Gaia Epcius is a powermetal band hailing from the north of Norway. The band was formed on -92/93 under the name “Rått Kjøtt” (Norwegian for Raw Meat). They changed their name to Gaia Epicus in 2001, and went under different names between then.
Album Line-up:
- Thomas Chr. Hansen-Vocals, Guitar, Bass
- Mike Terrana-Drums
- Lucky Sparxx-Guitar
- Tim “Ripper” Owens- Guest vocals on ‘Gods Of Metal’
Now, this is not the first release this band has had, of course, and their history is long and releases many. Seventh Rising was released Desember 12th 2020, and consists of 11 hard hitting powertracks, taken out of the powermetal ‘bible’. They’ve even got Tim “Ripper” Owens as a guest vocalist on one of their tracks, “Gods of Metal”.
There aren’t many tracks on this release that stands out, and you kinda feel like you’ve heard it before. But on the other hand there’s absolutely nothing to say about the level of the musicians. They know their stuff and you can clearly hear that they are skilled.
When it comes to powermetal, the vocal plays a hughe part. And even though Mr. Owens put his signature on “God of Metal” I really wished they’d use him on “We are the ones”. On “God of Metal” his voice kind of dissapears a bit in the sound picture, but he would be perfect for the other track.
The vocals of Mr. Hansen really flourish on “Invisible Enemy”, which is more like a hard-rock track then anything else. His voice suits this track very vell, and might even remind me of Paul Dianno at times. But there are some parts on this album where his vocal seems a bit “shaky”. This is especially evident on the first track “Like a Phoenix”, which starts with calm part before turning into pure power metal.
I really like the sound of the bass, and a track that separate it self from the others, is “Number One” which starts off with the bass. And the sounds of the bass is really fitting here, though there are some parts where the bass might be a bit too much. But they are small parts.
Listening to “Number One” can’t help getting me to think of “Wherever I may roam” buy Metallica. I’m sure the guys have heard that before.
The powermetal-tracks on this album is pretty much what it is, powermetal. And like a lot of powermetal it looks and sound the same. There are a few gold nuggets on this album, which is not power, even though the band has put some powermetal parts on those tracks as well.
Listening to it makes me think feel that the writer has been inspired a lot from bands like Sonata Artica, Helloween, Stratovarius and even Metallica. Not hard to hear, but unfortunately not original.
Tracklist:
- Like A Phoenix
- Rising
- Nothing To Lose
- From Ashes To Fire
- The Dream
- Invisible Enemy
- Dr. Madman
- Number One
- Gods Of Metal
- We Are The Ones
- Eye Of RA
