Kawir - Hellenic Glorifying Extreme Black Metal
Kawir was formed by Mentor in 1993. Their name is inspired from an ancient greek worship. Kawir was if not the first one of the first that chose to play hellenic pagan black metal. Their first work like this was a split 7" with the totally crushing japanese thrash-band Sigh. The next release came in 1994, it was a 7" ep through Dark Side Records called "Eumenides". A fine piece of fast pagan black metal. In 1995 the mini-lp "To Kavirs" was released and many ancient greek elements was included. After this the first full-length is released also called "To Kavirs" with nine hymns to the hellenic pantheon with lyrics only in Greek. Also some ancient sounded non-metal songs were included and if you compare with the early "Eumenides" stuff the tempo has slowed down quite a bit. Then a lot live shows were played until the summer of 1998 when Kawir once again entered the studio to record their forthcoming album "Epoptia". And with this album the speed is back on a nice level again. A lot of good riffs and keyboard work can be found on this album which was released in early 1999 by Storm Productions. This album is inspired from Hesiod's Theogony. But know all lyrics are in english again but they deal as usual with hellenic matters. The present line-up is: Mentor - guitars/bass/invocations, Archemoros - vocals, ES "Erichthonios" - keyboards/drums. If haven't heard Kawir I strongly recommend you to listen to one of their cd's. Defintively one of the five best black metal band out of hellas today.