Review: “Aftó Eínai Pólemos” by Promethean Reign (Fifth Anniversary)

After 3 years of releasing just a handful of demos, Promethean Reign entered Shaken Oak Studios with Arthur Young who recorded, mixed and mastered their debut record “Aftó Eínai Pólemos” back in 2017. The title translates from the Greek for “This Is War“, a suitably fitting title for a first endeavour proper from a quartet who blur the lines between genres as they combine hooks, melody, dissonance and a nihilistic message from both Black and Death Metal extremes. At the time the band comprised vocalist and bassist TJ Higgs, guitarists Jon Arnold and Ryan Collins as well as drummer Joe Andrews and as Metal Noise prepares to celebrate it’s fifth anniversary, the fifth anniversary of one seems like a fitting place to be…

…The sinister and foreboding orchestral introduction to “By The Ashen Light Of Dawn” gives the cut a cinematic feel before the raw edges of the recording of “Aftó Eínai Pólemos” are exposed. Blackened Death Metal riffs fly amid just one of many theatrical vocal performances from Higgs as his uncleans are accompanied by rampaging percussive battery to create a fitting soundtrack to being frogmarched a medieval torture chamber where the band are preparing the implements of destruction. It’s a storming powerhouse of an opening cut with the charm of a higher quality demo, the quality of the musicianship shining through the dark clouds of slightly unbalanced mix of a raw recording with a drum sound that’s bigger than it needs to be. Pouring boiling oil over the ramparts of the castle, stand out cut  “The Great Deceiver” then urgently charges in with an immediately headbanging main riff and an incendiary solo that turn heads but the onslaught is far from over. “Dead Gods & Excrement” crushes all in its path, continuing to bring fresh ideas to the King’s table with sold riff after solid riff leaning on a rich and wide reaching influences in the process. Promethean Reign’s love of Black Metal bubbles to the surface with furious bursts of blast beats and the kind of rhythmic abrasions that make  Satyricon sweat with “Titanomachy“, another which builds on the theatrical presence as if Higgs were playing a role in a work of Shakespearian nature. The way in which the lyrics are delivered being perfectly in keeping with what you’d expect from the Oxford Education. A spoken word passage in “Burn” reinforces that feeling before a brutal bowel clenching Death Metal growl and a face melting extended solo bring thing the curtain down in style [7/10]

Track Listing

1. By The Ashen Light Of Dawn
2. The Great Deceiver
3. Dead Gods & Excrement
4. Titanomachy
5. Burn

“Aftó Eínai Pólemos” by Promethean Reign is out now and available over at bandcamp