“Ate” is the debut album of Damon Systema, a band that flirts with the mythic atmosphere of ancient Greece bringing to their music characters full of passion, arrogance, calamity, divine retribution, and ultimate punishment. As my dear children of the night might be aware, Greek mithology is all about the rawest human feelings. Their gods are always in battle for power; they are jealous of as many things as possible even of poor human beings as we are; they are lustful and they go looking for poor human beings as we are to satisfy their needs and, so, creating more lust, more jealousy, more raw feelings, and, therefore, more battles. Interesting, huh? Well, after that I realized Greek mithology has everything to do with Metal music. Don’t you agree with me? Damon Systema and that’s why they wrote “Ate,” an album whose music shares with us all the potencial Greek mithology has to explain our miserable lives.
“Ate” is a musically complex album, not intricate, but musically complex because Damon Systema use modern techniques in order to fulfill this desire. I mean, the music in here uses lots of mixtures and blends of Old School Heavy Metal plus Extreme Metal. Not only, there also are elements of Symphonic Metal to spice up the mixture. I identified three kinds of vocals around the album: one female clean, one male clean, and one harsh male. All of them with their ranges and pitches. That’s why complex. It’s the Power Metal of Iced Earth with the Symphonic Metal of Nightwish with touches of Extreme Metal mainly in the instrumentals. Easy task to do, huh?
“Ate” commences with the pensive “Moirae,” a track with very slow movements that takes its time to get on the road. Damon Systema‘s ability to make the track slowly get on the road is remarkable because little by little the fan is getting what the band is all about. To some extent, its instrumentals do remind Metallica in the good old days. Even though it is not possible to label “Moirae” as a Black Metal track, it’s interesting how the band puts in it the Black Metal intent and feeling. By the way, this is the band’s signature all over the album. Damon Systema puts together many kinds of influences giving them their own signature. The pensive atmosphere gets bigger with the final speech that is in the background. Another Damon Systema‘s signature comes with “Lady Discordia” presenting the female vocals of Ruby Bouziotis. “Ate” is full mixed vocals and that’s what makes it so great. Instrumentwise, “Lady Discordia” is more Old School Heavy Metal with some Symphonic Metal intent, I mean, the fan keeps waiting Ruby Bouziotis’ operatic vocals, but it never happens. I would say great, because the lady does her part marvelously. Sometimes clean vocals is everything we need. Ruby Bouziotis’ vocals come back with tittle track “Ate,” the track that showcases all the band’s vocal abilities with the same slow instrumental movement as “Moirae’s.” I guess even a little bit slower, but deliciously.
With only six tracks “Ate” is a very complex album full with musical references. Damon Systema‘s ability is to sound modern without having the intention of being modern. “Ate” sounds very updated to today’s Metal music without having the intetion to do so. That’s a thing to applaud.
Damon Systema “Ate” was released on March 21st via Theogonia Records.
Track Listing:
01. Moirae
02. Lady Discordia
03. Harvest of Tears
04. Ate
05. Adrasteia
06. Poenas Dare
Watch “Ate” official music video here:
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!
