Review of the Album Under a Mourning Sky by Greek Thrash Metal Band Riffocity

It may be at least accurate on some level to mention now that Greece is becoming the new Bay Area in a sense because so many bands are starting up there. And all of these bands have been created in the decade of the 2010’s for the most part. All the ones that I’ve heard in September 2019 are great for the most part, the only exception being Horus Legion which is average and even they are not terrible.

Riffocity has this sort of thundering riffs and they even have a power ballad in their debut album called Under a Mourning Sky. This one is called Fortunes of Death. “From Inside the Arrows Come” has a rather exotic or interesting beginning to it as it sounds like early Lacuna Coil in some respects. Hail Thy Father begins thus studio album and there keeps on being a change in tempo but the song remains interesting throughout. Here is the interesting part and that is when the time changes and the vocals sound like German band Kreator. Arnis Oblivion starts differently as well as we hear some soft piano playing. Greeks are talented people and this talent is now evident in their musical creativity as we near the end of the 2010’s. Bitter Sunday is a song that is about a man that sees no hope in the future as his thoughts are on doom, gloom, and pessimism. In spite of this album’s title, the music isn’t something to be mournful about.

By this point, some of you may be asking how good Greece is in the last two years in terms of heavy metal. This may be a biased answer but the country is definitely improving in this category and musically the country has a bright future. However, this over reliance on Kreator influenced riffs makes Riffocity seem a bit stale at times. They would have a tough task of trying to replicate what Kreator has done starting in the early 2000’s.

But not all is stale in this album as the song Fortunes of Death demonstrates with the Eldritch influenced acoustic part which grows on me as a heavy metal fan.

Isolation though has a good time change as the acoustic guitar finishes off this song. Perished Unloved is a song that lyrically tries to tell us that being in love equals pain. Depending upon whom we ask, this assertion may be true in the people that choose to believe this but in my perspective, love should be a joyful, rewarding experience. Once again, Riffocity choose to make things interesting by including an acoustic part as well as including female vocals. If we hope and pray that the one we love won’t leave us, it will be more likely that they will leave us for someone else.

Under a Mourning Sky lyrically tells the tale of human life, that all of us shall have to die one day no matter what we do.