I personally find Power Metal to be one of the easiest to listen to genres. There is a standard sound of heavy guitar riffs, pounding drum beats, soaring vocals and intricate solos.  It doesn’t matter where the band hails from – the formula is strong, but it does require skill to deliver. The new album Into The Realm from Greek band Diviner delivers on that perfectly.

Diviner was formed by long time friends and music partners, Yiannis Papanikolaou (vocals) and Thimios Krikos (guitar) in mid 2011. The vision in coming together was to express themselves by creating powerful, intense, deep, heavy, dark, melodic music that would sound up to date. All of this without losing the elements that reflect the essence of pure and timeless magic of metal.

They were joined in the band by George Maroulees (guitar), Herc Booze (bass) and Fragiskos Samoilis (drums) and a deal was inked with the Swedish label Ulterium Records. The debut album Fallen Empires was released in November 2015 and received very good reviews and feedback from around the world. Thimios Krikos left the band in 2017 due to a heavy and conflicting schedule and was replaced by Kostas Fitos.

Diviner entered Devasoundz Studios in Athens with producer Fotis Benardo in summer 2018 to record their second album Realms of Time. This time they decided to expand their musical horizons, exploring more territories, adding new elements in terms of lyrics, melodies, riffs and atmosphere, making their songwriting more interesting and better. The band worked really hard on coming up with the best compositions, arrangements and production as possible for the ten songs they set out to record

Kicking off the album is the very strong Against The Grain. An up-tempo paced piece, which blasts you straight off with a very Rage like riff. This sets up the album nicely with a preview of what is to come. The drums accompany this riff perfectly like beer and pizza. Yiannis shows his powerful vocals throughout this song and I think it is a big reason why this album works so well.

Next up is the first single which was the one that got my interest peaked. Heaven Falls is your Power Metal Track 101, it has everything you could ask for, a machine gun riff and accompanying beat to bring you in to the song before Yiannis’s vocal ebb and flow throughout the verse and pre-chorus before soaring up to deliver the defining chorus. My head is nodding heavily and as the song progresses I cannot but feel lifted. The heavy riffing does not let up before a beautiful harmonic solo will get people playing air guitar.

Set Me Free continues the onslaught, this anthemic sounding song keeps the pace intense and strong. The Earth, The Moon, The Sun drives in with a very cool riff, before being accompanied by a driving drum beat kicks the song into gear. The vocals on this song are some of the best on this album, with the harmony on the chorus giving it a very post-apocalyptic feel.

The rest of the album is solid with Time, The Voice From Within and Stargate being the strongest, but they can’t keep up with the brilliance that the first four songs have brought. Overall I find it a very easy album to listen to and expect it will get a number of repeat listens.

Realms of Time is out now through Ulterium Records.  Mastered by Henrik Udd (Powerwolf, Hammerfall, Myrath) with artwork by Jan Yrlund (Battle Beast, Apocalyptica, Korpiklaani).

Realms of Time is out now.