Thunderstorm

Italy and Greece have been the primary proponents of epic heavy metal for some time; while the style was pioneered by Americans Manilla Road and Manowar, Italians Dark Quarterer did have an early hand in it, and, for whatever reason, the Italians and Greeks have latched onto the style more than any other country, bringing us dozens upon dozens of mediocre, cookie-cutter bands, along with a small quantity of decent acts. Wrathblade, Adramelch, Battle Ram, Dragon's Lair, and this standout demo from Wotan are among the cream of the scene's crop, and while none reaches Manilla Road's level of greatness, you can't exactly blame them for trying. At least they're trying to emulate someone worthwhile, as opposed to, say, Pantera.

Most of these epic metal emulators, however, have been cropping up since the early 2000s; others, such as Adramelch, Dark Quarterer and Moon of Steel, released their worthwhile material in the 1980s. Wotan, on the other hand, are pretty unique in that their best release came in 1993, a time when metal was at an all-time low, and would not see any significant kind of revival for the rest of the decade. Of course, epic heavy metal has never really been a particularly commercial genre anyway, as Manowar are really the only band in the genre that has seen even a small amount of commercial success; still, it's always refreshing to me to find metal gems from the mid-to-late '90s, as it demonstrates the fact that metal was, in fact, still very much alive at the time, despite its lack of popularity.

The interesting thing about this demo is that four of the seven songs would later appear on their debut full-length; surely, with so much shared material, the full-length must be at least as good as the demo? Unfortunately, such is not the case. I first listened to Carmina Barbarica long before I heard this demo, and was completely unimpressed, writing the band off as one of the myriads of mediocre Italian epic heavy metal bands. Despite sharing several songs, Carmina Barbarica just fails to capture Thunderstorm's energy, sincerity, and rough but heavy production. CB's production is much more modern in the worst sense of the term, with bland, lifeless guitars and drums, with the vocals much too far in the forefront. And while vocalist Vanni Ceni appears on both releases, his performance on Thunderstorm is far superior; his delivery is more youthful, powerful, and genuine, whereas his performance on the 2004 release just seems much more lackluster and subdued. CB is not a terrible album, but if you have the option, definitely pick up this one instead.

Musically, the demo is actually pretty original for 1993; its mid-paced, anthemic style combined with conservative use of multi-tracking wasn't really being done by anyone else at the time - although Manowar is definitely a big influence, this is much more consistent and a bit more ambitious than anything Manowar was doing. It's pretty similar to later bands such as Twisted Tower Dire and Battleroar (although better), they just managed to get in a few years ahead of the main wave. The songs are all pretty uniform in fashion, though not to the point of sounding indistinguishable from each other; rather, there aren't a whole lot of oddities such as instrumentals, ballads, or the like. The exception is "Mother Forest", but I tend to discard that one most of the time because of the atrocious production. While most of the demo is quite listenable, even enjoyable from a production standpoint, "Mother Forest" is overpowered by an absurdly loud, distorted bass that drowns out the acoustic guitar and vocals much of the time. In a nutshell, skip this one, and this one only.

Thankfully, the other songs are pretty uniform in quality as well, and all are quite solid, though falling short of truly spectacular. The engaging, energetic, battle-thirsty atmosphere within them is pretty empowering, and they're all concise enough that they don't get boring; they're merely simple, riff-centric, glorious heavy metal, and it really fucking works. If you like epic heavy metal, Wotan's later work, or USPM, this is definitely worth checking out.