This one is an epic listen indeed. Ares is a Bulgarian band that plays some of the finest sounding old-school metal we’ve heard on Drooble so far. Their record “Атомни хора” (meaning ‘Nuclear People’ in English) has the potential to take you back to the better times of metal music. Everything on “Атомни хора”, from the artwork to the last note on the guitar to the last shouted vocal, screams metal. The album is mainly mid-tempo based, but the tracks still somehow manage to feel diverse. There are more menacing and evil-sounding pieces, while others feel either super epic or more balladic and romantic. And having a flute on a metal record – why more people don’t do this?

The whole album feels extremely theatrical, especially if you take a look at the vocals and lyrics. However, even if you don’t know Bulgarian we’d say it can make experiencing the record feel even more exotic and obscure. Production is raw and old-school, but definitely not too lo-fi. For us, it perfectly captures the era of metal music that this album is referring to. We hope this one is available on tape and not only for streaming because listening to it digitally doesn’t really make it enough justice.

So dub it on a cassette, grow that long hair again and blast “Атомни хора”. It’s as metal as it can get!