Wishdoom
Helepolis

April 2011
Released: 2011, Metal On Metal Records
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Wishdoom from Greece, is a new acquaintance to me personally. The band has previously released one demo titled UP TO THE HAMMERS in 2008, and then WINDS OF WAR EP a year later, consisting of 5 tracks. Wishdoom´s music is often described as ´epic heavy/power/doom metal´, so count me in; I definitely am curious about them now.



These 5 Greeks´ debut full-length studio album, carrying the title HELEPOLIS, reeks of some true potential and talent, no doubts. It´s not often that you get to hear a band from Greece that does so well their mixture of epic heavy, power and doom metal as this Thessalonikian Wishdoom does. The whole band has truly something magnificent going on here when it comes down to the guys´ ability to write songs that really catch your attention - and make you hum them for days ahead.



Starting off with the Manowar-tinged track of the album, "Helepolis", it becomes certain right from the very first moments of the song that there´s no way one could not let this disc run to the end. It´s got heavy metal´s epic feel to it; it´s an uniformly well-crafted, highly enjoyable and catchy song, which the guys can be proud of. "The Battle of Plataea" comes next, continuing these Greek warriors' glorious march into the fields of heavy doom-laden metal a lá Candlemass and later era Maiden in its all pompousness. Damn, this sounds seriously awesome; the riffs, the superb vocals of Chris Paschalidis, the chorus part - everything really.



The further the album actually develops, the stronger Wishdoom´s victorious forward march becomes on this excellent disc. A song called "Cimmerian Plains - Son of Crom" reeks all things epic, true and pompous - so do such tour-de-forces as "Crystal Force" and "My Wish Your Doom", but also a chest-pounding anthem, "Zeus the Thunderer" as well as "Guardians of Steel" that does remind of the already defunct Swedish doom meisters Sorcerer quite a bit. "Wishdoom", a nearly 6-minute instrumental with a beautifully played piano overture and an overall really colossal and melodic sounding, Maiden-inspired track, undoubtedly gets some pairs of ears flaming for how good the song actually is.



HELEPOLIS is the kind of album from Wishdoom that makes me want for more. Hopefully this empire known as Wishdoom won´t collapse for many years to come, but will keep on churning many other quality albums out from their catacombs in the coming years. The word ´quality´ is stamped all over this fine Greek act.