Constantine-Shredcore

7Hard
2010

Constanine is a project for Konstantinos Kotzamanis. He is also the guitarist for Mystic Prophecy who I enjoy quite a bit. The title very much fits the project on this one. It's just mainly straight ahead guitar shredding with no vocals, no build-up and a great deal of structure. This is pure fretboard gymnastics and it's makes no attept to be anything else. This is a departure from the power metal sound of Mystic Prophecy as at times it reminds me of speeded up version of Dream Theater's Images and words. A few times he slows down and really takes the time to flesh out some ideas and work in a few flowing melodies. For the most part it's like a sprint with notses flying as fast as possible. Guitars and solo fanataics might eat this stuf up. For most metal fans it's slightly impressive to play so much so fast,but it's also kind of empty. It is certainly not an album I could listen to over and over. I get the impression that Kotzamanis did this much more for himself than for his fans.