Label: Soman Records

Date: February 13th, 2022

Next to the beautiful culture and sea, Greece is a country that offers some really good music. Not just their ancient folk dance music but metal is also amazing and prospective. Planet Of Zeus, Rotting Christ and others are popular and some of the best bands in the world. Death and progressive metal are stationed there and whenever I see, next to the name, that the band is from Greece I know I won’t regret my time for listening.

Mind Erasure is a band with not much work behind themselves. I meant not much published material. They offered their fresh, new and officially first album to the metal altar.

The album’s name is “Connive”. It starts with a song titled “Proem”. One calm and beautiful melody that leads us slowly to the second song that definitely convinced me to listen to this album more than one time. “Pray for Salvation” is one of those songs that has everything. Energy, vocals, solo, production, all cooked by marvellous musicians of Mind Erasure. “Azrael” blew my mind with these 5 minutes and 45 seconds of listening. Next to full death metal song “Pray for Salivation” we have now “Azrael” in totally different style.

Wait, one question. Why, in the name of God doesn’t this band have more attention!? Metal community definitely needs changes.

Black metal vibe is present through the entire album. Especially in songs like “Mind Erasure”, “Cataphasia” and “Sour Eyes”. It’s not monotonous in any moment. It’s one of those black metal melodies that you will be pleased to hear any time.

Special thanks to the drummer, Mister Vasilis Koskinas for existing. Maybe he can give lessons in playing drums to many world stars. The entire band makes just perfect music. It’s my honest opinion.

Cataphasia is a medical term, so I was curious to see the lyrics because it starts with a story. It’s impressive they made vivid presentation of cataphasia treatment in their official musical video. It’s scary, I admit.

“Sour Eyes” is a doom / black song with a scary message, like the previous one. This album is amazing in many ways but especially for really creative melodies. You can jump from the first minute to the fifth and impression will be: “Wait, it’s another song!?” No, it’s just art of a good song.

Greece is not Greece if there wasn’t a cult of war. Those people from ancient times knew how to take lead and talk about ways of fighting. So, “Last Stand” is definitely one of those songs that put my tears in my eyes. Not so many songs can do that. Maybe some from Arkona, one from Metallica and the list will end with “Last Stand”.

At the end of “Connive” we have three songs that, like in Greek epic myths, are talking about the end of the world. “As First Light Never Comes Part I: Seal’s Break” comes with a conversation between two soldiers, so there is something dangerous and great that will come and that is “As First Light Never Comes Part II: Apocalypse” in all its glory. The last part is an epilogue. The perfect story for the end of the album. The epilogue starts with some symphonic melody that reveals the full drama that happened to the human kind. The album ends with some fadeout melody that gives you goosebumps. I assume they left it to our imagination to figure out what actually happened.

Mister Lampros Stathis on bass and vocals showed us he is one of Greek Gods from the shadows. This man can sing in any technic. Clean, growl, screams, just order it. The name of the album is “Connive”. It’s something secret so I think the story behind the songs is whether Mister Stathis is a God. We mortals won’t find out.

The cover photo gives some metalcore vibe but surely it can trick you. It’s a beautiful picture totally.

I am really honoured to listen and write about this band. They need to have more attention for sure. I personally don’t get this triggered with some band really often. That’s why you can count me in for a CD of “Connive” and I am waiting for another album.