Reviews of metal albums released October 17 – October 23
What happens when you throw a little crazy into the gloom? You get the violent excitement of this week. And quite a bit of gloom, still.
Abyssus – The Reign
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Apparently we’re getting some spillover from last week, ’cause here’s some more death metal! This time it’s out of Greece, where they formed back in 2011 and are now on their third full-length. They don’t exactly play the “fun” variant of the subgenre, and the album struts with malice, but the playing is far from doom-laden or grungy. It’s crisp, fast paced and loaded with groove, thrashy riffs and high-flying solos.
Vocalist Kostas Analytis has a very strained, old school kind of proto-growl vocal style that suits their style, but is fairly limited in range and gets a bit monotonous after a while. The playing stays hungry and on the chase throughout, but varies a bit in inventiveness and finesse. “The Reign” is a tasteful modernization of the classic sound, that’s got a great engine on it and clearly invites you to get up and move to every single track.
Highlight: “Out of Reach”
Armory – Echoes Of The Astrolith
Genre: Speed metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: I was tempted to put “experimental” in front of the genre description on this one, ’cause it’s certainly not your typical bread-and-butter speed metal. As far as I can gather it’s not a concept album, but the band has a thing for dark science fiction, and their music leans into it far beyond the lyrical content. Apart from the obligatory use of spacey sound bites, there’s a good deal of unsettling dissonance and atmospheric elements that nudges the tonality out of the subgenre’s comfort zone. The vocals add a grounding, humorous touch with the inclusion of over-the-top falsetto and mild atonality. They will probably be the most divisive element on the album, but they certainly add character. It’s not quite as ferocious as I keep wanting it to be, although there are hefty riffs and traces of black metal throughout.
Highlight: “Interceptor Squadron”
Beaten To Death – Vntrve
Genre: Avant-garde grindcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Ready, set, perplexed! If the album cover wasn’t sufficient warning about the proudly insane nature of the contents within, then know that this will seriously challenge your perception of what grindcore can and/or should sound like. If you’re familiar with the band, this is old news. As on 2024’s “Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis”, which was my first encounter with them, they play beefy-riffed, half-angry grind with obvious hardcore and punk elements, as well as a fair bit of melody which fluctuates between the psychedelic, dreamlike, oddball or naïve.
This one feels a bit more minimalistic in terms of production and layering, which adds to its punky vibe, but robs it of a bit of drive. It’s a lot of fun if you’re on board with the fuck-around nature of it, but will likely get tiresome rather quickly if you’re not. It’s an explosion of flavor, ideas and varying levels of intensity, but can feel a bit disjointed and random at times. It’s stuffed with highlight moments though, so if you like when a band messes with you while packing on the heaviness, you’ll probably want to play it on repeat.
Highlights: “Sunburnt Satanist” and “Electrocuted by the Sky”
The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir – Songs from a Dying Empire
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: It’s not some obscure secret that black metal can sound beautiful, bleak and bitter all at the same time, but the metal world sure isn’t overflowing with bands that do it well. One-man project The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir nail it though, on debut album “Songs from a Dying Empire”.
It sounds like it’s coming to you from a fair distance away, from within a soup-thick fog, and while it’s loaded with the snarly harshness of the classic, second wave origins of the subgenre, these are expertly balanced by piano-led, softly melancholic melody that pulls from a different wellspring of character than the typical Scandinavian folk-derived stuff. Just as you start to think that it’s getting too gentle though, it strikes with jagged riffs and a bit of ear-scratching tremolo. And the moment it you worry that it’s bordering on hopefulness, it dives into doomy pits of anguish.
Highlight: “Divinity Through Hardship”
Dragonland – Prophecies
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Most of the major subgenres of metal have these classic sounds that simply invites you to appreciate its essence for the sort of basic feelings it was meant to invoke. Within power metal, I feel like almost every singly band in existence attempt to capture this sound, but the majority only manage to pull in a few strands.
Dragonland seem to simply exist at the source of power metal’s essence, as they employ the adventurous, playful, unabashedly fantasy-nerdy spirit of it seemingly effortlessly. I wouldn’t go so far as to call “Prophecies” an exciting album, but if you have any sort of affection for this style, then it will feel like coming home. It’s bright, hopeful, not too cheesy and stuffed with timeless melody.
Highlight: “The Call of the Wild”
Fvneral Fvkk – Indecent Idols
Genre: Doom metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Not being familiar with the band and only going off their name, you might think this is going to be some punky, barbed-wire-riff blackened grindcore kind of thing. But no, Fvneral Fvkk play a solemn, near-epic kind of doom that leans almost as much into folk-like calm as it does into heavy, crashing riffs. This makes it all the cooler that their dedicated theme is crime and hypocrisy committed by the so-called holy.
“Indecent Idols” is, simply said, a magnificent iteration of the band’s style of expression. They tackle a subject as despicable as child abuse in a manner that is both lamenting, accusatory and ironically reverent, which makes part of the experience feel uncomfortable, even suffocating. The music becomes a parallel to the systemic ugliness clad in uplifting, resplendent grace. Apart from this, the band balances gripping melody with surges of powerful, unyielding rhythms, with restrained elements of sludge, death and black metal. Rarely has a “clean” album sounded this heavy.
Highlights: “Bishop of the Iron Guard” and “Crosses to Gallows”
Ignea – Monumental
Genre: Progressive symphonic/groove metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Spotting this Ukrainian band on the release schedule for this week put a big smile on my face, as I remember having a great time with their 2023 release “Dreams of Lands Unseen”. And wouldn’t you know, they’ve managed to surpass my expectations with “Monumental”. It’s both fun, serene and catchy, but with a certain serious and angry streak to it that feels deeply earned considering the situation that their country finds itself in.
There’s a conceptual side to the album that, at least on a surface level, seems to deal with construction, architecture and manufacturing, and there are industrial elements in the music to match it. Other than this, what you get is prog metal with symphonic scope and groove/death aggression. The vocals vary between silky smooth cleans and brutal roars, and the intensity of the music matches this perfectly, with a good deal of folk elements added to expand the flavor. An exceptionally strong release by a band that deserves to skyrocket in popularity.
Highlights: “Dreams of Lands Unseen” and “Prefab”
Tony Iommi – From the Dark
Genre: Heavy/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: While Tony Iommi’s guitar playing “speaks” for itself, and I wouldn’t be mad about an instrumental album from this metal titan, recruiting Jorn for vocal duties was an inspired choice for this album. It does a huge deal for contributing the necessary bombast for the classic heavy metal portion of the album’s personality. But particularly on the calmer songs, Jørn also know how to dip into a solemn tinge to go with the doom.
While not crushingly heavy by modern technical standards, it has the perfect level of bluesy darkness to allow both moodiness and a measure of playfulness and verve from both the guitars and vocals. My main gripe is the rhythms. While well-performed, things get a bit too straightforward and repetitive at times, for my taste. The good thing is that they don’t try to steal any attention from the obvious stars of this gloomy show.
Highlights: “World Alone” and “Over the Violent Sun”
Mental Cruelty – Echoes Of A Forlorn Land
Genre: Blackened/symphonic deathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Looking at the track titles on this album, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Amon Amarth dropped a surprise second album this month. But no, it’s German deathcore boys Mental Cruelty that are at it again, and have decided to dive into Norse mythology for their fifth full-length. It’s still (mildly) blackened deathcore with symphonic scope and melodic tendencies, but this time we’re marching off to war outside the walls of Åsgard.
As deathcore goes this is impressively varied, with rhythm- and riff styles genuinely switching into styles common for black metal and melodeath. You get a few sprinklings of traditional instruments, and the thing sounds appropriately lofty. To me, some of their more melodic and technical ambitions drown in the constant need for aggression and force, with a few too many elements competing for your attention at times. But when they get it right, which is most of the time, this thing is an epic skull crusher.
Highlights: “Blood For Blood” and “The Serpent Of Midgard”
New World Man – I Am The Machine
Genre: Experimental thrash metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: If you’re partial to the weirdness of Voivod, but wouldn’t mind for it to take more of a crossover direction, then this is what the mad cyborg doctor shall prescribe. The album is bursting with kick-in-the-teeth energy, noise-loving technicality and more than a healthy dose of groove-loving thrash. Most of the time the pace feels frantic, and the impact brain-rattling. But it also knows to throw you for a loop with occasional leaps into prog rock, punk, industrial and other things, and they make it all work quite well within their ragged, dystopian sci fi theme.
If you’re mostly looking to headbang your neck off, there’s plenty of riffage in store, but some listeners might find their flow interrupted a bit too often by experimental antics to really get into it. I will argue though, that the unexpectedness does an important job in keeping you on your toes, forcing you to engage with the music and making sure you don’t get desensitized to the heaviness.
Highlights: “I Am The Machine” and “Hot Dog In Pigtown”
Wolves In The Throne Room – Estuary
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Time to retreat to your coffin for some quality brooding to the tunes of one of the biggest atmo black metal bands out there at the moment. The band’s eighth full-length goes all in on capturing a specific mood. Something like wandering through ancient ruins and having the sad, rapturous, wretched and violent lives of its ghosts play out for you. Sound a bit gothic? That’s because it is, but not in a cheesy way. It’s a deeply layered album that manages to sound full and kinda low-fi scratchy at the same time. For some reason it fails to truly capture me. I’m not a huge fan of the vocals, and some of the more positively tinged melodies feel out of place to me. But if you want an album you can travel deep into and experience evil overtaking benevolence, this is a masterfully crafted one.
Highlights: “Ghosts Among the Obelisks” and “Knights of Tiamat”
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?
