{"id":102372,"date":"2024-02-02T00:00:57","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T00:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=102372"},"modified":"2024-02-14T10:47:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T10:47:50","slug":"album-review-graywitch-children-of-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-graywitch-children-of-gods\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAYWITCH – Children Of Gods (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GRAYWITCH
Children Of Gods<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSleaszy Rider (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Even if you don\u2019t like emphatic and triumphant contemporary metal, it\u2019s still hard to ignore the epic booms of Thessaloniki, Greece-based Graywitch. Bordering on power metal, this act has been constructing heavy metal since forming in Nicosia, Cyprus during 2018 and this new outing comes three years after 2021 debut album Rise Of The Witch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Admittedly this sort of bombastic metal I can live without even with its obvious influence from Manowar. This is the sort of album that reveals its intentions right from the cover art; the combo marching proudly with tales of gods, gods…. and more gods. Since the first outing the line-up has changed, and this seems to have benefited the band greatly. The acquisition of new singer George Papadopoulos has been a smooth transition, and any band with three guitarists \u2013 Spyros Vlachopoulos, Lampros Stefou and ex-vocalist Dino Lassis \u2013 is sure to sound formidable. Completing the band\u2019s current line-up are bassist Dimitris Ravikalis and drummer Vaggelis Kanvitsados. However, it should be noted that Graywitch mainman Spyros Vlachopoulos is responsible for all guitars and bass on the album, while drums and percussion were performed by Thomas Chalkias.<\/p>\n

Another major point here is the switch in musical style; whereas before the band vomited out a rather bland hard rock, this time you hear the power of acts like Blind Guardian and Helloween as influences for their Hellenic tapestry of tales. On that first album there were too many layers of cheese with songs like \u2018Metalhead\u2019, \u2018Midnight Metal Queen\u2019 and \u2018Heavy Metal Life\u2019, but now we get opening instrumental \u2018Overture To Olympus\u2019, the colossal title track and other marching anthems like \u2018Odysseus\u2019 and \u2018God Of War\u2019, as well as a trio of mighty tomes in the form of \u2018Holy Lands\u2019, \u2018The One\u2019 and \u2018Immortals\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are hot axe solos, commanding vocals, orchestral nuances and a general feel of serious metal being played, and with nary a flake of cheese in sight. Yes it\u2019s polished and yes it\u2019s been done countless times before, but it\u2019s good to see bands evolve positively and I sense that if they stick to their weapons then Graywitch may find a new fan base and do well on the festival circuit.<\/p>\n

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

GRAYWITCHChildren Of Gods Sleaszy Rider (2024)Rating: 7\/10 Even if you don\u2019t like emphatic and triumphant contemporary metal, it\u2019s still hard to ignore the epic booms of Thessaloniki, Greece-based Graywitch. Bordering on power metal, this act has been constructing heavy metal since forming in Nicosia, Cyprus during 2018 and this new outing comes three years after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5571],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-graywitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102372","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=102372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102373,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102372\/revisions\/102373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}