A new music album by a Greek orthodox priest that bridges byzantine with metal musical influences, further blended with modern electronic sound, has rapidly gained both global acclaim and commercial success in the digital world.
Released by Heat Crimes in collaboration with Thessaloniki’s elhellhel label, Paradise Metal by Father Dionysios Tambakis launched at the end of April 2026 and was fast to become one of the best-selling albums on Bandcamp.
“Paradise Metal introduces the fretless electric guitar devotionals of Father Dionysios Tabakis, a 52 year old priest from the historic Greek city of Nafplio, who voices byzantine church songs in a mix of amp worship hymns and outernational trance movements,” Heat Crimes wrote in announcing the album.
Following public demand by fans for a vinyl release, the label announced a Limited Edition LP of Paradise Metal that can be pre-ordered for shipping in July.
Father Tabakis’ YouTube channel led to Paradise Metal album
Father Dionysios Tabakis records his music alone at home.
The Greek Orthodox priest launched his experimental music channel on YouTube in 2012, where one can find over 300 videos that have exceeded 800,000 views in total. As a result, Father Dionysios Tabakis neared 9,000 subscribers at the time that this article was written.
There is nothing preaching in Paradise Metal; the tracks consist pure personal expression, prayer, and sound experimentation.
Heat Crimes describes him as “a musician of the Eastern Mediterranean in the fullest sense: formed in Byzantine theory and practice, fluent on qanun, oud, cümbüş, ney, zurna, Politiki and Pontic lyra, kabak kemane, yali tanbur.”
The system he works within is Byzantine, not as aesthetic choice or cultural reference, but as logic: “What emerges is slow, heavy, meditative, drone that carries the mass of stone walls and sustained prayer.”
In an exclusive interview with Greek free newspaper Lifo, Father Dionysios Tabakis talks of his musical influences, the expressional advantages of the electric guitar, and how his aim is “to debunk the misunderstandings and entanglements of past years and, through music, to unite rather than divide.”
“Those who have simplicity and an open heart and mind rejoice and are united with this endeavor,” he adds.
Greek Orthodox priests in rock/metal endeavors
Although much different to Father Dionysios Tabakis’ drone-folk sound, and their very distinct reasons for launching, a group of Greek Orthodox priests had made headlines in the 1990s for their rock music releases under the name of Paparokades.
The appearance of the band was controversial for the Church of Greece who found them “too anarchist” at the time. Until the dismantlement of the band in 2006, they moved between Christian rock and heavy metal to neoclassic retro and became very popular in Greece.
One of the band members eventually became a rock singer in Diviner, a Greek heavy metal band founded several years later.
