Photo Credit – Ioannis Triantafyllou
GOD IN A CONE is based in Athens, Greece and surprisingly formed less than 8 months ago. The band is a one man project by Nikos Marinos. He adds Keyboards, vocals, programming, to the song and creates the percussion with a drum machine. A one man band can at times be incredibly hard with no one to bound ideas off of. However, Nikos doesn’t lack imagination. He has his sights set on something and he puts it in motion. GOD IN A CONE have just released the album ‘Obscurist’ which was produced, mixed and mastered at Studio 222 by Dimitris Delis who also arranged guitars on the record. Putting no genre tag on his music and setting no boundaries GOD IN A CONE can take you places that hasn’t yet been defined in music.
“Run Zombie” gets the ball rolling on this album, and it does so in a quick and rhythmic way. The techno industrial like sounds are almost reminiscent of background music from an old school video game. When the guitar riffs kick in it really bring everything together. Nikos Marinos’ vocals are then a welcome addition to the song. His deep baritone vocal approach is catchy and has you instantly tapping your foot. You also get a gut wrenching scream here and there as well which really adds to the depth of the song. Near the end of the track as the pace slows down some the instrumentation has this eerie vibe that takes the song to a different level. The band describes their music as experimental sounds without musical boundaries and that couldn’t be truer. The band puts no limitations on their style and let things flow in an organic way. “Run Zombie” is the longest track on the album coming in just short of 8 minutes. You hear a little bit of everything the band offers and it’s almost like a sample platter of everything that can do. At times you can hear some hear some heavy Type O Negative likeness or influence in their style. “Sell A Lie” really captures the more industrial style of the band with elements of numetal. The song comes across much more melodic than its predecessors. The track also heralds a large dose of groove from beginning to end. “Mitheumata” takes things to an alternate world from what we’ve heard previously. In this song all the techno and industrial elements are really kicked to the curb and replaced with an acoustic guitar. Nikos brings his clean vocals into this song and they are dominating in such a beautiful way. The strong point of GOD IN A CONE is the diversity of the band and how he changes things up from song to song. But, if every song sounded like “Mitheumata” I would be perfectly happy. The song really pulls at the heart strings and takes on a somber tone. The lyrics he expels “I want to feel you again” really capture your attention. You can hear the pain within his voice and it easy connects to listeners. This track has incredible power and is likely my favorite on the record. “Old Watcher” begins with some simple piano/keyboard and Nikos vocals again sound slightly different. Though the vocals are still in the clean range they have a little bit of grit to them. The song as a whole reminds me of “In This River” by Black Label Society. The piano and the rawness of his voice along with the emotion put into the song really bode well on this track. GOD IN A CONE really take you on a rollercoaster ride with the ups and downs of their music. Various genres are teased and overall they can’t truly be defined or tied down to one brand of rock or metal. ‘Obscurist’ is not an album…. It’s an experience. An experience you must feel in order to understand. The work of one mind has created a soundtrack that listeners can easily escape to and its name is ‘Obscurist’.
