Korrigan – Demo (2008)

Independent Release

Review by Tony Cannella

From Greece comes Korrigan. They play a powerful mix of Black, Death and just plan old heavy metal. It is a good interesting mix that the band brings to us. Korrigan includes two lead vocalists, a male and a female. On male vocals is Vaggelis and Zoe is his female counterpart. There are actually eight members listed in the band, with the rest of the line-up looking like this: Marios (Bass), Kostas (Guitars), Manolis (Keyboards), Nikos (drums), and Panos (Guitars). With their 4-song 15-minute demo the band sets out to make a powerful opening statement. Are they successful? In my opinion the answer is a resounding yes! “Seeking a Healing Hand…” is a 1-minute intro piece that sets the table with it’s eerie vibe and the male spoken words with Zoe adding an operatic vocals melody over it and builds the anticipation for the lead off track “Silence”. The brutal death metal style vocals of Vaggelis are on full display here as he takes the reigns all by himself and this track really moves along at a fast and relentless pace and is the perfect opener. The riffs in this song are huge and machine gun-like. On the next song, “Suicidal Urges” we get our first example of the fine chemistry between the male and female vocals. The song begins with a cool piano intro as another lethally addictive guitar riff joins the fray. This is definitely a highlight for me and the contrasting styles of the male death style vocals and Zoe‘s soprano approach is quite breath taking and very well done. The majority of the vocals are handled by Vaggelis with Zoe adding some beautiful melodic touches and then joining in on the chorus and then taking over on the last verse. The band save the best for last with the final track “Tonight”. Again it begins with a piano piece as the clean male vocals come in. To say this came as a surprise is an understatement. The song speeds up and gets heavier and then slows down again. The female and male vocals are split pretty evenly here and this is easily my favorite song on display. The clean male vocals, the female vocals and then the death style vocals that resurface later in the song all combine to make this a tremendous song that bring this collection to a strong, satisfying conclusion. The production is fantastic as you can understand every word that is begin sung and to me the lyrics are one of the cool things about Korrigan. Basically, the bottom line is this. Korrigan are a band that have been lumped into the death metal, black metal, gothic metal genres and I guess that’s okay, but their style is much broader that that. They are a band that are not going to be restricted by parameters and it shows on this 5-song demo. I can talk for hours about this band and their potential but why don’t you have a listen for yourself. Their demo is a free download at their MySpace site. It is well worth the time and effort and an excellent introduction to this Greek band.