Aima – Tragos

Band: Aima
Title: Tragos
Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions
Release date: 15 June 2019
Country: Greece
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

Reviewing underground metal bands can be challenging at times. The bands differ as they are many, and often enough there is no information about them to find whatsoever. However, we manage to get through it most of the time without trouble.

This was not one of those times.

15th of June 2019 marks the release date of Aima´s debut album “Tragos”, and stating that here we have an underground metal band surely would be an understatement.

Having been around for a while now, Aima has so far had a demo, an EP and a split and are so underground that the rumor has it they don’t appear live by choice. Do not feel bad or surprised if you don’t know them or have ever heard of them, for nowhere could they be found on Facebook, nor do they appear on Spotify, nevertheless, this reviewer isn’t entirely sure if that stems from lack of Greek letters or simply because they are not there. As far as I understand the members have as well been involved in other projects simultaneously which of course requires attention.

The 29 minutes long 8 track debut album is interesting, to say the least. As the introduction track, “Goatfuck Redemption” goes on with all of its different parts you soon figure that even so, it does have the normal chord and sound formula of black metal, however the further you go the further you understand that there is something more behind this work.

The black metal first adopted by bands such as Blasphemy and early Archgoat has its own place in time and yet has somewhat evolved and changed as the bands move forward. However what Aima does is to desperately recreate and hold on to the same sound, along with their own death metal input, and the best word to describe the album would be edgy. The satanic philosophy is strong in this album, much more so than the music itself. Tracks such as “Poison Communion and Real Flesh” reflect a level of tightness I expected with good riffs that are not off, however once the melodies where the guitarist plays further up the neck of his instrument comes around, it strays away from the rest.

By no means is it set forth as a statement that this group managed to fail musically 8 tracks in a row, but going all the way from the second track “The Occultist”, to the eighth track “Hands in Blood” with guitars partially played out of tune and the riffs sort of sounding like an ambulance driving by, there must be a reason behind it other than untalented musicians who have been around for years, and I believe that reason is to intentionally make the listener uncomfortable and capture even further the satanic philosophy and the raw death metal element that seems to have surrounded this band from the beginning.

If the aim was to make the listener uncomfortable, eerie and bring forth the satanic philosophy, then they have managed to accomplish that at least with this listener. If it was not the aim…well than I’ll just keep quiet. 3/10 Julia Katrin

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3/10 Just Breathing
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