Label: Underground Symphony
Date: October 20th, 2023
It’s February 24th 2024 and I am attending one of the first metal festivals for this year in the capital called Empire metal festival with a four year long tradition and tons of excellent metal bands from Serbia and abroad who really leave every drop of sweat and energy on stage for the audience. With a cold beer in hand and in a mood for some good crossover thrash metal because the lineup for that night was in thrash sign but…. I noticed one totally new band for me, they began and to my the most pleasant surprise they played progressive/thrash metal. This progressive part is more than thrash. It’s not enough to say, they blew us away that night on Dorcol Platz in Belgrade. Among others Animamortua sounded like a modern advanced version of Iron Maiden, something unique and creative that deserves more attention right away!
Here I am, a few months later reviewing their album. I had to say a few words about these metal lords! As I said Animamortua is from Malta and this is their first full length after nine years of existence. Two singles and one EP were released before this album as an overture for “God Among Us”. Thrash was never my cup of tea. Sometimes it’s my guilty pleasure in some specific situations but never on my playlist. There is something with that genre that is simple in some way good, some way bad. Animamortua on my luck has just a dot of thrash among everything else they can offer and it’s just a cherry on top in this diversity of melodies. Beginning from the first song “Black Hole” shredding heavy metal hit me in the head like a rock with a vocal of mister Juan Xerri who in some moments reminded me of Bruce Dickinson. His vocals have such opera capacity that soon or later some theatre will definitely recognise this rich talent. In every song without his high pitched vocals melodies would lose almost 50 percent of energy. My biggest impression from the concert and album also. Story just begins with vocals. Of Course, every song here is almost individual. From heavy moments of “Dark Matter” through pure thrash of “Dying Universe” over power in “Gods Amongs Us” and progressive in my favorite “Heliocetnric Affair” this band offered us their heart on the table. Solos in every song are just in its place and the duration of them is long just enough to keep my attention nothing much nothing less. There is no time or necessity to have never ending guitar solos… And trust me, at their concert I had a chance to hear how these gentlemen play without mercy on sound boxes. Atmosphere of the entire album is epic and full of adrenaline that rushes even more while I am approaching the end of the album. Something that Blind Guardian for exemple is known for, you can easily imagine a battlefield there while you are listening to this album.
In my opinion lyrics are not at all necessary here but in this case it complets and gives a purpose to the name of the album. “Gods Among Us” can be a story about the breakdown of the world, something like a conceptual album but honestly I didn’t see it like that. Only three last songs actually gave me some idea about one complete story but nothing much. Every other can be a book for itself. It’s too soon to tell what will be the path of Animamortua but for sure it will be something interesting and creative with high musical quality. Next Iron Maiden is ready for the battle.
