Band: AN-THEOS
Country: Romania
Title: Renăscând
Label: Independent
Year: 2019
Style: Folk Metal

Review:
The third (and unfortunately – the last) album of Bucharest folkmetallers brings with them a real musical fusion! From the first song “Ultimul Gând” this is a musical dialogue between the brutality of growling, the simplicity of short riffs, the accordion's grandeur and the melodiousness of female vocals (approaching operatic sounds) and “progressively polished” solos. However, this is not a copy like “Romanian Fintroll” or  “Romanian Nightwish” - in the next track, “Dans în furtună”, you can hear the nostalgia of the fog of the Carpathian forests and a breath of a harsh, healthy climate that turns into a crazy dance in a storm. “Care de foc” is a folk-metal symphonic vision of Romanian folklore with a pinch of black, perfectly pampered with female vocals - by the way the proportions of growl / singing on this disc are perfectly selected! “Illuzii” leads musically out of the woods to the flat South and here we have the advantage of melodiousness and sound space over strictly raw metal sounds. In the middle of this album appears the ballad-neofolk La “Răsărit”, the longest piece on the album and at the same time a beautiful song at sunrise. This blissful mood immediately breaks, like an ax blow, “Pierdut” - another symphonic masterpiece of this album, highlighted with oriental-psychedelic-death metal flavors. Then knocked down is reborn - the title Renăscând is an incredibly tasty and powerful mixture of folk-metal humppy, progrock, deatmetal, gothic rock, folkrock and Dacian soul! And finally we have two more cherries on the cake - the song Hora which folkmetrically and rhythmically refers to traditional dances from the Balkans - and this hora perfectly introduces the final and at the same time bonus of the Irish cover album Cruachan - Ride On. An Theos did not disappoint - the third album is another milestone in the group's musical development. And despite many musical references to European folk metal standards, it keeps the Romanian spirit all the time! I regret that the band officially ceased operations in February 2020 ...
Reviewed by Vilcin
Rating: 8/10