Artist: Black Sword Thunder Attack
Country: Greece
Label: No Remorse Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2025
Although the name of this Epic Heavy Metal band from Greece might feel like some random cool words from the sword-‘n’-sorcery kind of Heavy Metal, their music definitely is not randomly put together. But, the band definitely came a long way. Black Sword Thunder Attack’s roots go all the way back to the late 90’s or early 00’s, with the first 1-track demo tape appearing in 2002. Yet, these Greek certainly weren’t in any kind of hurry as the follow-up to ‘Promo 2002’ took almost a decade to materialize, with another promo in 2015. Then, in 2020 things seemed to be going somewhere, a 12” EP was recorded for and released by No Remorse Records. Yet again, the band fell quiet for years and honestly, I thought the band was likely to fade back into obscurity again.
But, here we are. It is 2025 and Black Sword Thunder Attack are back with a new recording, and this time nothing less than a full-length album. If you were enamoured with the band’s last few recordings, you are in for a treat. Black Sword Thunder Attack are definitely back with a spellbinding album that will delight every fan of epic and authentic Heavy Metal like as if t he 90’s never happened.
There are two major ear-catchers here. The first and perhaps most obvious one is vocalist Mareike whose vocals are both powerful and angelic at the very same time. Listening to this self-titled debut album it is hard to imagine the band started out with bassist Stelios on vocal duties, the music truly seems to be made for Mareike’s voice – and perhaps, quite likely, that is very much the case too. Secondly, the album sounds really smooth, organic and overall natural. That means that the album is free from all too modern production possibilities, slightly rough but never raw. A production that, too, complement the total presentation of the music.
The music itself then. In case you haven’t heard the band before, you can very well imagine yourself this to be a lost Warlord album. Since that is one of my favourite bands out of the 80’s, it is rather hard for me to complain about basically anything about ‘Black Sword Thunder Attack’. Especially when the band adds a healthy dose of folky flavoured melodies and song structures. Warlord themselves weren’t averse of that either, but Black Sword Thunder Attack are taking it a little step further. On certain tracks, like the great ‘Last Flight Of The Eagle’ it is hard to deny an evident flair of Jethro Tull-like Folk Rock, from more or less their late 70’s albums, with ‘Stormwatch’ being quite the most obvious. Consequently, every now and then Black Sword Thunder Attack shows slight resemblances with Folky/Progressive (Heavy Metal) bands like The Lord Weird Slough Feg and even Jex Thoth. Add some early Glacier and Quartz to the mix for good measure and you’ll have a picture perfect idea of what this talented Greek band brought to the table with their highly enjoyable debut album.
