release, as in “Contemplation Song”. An excellent album born despite the stupidity of the German (and the European Union’s, in fact) immigration laws. Europe is ONE, not TWO!!! Music, and culture in general cannot be stopped with boundaries!