🎶 Forbidden Seed
🌎 Thessaloniki, Greece
📀 In Shadows Deep, Shadow of the Crow Pt. II
® Steel Gallery Records
📅 12/12/2025
Lately, many Greek bands have been working hard and released amazing albums that battle for an entry in the “best of” list of 2025. One of these bands is FORBIDDEN SEED, featuring Constantin Maris (vocals and guitars) and Stefanos Zafeiropoulos (guitars and backing vocals), who are attempting something that few bands have dared to do. They are releasing a musical story divided into two parts with a total of over 2 hours of music. The story is based on the 1994 film “The Crow” and the first part was released in 2022 under the title “On Blackest Wings, Shadow of the Crow Pt. I”.
In a few days, on December 12 (Steel Gallery Records), the second part, “In Shadows Deep – Shadow of the Crow Pt. II,” will be released, completing our story. My failure to listen to the first album when it was released gave me the pleasure of spending almost two and a half hours listening to both albums back to back. It was like watching all three “Lord of the Rings” movies for the first time together. Because that’s how I felt. The musical variety offered by the album is reminiscent of the ups and downs in intensity in a movie. Only instead of action scenes, dramatic or emotionally charged scenes, here we have successive riffs, guitar solos, and theatrical, pompus vocal by Maris.
The influences are numerous. From ICED EARTH and EVERGREY to SAVATAGE and MORGANA LEFAY, as mentioned in the relevant press release. However, Maris’ performance brought to mind another metal giant, Roy Khan from his time with KAMELOT. But Maris doesn’t stop there. From Roy Khan vocals on “Remedial Sinner,” he easily transitions to a hard rock performance on the ballad-like “Back From the Brink” or to more extreme moments on “From Above” and “I Don’t Want It Anymore.” In the latter, he combines perfectly with the amazing guitar solo by Kosta Vreto (who also produced the album). The guitars may stand out in general, but we cannot overlook the drum rolls in “I Don’t Want It Anymore” (yes, there again) or the progressive touches with Giorgos Tsoutsia’s keyboards in the intro to “Ghost Beneath the Flames” or in “Trivial,” an excellent song that starts off atmospherically before leading us into an epic outburst. Another highlight is “Pain,” which starts off slow and evolves into an angry performance by Maris, accompanied by guest Dimitris Goutziamanis on guitars.
I could fill many pages about this album, but it would be like trying to explain a movie scene by scene to someone who hasn’t seen it. “In Shadows Deep – Shadow of the Crow Pt. II” is one of those albums that you listen to from start to finish, and that’s how it’s structured. Needless to say that the experience would be even greater if you listen to both albums. I’m just looking forward to its live performance (in its entirety hopefully) as soon as it is officially released.
★ 8,5/10
✍🏻 Kostas Boudoukos
