Warhammer have released ALGOS, an eleven song fourth album three years in the making. The title is the Greek word for pain, and the band are explicit that it is not a concept borrowed from anywhere.
"When we were writing the album, each of us had our own concerns and inner pain, and I think that, ultimately, this is reflected in the record," said Hercules Giotis, who sings. He puts the band in terms that leave little room between the two things. "Warhammer are everything I cannot express or describe in words. They go beyond art. I could say they are a way of life. They are my life."
Musically the interesting decision is the saxophone, which runs through the record alongside the extreme vocals and does more than decorate. Black and death metal has a long history of adding a horn and getting a novelty; used across a whole album it has to carry melody the guitars are not carrying, which changes what the guitars are free to do.
The whole thing was produced, recorded, mixed and mastered at Hertz Studios in Poland. "Surpassing", "Tailspin" and "Hermitage" came first, the last of them with a video in September. The band formed in Athens in 2012, came out of thrash and death metal, and have toured Europe and the Americas alongside Batushka, Belphegor and Gaerea. They play the record at Black Temple in Athens on 11 December.