Litrosis – I Am Death

Litrosis are a symphonic black metal band from Greece, and “I Am Death” is their debut album. Even after all these years I am still a sucker for awesome cover art, and the cover for “I Am Death” caught my attention right away. Despite my weakness for album art, I will be the first to tell you that there is a ton of bad music out there hiding behind engaging cover art. So I was pleased to find that “I Am Death” was one of the albums that both looks good AND sounds good too.

The band describes their music as “extreme epic metal” but there is certainly a black metal element as well. The keyboards and orchestration provide the epic symphonic atmosphere and make the songs sound huge. There are quieter moments, but most of the time the music is pretty fast and heavy. A lot of the time the songs sound so vast that paying attention to individual instruments can be challenging, but when you can pick out the guitars, bass and drums, the top notch musicianship is clear. The vocals are a mid-range harsh style. They are now low death metal style harsh, but neither are they the really high piercing shriek one finds in black metal either. The middle-range scream is one of my favorites as it is much easier to discern the lyrics than with the other ranges.

The production is pretty good but sounds a little rawer than I would expect from something so symphonic. I think perhaps with the orchestration I expected more low-end heaviness in the mix, and this is much more typical of black metal in that it favors treble over bass. The album sounds fine and it is a good listen, but it might seem fuller with a little more low-end. I would also like to hear the vocals higher in the mix.

“I Am Death” is a pretty good first offering. And look at the pretty album art, don’t you feel compelled by it? Lucky for you I am including some YouTube action so you can check out the title track and decide what you think before the artwork sucks you in and you go scrambling for the credit card. Check it out!