Greek metal everyman Bob Katsionis is back! Of course, the man’s work ethic is such that you’d be unaware he’s gone away, so many album pies has he had fingers in recently…

… Here, our protagonist is the leading light of Stray Gods, a project seemingly put together to sound more like Iron Maiden than Iron Maiden. It’s fairly obvious to say that most trad metal bands now sound more like Iron Maiden than Steve Harris and company – if it’s the ‘classic’ sound you’re after – but Katsionis has really excelled himself in fulfilling his own brief on Storm The Walls.

Enlisting a vocalist who is a dead-ringer for late eighties Bruce Dickinson is a masterstroke, obviously, though singers with a voice quite so appropriate as Artur Almeida for the task in hand don’t grow on trees. Any fool with a modicum of talent, two hands and a stereo can play in a day like Smith n’Murray, but few can sing like the air raid siren. Just ask Blaze Bayley

Throughout this album, Almeida’s performance is, by turns, spine-tingling and hair-raising. The man’s timing is perfect, his phrasing even better on utterly riduculous but irresistible anthems like Black Horses and Silver Moon, a track which actually sounds like it could have come from Accident Of Birth – when, you’ve guessed it – Bruce sounded more like Maiden than Maiden…

You’ve obviously got to take the initial premise of this album with a pinch of salt, and allow the artists their collective heads to do as they please; if you’re able to do that then it’s on for young and old as the band career through eight absolutely spectacular Maiden homages. Naked in the Fire is a raging Piece of Mind b-side so far undiscovered, whilst the epic title track takes the listener back to the times of Ancient Greece… nudge nudge, wink wink… Katsionis himself is on fire, contributing some stinging leads (strangely he opts to be the only guitarist in this band) as well as the sort of whistleable riffs Maiden made their own in the early eighties.

But the band don’t limit themselves to the classic era – Love In The Dark could have been tucked away on side eight of the Japanese vinyl version of Book of Souls, for instance – and it’s this versatility that puts them apart from the other tribute acts currently cluttering the market. Actually, Love In The Dark, with it’s parping Eurovision keys, gives a hint that there might be a future for this band away from the strictures of the Eddie Mothership, should they desire it; although as they rip roar through the Seventh Son inspired-mayhem of The World Is A Stage, where the rhythm section of Gus Macricostas (Harris) and Thanos Pappas (McBrain) really come into their own, you have to ask why would they bother when they do what they do so well…

You’ll love this or hate it. There really is no middle ground for Stray Gods. Choose your side!



Storm The Walls
releases on March 18th