Olympus

I really quite liked the first installment from Stray Gods, last year’s love letter to Iron Maiden, and so it’s cool to see them returning with a follow up so soon. This is yet another band spearheaded by guitarist/keyboarder Bob Katsionis, whose involvement in any power metal project is practically a seal of approval, but what’s cool about this one is that it showcases a more traditional side to his talents, and is about as far away from the usual Rhapsody-isms most of his recordings have toyed with of late. I don’t know why they chose a name so far removed from Maiden’s songbook, but Stray Gods are hopelessly devoted to the sounds Steve Harris brought to the world, and while ‘Storm The Walls’ was more about Maiden’s classic 80s sound, ‘Olympus’ digs deeper into their later stuff, making for quite arresting material.

If you’re going to sound like Iron Maiden, you had better have a dead ringer for Bruce Dickinson behind the mic, and Stray Gods certainly didn’t slip in that department. Attick Demons frontman Artur Almeida really fucking sounds like Bruce, mimicking his inflections, range, and vibrato almost perfectly, and although his accent is a dead giveaway, he injects these tunes with the ideal amount of gusto, turning in a fantastic performance. He certainly sounds more like Bruce than Raphael Mendes from Icon Of Sin, who ironically sound more like Priest than Maiden anyway. How anyone can fawn over that guy is beyond me. With Almeida, if you squint hard enough, you can almost convince yourself that it’s Bruce from his ‘Chemical Wedding’ days, and speaking of that album, ‘Olympus’ slips into that more measured style on some of the darker tunes, from ‘The Other Side Of The Mirror’ to ‘Fortune Favors The Bold’. There are also a couple of songs that generally hit a different vibe, as the debut did, with the closing title track touching upon the kind of thing Aquaria do so well, and there’s a slight touch of Angra to be heard scattered across the album, with Bob’s guitar work having more flash and flair than the classic Murray/Smith style. If you’ve heard Finland’s brilliant Machine Men, Stray Gods have a certain similarity to them, too, except they adopt a songwriting approach that is part ‘Fear Of The Dark’, with its darker themes and dragging pace, and part ‘Piece Of Mind’ on the more banging tunes. Some of the clean channel stuff comes from ‘Brave New World’, something that Mob Rules tinkered with on 2016’s ‘Tales From Beyond’, and the way Stray Gods play with these sounds is fairly reminiscent of them in their later years as well. Full speed romps like ‘Out Of Nowhere’ and ‘Abel & Cain’ gallop with classic Maiden riffage, complete with twiddling guitar harmonies and Almeida nailing Dickinson’s chest-beating wail, while songs like ‘Ghost From The Future’ favour Bruce’s best solo stuff from the late 90s, so you get a wide spectrum of Maiden-related sounds.

What I like about this band is that while they provide an obvious dose of Maiden worship, they still sound like a continental power metal band doing it, so it’s generally faster and more explosive than even Maiden were in their heyday. Maiden fans will love this, but power metal fans will get their money’s worth as well. This is a better album than ‘Storm The Walls’, with more involved songwriting and a stronger band performance across the board, but both are worth having. And it’s certainly more exciting than ‘Senjutsu’.