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Athorn

Phobia

Written by: PP on 05/12/2010 04:35:54

Hailing from Hannover, Germany, we have Athorn, a brand new melodic power metal outfit who have just released their debut album "Phobia" a couple of months ago. Before you roll your eyes at 'yet another power metal release', I should tell you that Athorn are only loosely connected with the term, as their overall sound varies significantly between that and genres like progressive metal and modern metal.

The guys claim Sanctuary and Nevermore as their main influences, or rather the older output by these two remarkable bands, and you can definitely hear lots and lots of the latter band embedded within their sound. A track like "Phobia" is almost balladic power metal by nature, recalling many of the melancholic clean vocal sections from Nevermore releases. Elsewhere, the band inputs a distinctly modern metal sound, where they incorporate melodic growls resembling Five Finger Death Punch, though nowhere near as commercially as those guys do. Especially "Angel Of The Fall" sounds less like a power metal song than it does like a modern metal song, thanks to its glossy production and catchy chorus. Unfortunately, generic heavy metal is also a large part of the mix on offer here, and it'd do Athorn much good to focus only on the catchy, radio-friendly stuff like the song mentioned before. They are absolutely at their strongest and most interesting when they are melodic, catchy and accessible. It's too bad there's so much anonymous progressive/power metal stuff going on in between the great tracks dragging this release down to an average rating.

Download: Angel Of The Fall, Phobia
For the fans of: Nevermore, Sanctuary
Listen: Myspace

Release date 17.09.2010
AFM Records