NIGHTFALL

Still one of Greek heavy metal's best kept secrets - and one gets the feeling they sort of like it that way - veteran metal warriors NIGHTFALL returned from semi-retirement in 2010 and now appear to be gathering career steam once again with the release of their ninth studio album, 2013's "Cassiopeia".

Helmed as always by lone-standing original member and virtually self-sufficient visionary, Efthimis Karadimas, the band has also used this rather laissez-faire attitude towards success to its advantage, one could say, by refusing to entertain the lure of passing trends and simply following Karadimas' muse (they invented this whole "muse" thing in ancient Greece, you know!) wherever it may lead him.

And, in the case of "Cassiopeia", this means running the gamut of musical extremity from the most deliberate doom to the most blistering black metal, from savage death metal to refined symphonic orchestrations - even embracing the fearful specters of gothic metal ambiance, power metal kitsch (just a smidge),and industrial inflections without the slightest fear of cross-genre recrimination.

How do you say "cojones" in Greek? Anyone?

For proof, look no further than the lush coat of keyboards applied to decapitating, yet fetchingly straightforward riff propagators such as "Oberon & Titania", "Stellar Parallax" and "Astropolis" (note their uniformly sci-fi-inspired lyrics) alongside melodious streaks of lead guitar harmonies, whilst never abandoning the persistent horror perpetuated by busy percussion and Karadimas' fearsome growls.

On "Hubris", those same synthesizers prance gingerly across the underlying beast's calloused scales - once again producing improbably opposed contrasts of dark and light that, quite frankly, leave more uniformly brutal blast-beaten numbers like "Hyperion" and "The Sand Reckoner" (both of them bones thrown to inevitable haters, one has to guess) in the creative dust.

As for experimentation run amok? Sure, you could throw that claim at the polka beat driving the otherwise grandly named "Akhenaton, the 9th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty" so, no, "Cassiopeia" isn't perfect, but even this minor misstep keeps things interesting with a stop-gap laid-back mid-section before cruising to a furiously paced and orchestrated finale.

Some listeners may disagree with the abiding clean production reining back even the most savage elements here somewhat, but then, if that's the case, look elsewhere: there's plenty of fish in the Agean.

NIGHTFALL's eclectic extremism isn't for everyone , but, again, they sort of like it that way.