Arthemis - We Fight

Arthemis

We Fight

by Lior "Steinmetal" Stein at 27 September 2012, 6:16 PM

We, the people of the world, throughout our varied societies, fight for something. We fight for various of purposes; some for the benefit and for the good or better living of others while others are for the generation of evil and preposterous, for cruel dominance over populaces. The main phrase here is “Fight” and that is the will power to do everything for something, just like the Italian ARTHEMIS, they have been fighting to receive the recognition they deserve in the Metal world, and boy the deserve it. Formed by the shred guitar master Andrea Martongelli (aka Andy), the only way, well just like in every band out there, is up. Bounded by the powers of the old school, which in ARTHEMIS’s case it’s the glorious harmony between Bay Area Thrash and melodic darkened Heavy Metal, all convened under the halo of a swift modern production, this group is ready to take on the worldwide scene once again with a new album, and this time there will be fighting over “We Fight”, via the band’s new label Off Yer Rocka Recordings. After having a sweet time with their early “Heroes”, which even more emphasised the shift of the band from common Euro Power Metal into the vast lands of this Thrash / Heavy merger, “We Fight” came out shooting, and it turned out to be mighty accurate.

Just before I sink my teeth I will alert you guys that ARTHEMIS didn’t intend, and even if they did, to reinvent the wheel. As far as this album is concerned, “We Fight” isn’t the next thing in the development of Metal music, on the other hand, it presented a competent pack of players with burning flame in their hearts to achieve heaviness along with a melodic cutting edge to convey their material in best possible measures. All throughout the release, ARTHEMIS showed that there are two sides for each golden coin on their tracklist. Thrashing their way into new horizons with fast as a speedboat “Reign of Terror”, hope for the years to come with “We Fight” and the fight for survival of “Blood of Generations”, while keeping it classy and poignant with to be classics as the 80s tear drops of the ballad of “Alone”, insanely melodic “Cry for Freedom” and the crushing blow of “The Man Who Killed the Sun”. The basic end result is a flowing revelry of heavy and melodic Metal with a sharpened blade to take on everything and offer the whole lot of its devotees.

With their arousing lead vocalist, Fabio D, which began his career with the band back in the “Heroes” album, didn’t fail to impress me track after track even for a bit. His dramatic voice pattern resembled a mixture of Belladonna meets the depth of Dickinson with a shriek of Michael Kiske, nothing would expect from a Thrash Metal singer right? But there are plenty of examples of the same kind so you may hold your horses.  Andy, on the guitars, is clearly not a Malmsteen type but he shares several brutish kind of Thrash riffing alongside commanding 80s familiarity of Heavy Metal outputs in the vein of IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST. His soloing and licks are impeccable and with a lot of warm feel as the enhancements of his craze. The rhythm section manned by Damian and the new guy on the block, Paul, are energetic, silky and highly comprehensible. Paul is a massive drummer without a mercy on the skins, while Damian slams the bass in a rather common fashion but effective.

The Japanese version of “We Fight” also comes with two covers, “Tornado Of Souls” (MEGADETH Cover) and a rather obscure yet kind of cool version of “United” (JUDAS PRIEST Cover). I have to admit that I didn’t care too much for the MEGADETH cover due to the fact that I listened to various of MEGADETH covers and didn’t like any. MEGADETH are the only ones that can play their songs as far as I am concerned. As for JUDAS PRIEST, I liked the reproduction of this song; ARTHEMIS perfected it with great implementations. To conclude, this is a great album, though not too different from other heavy hitter out there, yet it is more that worthwhile for you.