1- a brief history of the band Reflection was born back in 1991 by Stathis Pavlandis (guitars), Chris Kappas (vocals) and John Tolakis (bass) in order to follow the paths of Epic Metal. After 12 years and with the addition of Stathis' brother, George (drums/Swan Christy fame 2- the evolution between the first album and Odyssey We believe that we have progressed, and that means that we are better and more mature as musicians and more experienced. That doesn't mean that the music has changed! I hear many bands talk about progress and maturity in order to hide the change of music style. That will never happen with Reflection. The band was born and mends to be Epic Heavy Metal, nothing more and nothing less. We are proud of our music! 3- why did you decide to handle such a complex issue? How easy/difficult was to turn it into a concept album? We started to prepare the album back in 1995. We read the Odyssey, plus many books concerning the characters, the Gods, the places and the battles of the Opus. We wanted to be truly ready to make this step because we believe that this is the greatest opus of them all! Thus we started producing the lyrics, and also some pieces of music. In the meantime we released The Fire Still Burns and The Realms Of The Night but we still worked on the Odyssey. Finally at the summer of 2001 we decided that the time had come and we had ready all the plan of the album, therefore we started recording it. It finished at the end of 2002 after 1 and ½ year of really hard work in the studio. 4- why is the Odyssey so relevant to you? Because we come form Hellas!!! I mean, it's our mythology and it is the most natural thing to do. We believe that, countries with so much mythology and history should sing about their legends and stories. Give me one good reason why we should sign for Valhalla and Odin when Hellas has so many myths to handle. The Norwegians have their own mythology and they can work on it better than we can. In the same way we have our own stories and we can handle them better than anyone. 5- did you follow the real story or adjust it somehow? We followed the real story but in a different way. You see, in half of Odyssey, Odysseus was telling his stories to the Pheakes. We, in the other hand, followed his trip from the beginning to the end. But we did not change everything. You can also read the 24 booklet of the album in order to have a better understanding of the Opus. 6- what was the musical approach to the concept? We wanted the music to follow the words. War songs for the battles, sad songs for some sad moments, epic songs for epic moments. Odyssey is not just another book. It is a big part of the Hellenic culture and we wanted to honor it. 7- are you planning to represent the story on stage too somehow? how? It is very difficult to happen because everything must be perfect. It's not only us but also the two tenors, the war choir, the theatrical teacher we have for the narration and many guest musicians who played in the album. Anyway we have made some thoughts and we hope that we would be lucky to make it true. 8- what about the current/next steps for the band? We are in a concert process right now. We try and close as many places for gigs in order to promote our album. Our purpose as band is to continue play Epic Metal because we like it. 9- do you already have new material ready? when shall we expect something It is very early to think about the new album even though we have some ideas. You should expect nothing more and nothing less from hot, pure and epic Heavy Metal. We love bands like Warlord, Solitude Aeturnus, Candlemass, Memento Mori and we shall continue their legacy.
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