{"id":100960,"date":"2023-07-07T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T23:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=100960"},"modified":"2023-07-18T14:58:33","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T13:58:33","slug":"album-review-thelemite-survival-of-the-fittest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-thelemite-survival-of-the-fittest\/","title":{"rendered":"THELEMITE – Survival Of The Fittest (2023) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

THELEMITE
Survival Of The Fittest<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSleaszy Rider (2023)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The country of Greece once again comes up trumps with some classy 80s inspired heavy metal, this time in the form of Athens-based combo Thelemite. This is the band\u2019s third full-length offering, having released their debut, Slave To Desire<\/em>, in 2013, while the second, Thelemism<\/em>, emerged in 2021.<\/p>\n

With its Judas Priest-styled artwork, Survival Of The Fittest<\/em> makes its mark immediately, a rich and fiery slab of throwback metal dripping with nostalgia built upon hot riffs, slick melodies and soaring vocals. Somehow, and I\u2019ve heard a few people mention this, there is an atmosphere akin to Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s classic 1983 opus Bark At The Moon<\/em>. Maybe it\u2019s the superb axe work, maybe the vocals or just a general feel, but as this album unravels you can\u2019t help but be bewitched by its lore and passion.<\/p>\n

At times Thelemite drifts towards a Savatage-styled majesty (\u2018Visions From The Past\u2019), and there are many other musical journeys on offer here which wear their influence on their sleeve. But whether it\u2019s a dose of Twisted Sister (\u2018Black Hearted\u2019) or a streak of Alice Cooper (\u2018White Dreams\u2019), this is all very much built upon 80s heavy metal.<\/p>\n

Survival Of The Fittest<\/em>, while unoriginal, remains one of those inviting then enchanting records that isn\u2019t as one dimensional as some might think. For instance, \u2018Living Without You\u2019 has a sleazy, swaggering Guns N\u2019 Roses vibe, while \u2018NWO\u2019 is quite the clanking chugger. Some may find a handful of tracks succumbing to too much mimicry, but such aping of the 80s seems all the rage today so just enjoy this slab for what it is… nostalgic heavy metal.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THELEMITESurvival Of The Fittest Sleaszy Rider (2023)Rating: 7.5\/10 The country of Greece once again comes up trumps with some classy 80s inspired heavy metal, this time in the form of Athens-based combo Thelemite. This is the band\u2019s third full-length offering, having released their debut, Slave To Desire, in 2013, while the second, Thelemism, emerged in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5440],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-thelemite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100961,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100960\/revisions\/100961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}