Reviews of metal albums released June 20 – June 26
Fun, charm and cool coexist with anger and violence this week, allowing you to find your preferred corner to dip into, or wade on through it all.
Amberian Dawn – Temptation’s Gate
Genre: Symphonic power metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: No kidding, I was cracking my knuckles to take the literary equivalent of a… well, you know… all over this band and their new album based on their image alone. But then, as one tediously must when writing a music review, I hit “play”, and things improved very quickly. The first half of this album is actually bordering on innovative, which in this subgenre should be an eye(ear)-opener. You get symphonic loftiness, thrashy power metal, groovy hard rock, a bit of Children of Bodom-reminiscent neoclassical, synth-supported, solo-tastic flair, and a surprising tonal variation (again, considering the genre).
The musical creativity does take a back seat in the second half, but the vocal performance continues to be top notch all the way through, and very nearly has enough power and distinctiveness to carry the whole thing by itself, so big props to new singer Nicole Willerton. The melodies are solid all the way through, and they steer clear of the worst cheesiness, at least musically. They’re a band that relies on their experience to actually play around with their sound rather than keeping it safe and predictable, which should always be lauded.
Highlight: “Unchained”
Boneripper – Radiant In Ruin
Genre: Metallic hardcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: I reviewed this Dutch metallic hardcore band’s debut album back in 2024, and, honestly, not much has changed since then, which has both its good and bad sides. Good that we’re getting more thrashy, death metal-mentality hardcore to headbang to. Less good in that the band doesn’t feel like they’ve evolved even a little bit, and there are too many songs on here that feel fairly interchangeable. I dig the aggression of it, and will undoubtedly put it on my gym playlist. But I won’t go around thinking about it.
Highlight: “Truth To Enemy”
Druidess – Trip Meadow
Genre: Psychedelic doom/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: It’s exciting to hear a young band successfully taking a spin of their own on a tried and tested subgenre, and on their debut full-length album, no less. On “Trip Meadow” they ooze self-aware style, delving deep into trippiness and fuzz but also being selective, and not overdoing any one thing. Led by a strong, Riley Pinkerton (Castle Rat)-reminiscent vocal performance and partially foregoing the typical, muffling production makeup, the band has honed in on the unadulterated cool of their sound.
The riffs are crisp, the bass just wooly enough, and (at least some of) the melodies confidently transcend the doom sphere into traditional heavy metal and rock. It’s not exactly what I would call lively, but you get both uptempo tracks as well as slow crawls, and they coexist without any trouble, which is a testament to the band’s songwriting skills. Goes to show that you can breathe fresh life into this subgenre without going crazy experimental.
Highlight: “Knightingales” and “Descended from Giants”
Entropist – The Vision
Genre: Progressive death/groove metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Here we’ve got a fresh extreme-leaning prog metal band out of Colorado, trying to carve out their niche in a landscape stuffed with mesmerizing technicality and endlessly complex songwriting. It feels like they’re pulling a little bit from everything, with percussive riffs out of metalcore and groove metal, heaviness, sharpness and melodic traits out of modern melodeath, then adding sprinkles of avant-garde atmosphere, dissonance and Meshuggah-style rhythms.
For me, the best songs are packed towards the end, where they manage to balance out their melodic/aggressive approach and stay interesting from beginning to end. A bit too many tracks take too long to get started, and overall there’s a notable amount of material that doesn’t really go anywhere satisfying, pushing the runtime up to an hour on the dot. But the best they’ve got to offer speak of a talent that can accomplish great things if pushed into a narrower focus.
Highlight: “Creation”
Forsmán – Brenndar Rústir & Fuðrandi Fjörur
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: There’s something otherworldly about Icelandic black metal that you just don’t seem to get anywhere else, and Forsmán carry on this tradition. Their debut full-length showcases a dense, full-bodied sound that’s bordering on, if not fully crossing into, blackened death metal, not unlike some of the newer Behemoth stuff. But it also retains the necessary chill and shrill to keep it bitter and sharp-edged.
Most of the tracks on this album work with melodic themes, riff patterns and/or atmospheric elements that manage to stand out, but to me they don’t all feel fully realized at the end of the songs. In the instances where they do though, you’re getting a very complete mix of rhythmic and vocal variation, distinctive lead guitar sections, challenging harmonies and effective drum and bass work, making up a sound that’s both immersive and energetic.
Highlight: “Barmafylltar fjöldragrafir” and “Andvana”
Masterplan – Metalmorphosis
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Review: Long-going German power metal supergroup Masterplan are back with another album after a nine year wait, and rather quickly it becomes abundantly clear that they’ve had no intentions of challenging themselves. The riffs, solos and lofty tone are all there, but the tempos are sluggish, the lyrics laughably clichéd and melodies instantly forgettable. If they’d been able to inject some actual energy into the thing, it might have improved significantly, but in its current form it simply feels tired and running on autopilot.
Monument Of Misanthropy – Washington State Charm
Genre: Death metal/deathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: This band was one of my 2024 revelations, as their “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio” album easily outmatched the similarly themed and more prolific Aborted release that year. As that former album was “dedicated” to serial killer Ed Kemper, so this is centered around Ted Bundy. Once again, this is technically outstanding, brutal-style death metal that somehow manages to feel indulgent without really overdoing anything.
What’s changed since last time is that some of the outright heaviness and low end bulk has been sacrificed for the sake of agility and versatility, as they dip into deathcore and straight metalcore, both in terms of riff- and rhythm style and accessibility of song structures. It by no means sounds tame, but it doesn’t carry quite the same brute force as last time, and as the thundering morbidity washes over me, I simply don’t find myself caught on the attention-arresting meat hook quite as often. Still, it’s great to see the band not simply copying the formula, and fans of the more groove-centric and technical ends of the death metal realm might find that they prefer this iteration of their sound.
Highlight: “The 1974 PNW Spree” and “Neath Tacoma Asphalt”
Nargaroth – Apocalyptic Steel
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: If you think that album cover looks a bit off for a black metal band, then it’s working as intended, as this is no traditional release from this veteran, German one-man project. It’s a partial re-recording and mixing of material originally tracked back in 2014, and it carries traits of straight heavy metal, doom and death. At its best it sounds purposeful and well considered, but also include both tracks that fail to leave a mark and ones that stick out like redundant body parts. While it does have its strengths, it feel less like a complete album and more like a collection of covers.
Nunslaughter – Satanic Chaos Legions
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Long-running US death metallers Nunslaughter are back to shred and spit blasphemy, and considering they were established all the way back in 1987, you might be surprised to learn that this is only their sixth full-length. On it they get straight to the point, which is furious thrash style riffing, snarling vocals and… well… evil.
The problem is that, while it’s entertaining enough as no-frills, all-out-aggressive Jesus bashing, and there’s nothing strictly WRONG with the musical performances, I feel like I’ve heard this exact album, in very slightly different variations, dozens of times before. The shock factor is completely absent, and as a headbanger’s offering it’s too light on killer grooves. That being said, these do show up with regular intervals, and if you turn off the overly critical part of your brain, you can still have a pretty damn(ed) good time with it.
Highlight: “Christian Ruse”
Phantom – Not Midnight Yet
Genre: Speed/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: I tend to be hard on bands that don’t manage (or care) to match the album runtime with the style of music that they’re playing, so when I saw this new offering from Mexican speed thrashers Phantom breaking 56 minutes, I had my reservations. Now, after listening to it, while I still think that a bit of trimming would be in order, I find no reason to deny that it keeps entertaining greatly from beginning to end. If the fact that this is an album meant to have fun with wasn’t made obvious to you by the album art and song titles, it should become abundantly clear with the inclusion of the Tetris theme at the end of the second track, “Out Of The Mausoleum”.
Compared to last year’s “Tyrants of Wrath”, this is more concerned with complete, varied and memorable songwriting rather than all-out aggression. A fair bit of the Slayer-esque evil factor has been replaced with more melody-prone classic heavy metal, which allows for bigger tonal variation overall, and greater dynamics within each song. They even make a semi-attempt at a ballad, which (apart from the mildly off-key clean vocals) actually fit in decently. The Axl Rose-like falsetto on “Curse Your Name” however, I could have done without. It’s still plenty fast and ferocious though, leaning all the way into blackened, early-Venom savagery at times. It’s an album brimming with ideas, most of which I hope to see further utilized in the future.
Highlights: “Summoned To Kill” and “Sepulchral Majesty”
Speedslut – Cimbrian Rites
Genre: Speed metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: These Danes seem to have gotten everything right on their debut full-length. It’s fast as hell, with a lethal precision to match it. It’s brimming with solos and scorched shredding, and the vocals are perfectly rusty for the highly aggressive style. I recognize some early Motörhead attitude in there, and in terms of tone it dwells comfortably in the darkness without quite crossing into black metal.
In the same way that nailing the style is perhaps the band’s greatest achievement with the album, so is failing to make it their own their most notable shortcoming as I see it. It’s certainly not without character, but I find myself going “oh yeah, there’s that obligatory riff-gallop” and “of course the solo sounds exactly like that”. It leads to a certain feeling of repetition, which will be much less of a problem if you don’t listen often to this kind of stuff, or simply can’t get enough of it. That mild criticism aside though, it’s an album strutting with energy, that manages to sound both suitably coarse and well-defined at the same time.
Highlight: “Pestridden Stallions”
Verdun – Abyssal Womb
Genre: Sludge/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: If this week has left you feeling too cheerful, this is the antidote right here. I can vividly imagine this stuff being played in the catacombs under Paris, lit only by candles. What we’ve got here is French, moderately blackened doom, that draws hostility, a fitting amount of ugliness, but also a driving riff style from sludge.
One of the things this album does most effectively is set a mood – one that you’re completely enveloped by for the duration. Once you’re in, you discover that there are hidden rooms to explore in the darkness, the characters of which leave you feeling different shades of intrigued, unsettled, or even emboldened. Compared to the meaty, forceful middle chunk of the album, it gets a little too sedate for my taste towards the end, but atmosphere-wise it keeps a firm, arresting grip on you till the last note.
Highlight: “He Who Killed the Devil”
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band, or need to give an album another shot, why not pop a comment down below?
The Metal Dispatch 