A very productive band, STEEL ARCTUS now present us with their third full-length album since their inception in 2020. “Dreamruler” appears to be a very catchy and well-produced work that is nevertheless a bit hard to grasp for the reviewer. Characterising themselves as Epic Heavy Metal, they nevertheless come across less epic music-wise than other similarly labelled bands such as ATLANTEAN KODEX. They certainly are missing the doom parts and are much more straightforward, thus better to be compared with the likes of ICED EARTH (but mind you, minus the Thrash bits and the ballads) or JAG PANZER. Amongst other young bands, Sweden’s SCREAMER or TAILGUNNER from Great Britain, for example, are more New Wave Of British Heavy Metal but do play a similar sound. STEEL ARCTUS use emotions in a very well-balanced manner but manage never to sound trite or stereotyped. Despite song titles such as ‘Defender Of Steel’ (MANOWAR, anyone?) they are energetic but without kitsch. Recommendations for the listener have to be the title track and ‘Fate Of The Beast’ with its powerful intro and the great guitars. ‘Wicked Lies’, too, will not leave your ears and mind gain so quickly. There is also a distinct 1980s vibe (check out the synthesizer parts at the beginning of ‘Glory Of The Hero’). The quality of their songwriting and musicianship is definitely high, as is also indicated by some of the former bands the guys from STEEL ARCTUS played in: Singer Tasos Lazaris also was in SAVAGE GRACE and WHITE WIZZARD, whereas Strutter also played the bass in GUS G.’s band, and drummer Minas Chatzimaris played live for PAUL DI’ANNO. This might explain the versatility of their music, or my idea of it being ‘hard to grasp’. When it comes to playing this kind of music that is very melodic and fast traditional Heavy Metal (I will leave the question of it being more or less epic open to discussion) this is about as good as it can get. Well done, lads! www.facebook.com/steelarctus, www.facebook.com/noremorserecordsgreece