Side note: Athena is the goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology.
This time Fabio Lione is Athena’s vocalist and he sure did bring some influences from his other bands. The new age feel of Inside, the Moon are gone and have been replaced with neo-classical elements and keyboard effects from Labyrinth. The pure prog has turned into a mixture of power and prog metal. Parts remind of Rhapsody, others of Stratovarius. On the first Rhapsody album (that was recorded one year before A New Religion) Fabio sounded just like the stereotype of an Italian singer. He didn’t exactly lack power, but didn’t have it either. He sung with a conspicuously annoying accent, ended up sounding a little bit whiny. Here, he doesn’t. I haven’t heard all his albums, but this sure is one of his better vocal performances. Accent is gone, power has arrived. He switches between the high-pitched kind of vocals and lower ones, always with emotion, always with a beautiful freshness. On a few songs he experiments with a more yelled way to sing which I’ve heard a few finding annoying. Though it isn’t as good as the rest, and he ends up sounding like a very weak version of Lordi’s vocalist, I haven’t really got a problem with that.
The music is melodic as one could expect with a drummer who seems to love his double bass. Even so, he’s quite reasonable. The bass is strange. It’s not the ordinary string picking here, no, instead is the guy playing independently, like a darker guitar with other notes. This leads to some occasional very interesting parts. The keyboards are always present – but in the background, just adding atmosphere, flavour to the compositions. Very minimalistically implemented, far from striking. It takes a few listens to even notice it’s there. Even if it’s the vocals that are the most prominent parts of Athena’s music, the guitars aren’t far behind. They are crunchy, they are melodic, and they are heavy. There is riffing, there are leads. But there are no solos. Athena doesn’t need them; their sound pictures are fulfilled even without them, no need for flashiness here. The members accompany each other in a very nice way, but yet something’s missing. I keep telling me that this is better than most prog I’ve heard, better than a lot of power metal. But it’s not enough. Where’s that spark named kick-ass? A New Religion is great for prog fans, but doesn’t stand out enough for the rest of us. For us, it’s just very good.
