Release Date 25/09/2026
Format CD/Digital
Genre Heavy/Power Metal
Origin Italy
AnthenorA started in 1989 in Saluzzo, a small town near Turin, when schoolmates Luigi "Gigi" Bonansea, Fabio "Smaro" Smareglia and Stefano "Pooma" Pomero began writing songs on a diet of Iron Maiden, Saxon, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Accept, Grave Digger and Helloween. The name comes from Dante Alighieri's "Divina Commedia" (Inferno, Canto XXXII), where the frozen lake holds the traitors of the homeland trapped in ice. In the nineties the band released three demos, "Bring Me To Hell", "Heretical Symphonies" and "Demo'ns". From 1998 to 2002 they were one of Italy's busiest Iron Maiden tribute acts.
The 2002 EP "The General's Awakening" was produced by Tony "Mad" Fontò of White Skull, and it got them picked by Nicko McBrain for his "Total McBrain Damage" tours across Italy and Greece between 2002 and 2004. Their first album, "The Last Command" (Locomotive Records, 2004), was a war concept set between a dark near future and the WWII. "Soul Grinder" (2006) and "The Ghosts Of Iwo Jima" (2010) followed on My Graveyard Productions, then "Mirrors And Screen" (2020) and the EP "Need" (2024) on Punishment 18 Records. The band toured with Rhapsody Of Fire in 2023, and guitarist Alessandro Parola (Hellgeist, Dosgamos) joined in 2024. Now they return with their fifth album.
Luigi Stefanini tracked, mixed and mastered "Divine" at New Sin Studio, the same desk behind "The Last Command" twenty two years ago. The sound is pure old school, with the guitars up front, an organic snare and Samuele Peirano's bass rumbling under every gallop. It runs ten tracks and a little over forty minutes, cut from the Iron Maiden and Judas Priest cloth with a dose of Helloween melody. "Spider's Kiss" opens at full gallop with Pomero and Parola trading harmony leads.
The title track "Anthenora" plants a chant made for festival crowds, "War" is a mean Judas Priest style charge over in three and a half minutes, and "Stone King" closes on a Black Sabbath stomp. Bonansea's midrange voice strains when the melodies climb toward power metal heights, as in the chorus of "Justice". "Boredom" and "Decency" go round the same chorus line once too often, and "Boredom" lives up to its name near the five minute mark. This is honest, sweaty traditional heavy metal from a band thirty seven years in the trenches, good company for the old Iron Maiden vinyl, and short on choruses that stay in your head once the music stops.
|7.0
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