Shattered Hope / Manos Six + The Muddy Devil @Temple (4/3/2022)

09/03/2022

“There are 1000 ways to get lost…”

With a nearly two years delay SHATTERED HOPE had the chance to present live on its entirely the magnificent album “Vespers” giving us a wonderful gig full of atmospheric doom death metal.

“The shadow of my life was hanging over me…”

Friday night, march 4, 2022, we returned to the Temple for another gig and it seems that step by step we go back to the things we always liked, things that we took for granted in the past like attending a concert with some friends just to hear the music you love. The doors opened with a small delay and the few that were waiting patiently outside got inside and started checking the merchandise where you could buy cds and tshirts of Shattered Hope. I noticed a weird set up on stage but it was just for hosting the opening act.

MANOS SIX + THE MUDDY DEVIL is an acoustic duo (banjo and acoustic bass) that is into dark americana genre and yes, you could say that it was a weird choice for this event, especially if you are not familiar with this music genre since this is not that close to extreme genres. But in reality their music matched quite nice since their atmosphere is dark and their lyrics are about dark tales from the swamps, creepy tales and the games of devil with the shadows. This time, the band (that arised from Skull & Dawn) had some special guests on stage serving the purpose of each song: the talented guitar player Elena Malamou (this time on badjo), Gina Selini on keys and Jan Westermann(Kawir / Abyssus) on percussion. The full length will be released in the next days so we can’t wait to return back to them.

video MANOS SIX+MUDDY DEVIL live:

“towards the land of deception…”

Just before the clock hits 23:00 the lights went out as the time had come to see the headliners of the night. SHATTERED HOPE is one of the best Greek doom death metal bands and all their works is top class but especially on “Vespers” album (that released in 2020) they reached a new level of doom perfection, a great album that contains five impressive tracks. Unfortunately, until recently they couldn’t perform live this album due to covid19 but here they were, with a small delay they had their chance and of course they grabbed the opportunity. The five tracks of the album are some long compositions (none of them is less than ten minutes long) but they seemed like they were playing this songs forever so they managed to bring out the full experience of an album that is so deep in emotions.

“Δε θα συγκρίνω φως με το σκοτάδι …”

They preferred to alternate the running order of the album so they kicked off with “Syrigmos” (the only track that they had played live before) and “In Cold Blood”. Then, Nikos Spanakis from Dodsferd got on stage with the band adding some magic with his vocals on “Verge” while on the next two tracks we saw and hear the lyre of Kostas Petrakis that added extra perfection to a great gig.

I can say that I would be fully happy if the concert ended at that point, but no, the Athenians got some extra tricks up their sleeve. This time Evgenia Theoharatou got o stage and played keyboards for the last two songs. The first one was “For The Night Has Fallen”, a favorite from Waters Of Lethe album. And then the finale -a grand finale- with an amazing cover of “Μπλε Χειμώνας”(Blue Winter), a song by the greek goth band Diafana Krina that they managed to turn into a beautiful doom/death diamond. No surprise we all got surprised and amazed by the beautiful cover that finished their performance in the best possible way.

video SHATTERED HOPE live: