” Amongst the most ambitious and best Greek progressive albums, this 1973 release is a tremendous concoction of dynamic and effortlessly shifting complex rhythm changes, multi-instrumental layers and musical textures. With individual segments ranging from Garcia-like guitar, pomp chuch organ, jazz, baroque, piano recital, thundering drums, soaring melodic vocals... And probably a kitchen sink, it is somewhat comparable with the finest ELP, Gentle Giant and Zappa, but at the same time totally unique! A mega prog killer!!”
…while Dutch prog specialists Hemispheres stumbled through this pretty lofty praise:
” The album that outshone all others in 1973(A huge call, but this album has attracted this sort of praise from MANY other prog fanatics, and reviewers.), was without any doubt the only one by AKRITAS, which moves within an unpredictable experimental progressive direction. The many elements from the Greek traditional folk music, especially in guitar playing, the unusual and excellent compositions, and the intense improvisation put the record in the first line of importance.(They’re not wrong there!) The principal composer of the group was Stavros Logaridis while the few lyrics were signed by the director Kostas Ferris, who had also written the lyrics for Aphrodite’s Child’s "666” concept double album.
TheAkritasline-up was Giorgos Tsoupakis - drums, Stavros Logaridis - vocal, bass, acoustic guitar, Aris Tasoulis - piano, organ, VSC 3 synthesizer, and Dimos Papachristou - electric guitar”
…and our Crohinga Well buddies expounded thus:
” Akritas must surely rank among the best groups ever to have hit the Greek scene, if one is to judge by their - admittedly very rare - eponymous debut album. The LP is chock-full of underground progressive rock akin to the sounds that can be found on albums by Aardvark, Arcadium and even Emerson Lake & Palmer. Apart from Logarides, other people in the band were keyboards player Aris Tasoulis (ex-Despina Glezou), guitarist Dimis Papachristou, drummer Giorgos Tsoupakis (who in the eighties went on to play with Panos Dracos) and organist John Papadopoulos). Sadly, apart from a single, this 1973 release was to be their only re-corded output, for soon after this excellent band split up due to general indifference. A part of that era's rock press is on record as describing Akritas' music as "music for Chinese people", because of the intrinsically difficult and complex rhythmic patterns they wove.”
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