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Atlantean Kodex - The Golden Bough

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 January 27 2011 at 11:36:34 PM



World of Greyhawk. If Neil Peart n Mike Moorcock collaborated on lyrics, fed ‘em to Manowar’s Eric Adams n wondertwin powers formed up muso mercs to help fantastically embellish Bathory’s Hammerheart, we’d have Atlantean Kodex.

After a couple EPs and the requisite live record, we finally get a bona fides full-length, The Golden Bough, a more “realized” Pnakotic Demos that delves deeper into D&D effect, a listener-dependent take on Heavy Metal as fantasy role-playing game more about sword n sorcery than flexing wits on Internet messageboards. In a just world, Gary Gygax’s notion of D&D as a game that empowers our fantasies, where we are jettisoned into a realm populated with monsters, dragons, good n evil high priests n priestesses, demons n the gods themselves, would be not only compatible, but selfsame with the ways in which we understand and process Heavy Metal. Alas…

Appropriately, Atlantean Kodex demands the sympathetic listener. Those prone to hideously one-dimensional Christ-raping-Man-Goat take will find nothing but kitsch n naiveté in The Golden Bough. While kitsch is best left to “extraordinary Swedish Black Metal band… aiming to communicate a message of pure evil via entertainment,” Atlantean Kodex’s greenness is easily one of its more appealing qualities. That it can actually make Epic Heavy Metal based on myth n Lovecraft n role playing games in this age is as remarkable as it is ballsy. And the record’s tracks fall firmly in line with this purview, with three of the nine over 10 minutes, and three others over five. “Disciples of the Iron Crown” is the quickest—and most impotent—bit here, four minutes of triumphalism to “rouse the forgotten people.” Flipside is the megaepic “A Prophet in the Forest,” which someone should play for Steve Harris to show the poor bastard it’s possible to work a tune out over 10 minutes that won’t lull even the most fervent rivethead into a slobbering sleep. Grab the mead. Don the mail. Become a kid again if only for a while.

[Stewart Voegtlin]

Atlantean Kodex
The Golden Bough
Cruz del Sur
type: reviews    keywords: lhp044,   

Comments (3)

  • 1 comment
    RDMIII
    9:12 AM on Feb 04, 2011 // reply »
    Great review. I also think this band is ballsy.. it's authentic, unlike that idiotic packaged-for-every-gamer Dragonforce.
  • 386 comments
    VOEGTLIN
    9:37 AM on Feb 04, 2011 // reply »
    I doubt DF even play D&D. They probably just lifted their "aura" from old Dragon mags. In quiet time, I imagine them being slowly vivisected by bugbear.
  • 3 comments
    Opy
    9:21 PM on Mar 08, 2011 // reply »
    I just didn't get all the hype this got last year...not one single song felt "epic" to me...just rather boring..."While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose" from 2009...now that's epic.
 

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