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Some time ago, Tartarean Desire's Grimma e-mailed me saying he disagreed regarding my vision on Greek black metal bands, due to a comment in a certain review I had done for the site. After the exchange of impressions (he appreciated the Hellenic scene and I thought it was overrated), he recommended proper listenings of some bands. I recently attended a local extreme metal festival and I found cheap CDs in a stand, one of those being Kawir's Arai. Despite the fact that I haven't heard anything about this band (except for the fact they came from the land of Olympic Games and passionate basketball), I bought it immediately since it was cheap and the cover art suggested to me something interesting. The morning after the concert I put the CD on the stereo, eager to know whether those omens were accurate or not, and they were: this is a fantastic album. One of the things I value the most in extreme bands is they try to capture that eerie/ritual halo betrothed to this music genre. Kawir succeed in creating that obscure atmosphere, in a quite competent blend of Rotting Christ influences (all the Greek bands I've heard so far have it, but this case is not as shameful as others), broken dry vocals vaguely similar to Arckanum, slow-downs and ambient passages, keyboards and other elements used wisely as female vocals in recitatives. There is a wide variety of tempos and you are immersed in black metal feeling every time. The melodic element is relevant and sensible, prominent without being cheesy, a typical trait of Greek bands which are away from other countries' scene in this melodic focus. Definitely a very convincing black metal album the Hellenic mythological pantheon can be very proud of.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Telchines The Magic Race |
| 2. Oneiropompos |
| 3. Bind Enemies |
| 4. Katadesmos |
| 5. Thunderstorm |
| 6. The Curse of the Old Witch |
| 7. Ode To Time |
| 8. Typhoon Magic |
| 9. Nekydaimon |
: 40:32
| Buy other Kawir albums |
