Korpiklaani - Rankarumpu (2024)

Country: Finland
Style: Folk Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 5 Apr 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Tiktok | Twitter | Wikipedia | YouTube

This is album twelve for Finnish folk metal legends Korpiklaani and it couldn't be mistaken for any other band, even those who play in the same style. They've stuck with their core sound of late and, judging from the ratings I've seen on some of the albums I haven't heard, that's a good call. What you get here is bouncy folk metal with a galloping pace and full integration of metal instruments like guitars, bass and drums with folk instruments like violin and accordion. If you've heard Korpi before, then you know that already, of course, but with every album I hear, I'm surer that taking any one of those instruments away would utterly break this sound and it doesn't matter which.

Rankarumpu kicks off just as effectively as last time out, on 2021's Jylhä, but quicker because the opener gets down to business immediately. That's Kotomaa and it's the first standout track. It's a deceptively light song, given that it does everything a Korpi opener is supposed to do and it does it well. The only reason I say that is that Tapa sen kun kerkeet and Aita after it are darker, deeper and with more of a weight hanging over them. I like both, but the perkiness of Kotomaa is tasty.

At this point in their career, it's perhaps fair to point out that most of these songs sound like you might expect them to sound. None let the side down but a few fail to truly distinguish themselves. They're too good in isolation to call them filler, but they're happy to do only what they need to do without adding anything extra to the mix. It shouldn't shock that my favourite tracks here are the ones that do have something different to bring to the table.

Other than Kotomaa, the first of those is probably Mettään, which starts with an old school intro of power chords, then hands over to accordion and launches into a variety of gears. The chorus is as notable for its pauses as for its words and, right after it, is a thoughtful section that isn't quiet but is slower and more flavourful than what went before. It's a great example of a track that isn't content to do just one thing and it's all the better for it. Kalmisto does that too, because it slows down with strong effect, as does Harhainjen höyhen, which is a strong closer. Rankarumpu is even bouncier than Kotomaa and that may be appropriate for a title track, but Oraakkelit does it too.

Other than that, there's a plaintive violin that opens Viikatelintu and immediately stamps it with elegance, hardly the first word that springs to mind when Korpi come up. That's no insult, I should add. I've been a fan since their first couple of albums but I've always seen them as a sort of force of nature. They took the Finnish folk music that they used to play under the name of Shaman and drench it in vodka, strip it naked and chase it through the woods. They never intended to be subtle or elegant, but both can show up at odd points regardless and that fiddle that opens Viikatelintu is one such.

There's not a lot more to say, but I should add a couple of things. One is that this is less generous than Jylhä, whose thirteen tracks took it past an hour, but it doesn't skimp. It delivers a full dozen songs, even if they're done in just under three quarters of an hour. They're merely back to normal sort of length, I guess. The other is that there's been a line-up change, with Olli Vänskä joining on violin in 2022. He has a history with the band, having stepped in to cover for Tuomas Rounakari on a number of live dates in 2016 when that previous violinist fell ill. He previously played for Turisas.

Oh, and I'm going to miss them live this time around, though they're about to head through town on their latest tour with Visions of Atlantis and Illumishade in support. Check them out at the Nile in Mesa on 29th April. Fingers crossed, I should be in a position to see them next time in a few years after they knock out their lucky thirteenth album. I hope that's a killer. Neither this nor Jylhä are the greatest albums in their discography but they're far from the worst and they're consistently solid. Reliable Korpi is always a treat.

Grinded Grin - Charlatan (2024)

Country: Croatia
Style: Psychedelic Rock/Jazz Fusion
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 14 Mar 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook

Opening up a prog rock album with horsehead fiddle and throat singing is a plus for me, though it does sound rather like an orchestra warming up. Then again, that may be the point because this is just a quick seventy second intro. Masquerade, the first track proper, leaps headling into a wildly different vibe with a psychedelic guitar solo at the top of the mix and right in our face. A minute in, it steps back and we're in strange territory, appropriately so for prog rock. The drums are pure jazz. The guitar morphs into an exploring synthesiser. And then the throat singing returns as an overlay.

It's an interesting approach that reminds a lot of jazz fusion, because it's generally instrumental, that throat singing apart. However, it's clearly ethnic and I don't believe Mongolia is particularly known for its jazz fusion. The guitar is very prominent too, so loud in the mix and so psychedelic I'd almost call this stoner rock, a tag that is indeed listed on the album's Bandcamp page, along with avant-garde and alternative. Jazz and fusion aren't there, though, and there's no mention of this world music flavour either. Tellingly, progressive rock doesn't show up there either, so I'll think of it as psychedelic jazz fusion instead.

That world music changes as the album progresses, the contributions of Javier Morales left in the openers and the didgiridoo of Michele Fortunato only lasting into Deceptive Delirium, where the Mongolian flavour is replaced by the plaintive trumpet of Josué Garcîa. Ascent into Illusion turns to the saxophone of Vedran Momčilović to be its lead instrument and adds some weird percussion that sounds like woodblocks. The result is a sort of acoustic industrial jazz fusion track that I can't leave alone. After all the exploration of the earlier songs, this one feels repetitive and pounding, but it works wonderfully for me. Even at over six minutes, I didn't want it to end.

I should mention that every name I've mentioned thus far appears to be a guest, because they all show up for one or maybe two tracks and leave again. The band is a duo at heart, with Aleksandar Vrhovec playing guitar, bass and those idiosyncratic synths that tend to sound rather like a swarm of musical bees, and Linda-Philomene Tsoungui contributing drum loops. Of course, that's not the typical make-up of a duo, hence quite the list of guests. Looking back through their Bandcamp at earlier albums, it seems like there have been more traditional line-ups. Vrhovec is at the core of whatever they do.

In whatever form they've held, they seem to be prolific, this being their eleventh album since 2018 with six of those arriving between February and July 2021, one a month like a magazine. Those all seem to have a different mindset, most of them longer than this album but often boasting only a single track and never more than three. This batch of seven shorter pieces isn't typical for them, a twelve minute closure called Epiphany's Exposure notwithstanding. That length pales when faced off against the forty-one and a half of Terra, the only track on the album of the same name.

I haven't heard any of those earlier albums, but each piece of music here has its own character, an overall psychedelic jazz fusion feel throughout but explored in different ways each time, not least through a succession of dominant instruments, the Les Claypool-esque funky bass riff in Pinnacle of Illusion following the respective guitar, trumpet and sax of the first three tracks. The other pieces are less memorable for being ensemble works, though Epiphany's Exposure does find some focus during a squealing saxophone dominated second half when Sebastian Lopez finds the spolight. Until then, it was more of a Frank Zappa orchestral piece.

It took me a moment to understand what Grinded Grin were doing here, but I got on board pretty quickly and I find that I like this album a lot. Jazz fusion is a coin flip for me, as I find that I dislike as many albums as I like. It's a genre that can get very indulgent. However, it's also often led by a virtuoso guitarist and, while I cast no aspersions on Vrhovec's talents there, the spotlight shifts a lot here and rarely to the guitar. It becomes far more of a soundscape album, where Grinded Grin conjure up a new sound for a new track and hopefully take us to a new place. Like the Qilin album earlier in the week, this didn't transport me often but I appreciated those soundscapes anyway.

Now, how have I not heard of Grinded Grin before and which album in a bountiful back catalogue should I dive into next? After I dive back into the delightful Deceptive Delirium, of course. And Ascent into Illusion. And...

DragonForce - Warp Speed Warriors (2024)

Country: UK
Style: Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 15 Mar 2024
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Twitter | VK | Wikipedia | YouTube

I reviewed DragonForce's eighth studio album, Extreme Power Metal, with reservations because I'd worried about whether they'd turned into a caricature of themselves, especially with a name like Extreme Power Metal. While that album seemed to start out that way, they did win me over during the opening track and I found myself enjoying most of it, at least up until the Celine Dion cover that seemed entirely unnecessary. So, I don't have quite as many reservations coming into this, their ninth album, though I have to still wonder if they've finally fallen prey to their gimmick. Well, they're still thinking about doing that but they're mostly not quite there yet.

This time, I was on board with the opening track, Astro Warrior Anthem, from the very outset, because it's a strong power metal song played at DragonForce speed with themes and melodies hurtling every which way and tasking us with focusing on them. It's obviously one of the best songs on the album and it makes a lot of sense to kick off with it. After a few listens, I wouldn't hesitate to call it my favourite, though I have a fondness for Space Marine Corp too, which has a subdued pace compared to most of these songs. Somehow the chants, which could easily have gone so far past cheesy to be ridiculous, work for me. Why, I'm not sure, but they do. DragonForce do anthems and this is a real earworm of an anthem. All together now: "No time to rest till we kill all the scum!"

There's another earworm right after it too in Doomsday Party, which is a heavy disco number that reminds a lot of Boney M wrapped up in power metal clothing. Once again, I like this one a lot but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it really ought to be notably too cheesy to be taken seriously. Then again, Boney M are an old school guilty pleasure band for me, not only because I grew up on the cassette my parents kept in the car of The Magic of Boney M when I was a kid. And so there's a lot here that I like, even if perhaps I shouldn't.

Where the cheese starts to become a little much is Power of the Triforce, which I presume is about the Legend of Zelda videogame franchise. I'm OK with this one, which is otherwise a strong power metal song, but I did find myself rolling my eyes a little at where the lyrics went and how seriously Marc Hudson delivers them. And what was too much is Kingdom of Steel, which has a name like an AI-created Manowar song but feels like a heavied up Disney movie anthem. It has the slowest pace of anything here and it features a woah woah backing vocal that I could swear has been lifted off the Moana soundtrack. Sure, it's catchy, but its overblown orchestration is emphatically not for me.

The rest of the album inevitably falls in between the best stuff and the worst stuff. Songs like The Killer Queen and Pixel Prison are decent enough, not as memorable as Astro Warrior Anthem but not as cheesy as Space Marine Corp. They wrap up the album in the way we expect from this band and nobody buying it with full knowledge of what DragonForce do are going to be disappointed by them. Where that though comes into play isn't just a lesser song like Kingdom of Steel but a truly definitive one like Burning Heart.

And I have to end my review with that, because it's almost the stereotypical DragonForce song, so much so that it's less an actual piece of music and more of a challenge for the band to outdo what they so famously did on Through the Fire and Flames. The whole point of this song is to do more, a challenge indeed for a band who are a mandatory selection for new YouTube reactors who have no real idea what metal is. The only power metal song that comes up more often in that realm is the live version of The Bard's Song and Valhalla by Blind Guardian, for completely different reasons.

I honestly can't imagine a more DragonForce song than Burning Heart. It isn't merely those rapid fire melodies that were so effective on Astro Warrior Anthem. It isn't just that famous double act of Herman Li and Sam Totman "performing guitar histrionics", a term that has to be included here because "playing guitar" just doesn't cut it. It isn't only the telling fact that Gee Anzalone is able to steal some of their thunder by delivering a truly ambitious drum pace, especially early on. It's that Burning Heart is every note possible shoehorned into a breath under six minutes. It's a world record breaking attempt of a song and, to me at least, it's too much. And I'm a speed metal fan.

Take what you will from that. Some people will lose their minds to Burning Heart. I'll look past it to Astro Warrior Anthem, an insane DragonForce track that's also a damn good song and, even if I'm unable to fully express why, Space Marine Corp, which is a rollicking good time. Which camp are you in?

Reach - Prophecy (2024)

Country: Sweden
Style: Alternative
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 29 Mar 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Tiktok | YouTube

Reach have been around since 2012 but I'm not finding a heck of a lot of information about them. They hail from Stockholm and this is their fourth album, following The Promise of a Life in 2021. It came to me labelled as melodic hard rock and their Bandcamp page tags them alternative rock, but, only four songs in, I realised that labels and tags aren't really going to be particular helpful. They're all over the musical map and they're clearly happy about that.

Let me explain. The title track opens up the album as hard rock with a strong nineties alternative edge. It's entirely understandable why they supported H.E.A.T. on a couple of tours, but it's also a little heavy for that gig. However, as if hearing that note, Little Dreams is softer, more of a heavy pop approach that we could stretch to call melodic rock. It has a real bounce to it and the bass is a thing of joy. A Beautiful Life kicks off like a TV theme tune, only to launch into rock with the guitar pretending to be the drums for a while but then adding a grungy edge when it all bulks up.

But wait, as they say, there's more. In the second half of A Beautiful Life, there's a western vibe I might expect from an outlaw country rockabilly band that doesn't quite overwhelm the pop rock elements that could compare to a Cheap Trick. The end is almost steampunk in its look backwards into what could be taken for a harpsichord sound. Save the World kicks off with a playful guitar as if it's aiming to be a dance number and suddenly I'm thinking Stray Cats as a comparison.

It's a huge shift from those verses to the chorus that leaps right back into heavy arena pop, which isn't the end of it either, because then they go symphonic in the second half in a way that's mostly reminiscent of Queen. What does this band not do? Well, Queen could be seen as a key influence, though more for their musical chameleon act as for any particular moments, like that one, as it's a rarity. Perhaps the better general comparison would be The Darkness, acknowledging their own Queen connection, because Reach are clearly more modern than Queen and whoever handles the lead vocals likes dipping up into a falsetto just like Justin Hawkins.

Eventually I changed my tag to alternative for want of something to call this, but that's notably limited and shouldn't be seen as a be all end all to their sound. When I've reviewed the Darkness, I've gone with hard rock and that's just as fair. I could switch those and not mislead. And that's not to forget the funk in a song as hard rock as Psycho Violence, which is different to the Red Hot Chili Peppers funk that kicks off Who Knows. Just don't expect any song to sound like any other and you may really dig this. It'll certainly keep you on your toes. I haven't even got to Grand Finale yet, not the final song but another sonic leap into symphonic rock/metal. It's also another theatrical level above what's already been highly theatrical.

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned any band members yet and that's because I'm not sure who is actually in the band. Bandcamp states the music is credited to Ludvig Turner, Marcus Johansson and Soufian Anane, while Turner also wrote the lyrics, so I'm guessing he's the singer. Discogs has him as guitarist and vocalist, with Johansson on drums and Soufian Ma'Aoui on bass. I presume he is the same Soufiane as Anane. Others have been involved but I couldn't tell you if they're still in the band or if they ever were, so I'll stick to these three for now. More information would be very welcome.

I like this album because it's hard not to like this album. It's entirely schizophrenic, sure, but I'm a particular fan of albums that venture all over the musical map without ever sounding like a band has betrayed their roots or gone a step too far into something that just doesn't fit. Queen's Sheer Heart Attack and Saigon Kick's Water are firmly in my list of most frequently replayed albums and this feels a little more consistent than either. Just tread carefully if you try to label it.

As to highlights, that's a how long is a piece of string question, because it's what I'm listening to at the time you ask. Mama Mama is a stormer of an opening single, so that's potentially the best of many good places to start. I do like A Beautiful Life, Psycho Violence and Grand Finale too, so they should get a special mention too. But, ask me tomorrow, and I might go with three different ones instead.

Whitecross - Fear No Evil (2024)

Country: USA
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 22 Mar 2024
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Wikipedia | YouTube

Here's another band who haven't put out an album in forever and I'm not sure why. The heyday of Whitecross was in the late eighties when the crossover success of Stryper proved that it wasn't an impossible contradiction to play Christian metal. They knocked out four albums between 1987 and 1989 and two more in the early nineties, but the only album since, 2005's Nineteen Eighty Seven, being primarily re-recordings of songs on their debut. So this is their first album in nineteen years but the first with only original material in thirty-two, following 1992's High Gear.

It's worth mentioning that the most recent three albums from their original run ended up with a Dove Award, which is the premier awards dished out by the Gospel Music Association. If that name raises an eyebrow, I should highlight that they've apparently redefined what gospel means in this sense. Whitecross don't remotely sound like Mahalia Jackson or Tennessee Ernie Ford. However, they do create music that meets the GMA's requirements for adherence to faith, which seems to be what counts most nowadays.

That's why there are songs here that are overtly Christian in outlook, Lion of Judah and Fear No Evil the most unmistakable among them. However, that's not everything here, because The Way We Rock is as lyrically generic as its title might suggest and others do their preaching in far more subtle fashion, building stories about people who find their lives lacking something or describing outreach to people who are struggling for some reason. They're still Christian songs but they may not immediately seem so unless you're paying attention. And, of course, you might not care.

Songs like The Way We Rock ought to fall flat as openers nowadays, because we've all heard that sort of lyric a thousand times and it had got old before Whitecross formed back in 1985. However, there's an element to elevate it here, which is the guitarwork of Rex Carroll, who co-founded the band and has remained in place throughout their existence, only missing a couple of years in the mid-nineties when vocalist Scott Wenzel took over and returning in 2000 when the band got back together properly.

His guitarwork carries a serious bite, lending this song the drive of something Dio might have put out in his early solo years. After Lion of Judah softens just a little, he steps into the spotlight for a raucous guitar solo appropriately named Jackhammer that's aware enough to avoid oustaying its welcome and so wraps up in a minute and a change. Carroll continues to be the highlight for me in almost every song, adding an edge even when new fish vocalist Dave Roberts, who joined in 2020, doesn't do so. He's a Dave Meniketti sort of vocalist, able to merge power and melody seamlessly but without as much soul to his delivery, with some Kevin Dubrow for good measure.

For the most part, the best songs are the up tempo ones where Roberts gets to soar and Carroll gets to blister. Jackhammer doesn't really set up Man in the Mirror, for instance, but Roberts has a powerful scream to do exactly that. Songs like 29,000 might have roots in the glam metal of the eighties but it's much heavier than that, pulling from regular heavy metal to drive forward with a serious emphasis, and it nods to the guitar shredders that took over a decade later, without ever getting indulgent. Carroll can shred all day long but he knows that these songs wouldn't be better for that, so he keeps that in check, adding edge when it's needed and going wild only when it's truly time for a solo or to bolster the build of a song to its finalé.

There are exceptions though, not to the quality but to the suggestion that it's only there in those up tempo songs. The most obvious is Blind Man, which sounds fantastic, even though it's built on mandolin rather than electric guitar. Roberts adds huge amounts of grit into his voice for this one and it works really well. Saints of Hollywood adds a southern rock flavour and Roberts shifts into Spanish at points, which works far more effectively than I would have expected.

I could even add Wishing Well to that list, because it's the power ballad of the album but doesn't annoy the crap out of me the way that so many power ballads tend to do. I wouldn't remotely call it a highlight but it's a decent song and I don't feel the urge to skip past it on repeat listens. One extra draw for Christian metal aficionados is that it apparently features three members of Petra, but that doesn't elevate it for me. The same goes for Carroll's acoustic two minute closer, Further On, which is just there.

All in all, this is a strong return for a band who have been absent from the studio for far too long. Much of it is the product a band full of energy firing on all cylinders, but they're not afraid to mix it up and, when they do, the results are varied. Of course, the Christian metal fanbase is devoted enough to not particularly care that much. It's a Whitecross album. They're on board already.

Qilin - Parasomnia (2024)

Country: France
Style: Psychedelic Rock/Doom Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 12 Jan 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | YouTube

This album is a few months old now, so counts as less recent than I tend to prefer to review here at Apocalypse Later, but I enjoyed Qilin's debut album, Petrichor, so much in 2020, that I didn't want to miss out on its follow-up when it crossed my path recently. I also didn't want to wait until next January when I do catch up on what I missed from 2024, because I'd probably forget and then feel bad when I stumble onto it again, having missed my window.

Qilin are French and they play heavy instrumental rock that straddles the border with metal. You could fairly describe what they do as psychedelic rock but it's just as often doom metal and all the best pieces move between the two. That's one way in which this album echoes the debut. Most of the tracks are long and the band, which I believe remains unchanged from last time, allow them to breathe, which leaves room for a couple of modes. There's the heavy mode, with the bass turned up high and the guitars switching between cavernous riffs and wailing solos. And then there's the mellow mode, which is much softer and drenched in atmosphere.

The result is as immersive as last time out but oddly still mostly fails to work as a travel agent for me. What I mean there is that instrumental psychedelic rock often takes me places. Sure, I listen to it as music but it also sends me on a journey too. I have aphantasia so can't frame images in my head, but I still get impressions in the form of feelings. These albums often make me feel like I'm on another planet or drifting between the stars, to cite just two common examples. This doesn't, though it hints at it in those mellow sections.

Instead, it remains stubbornly music, but it's music that I really enjoy. It's heavy but melodic and it's immersive, as if it's so big that it surrounds me. It starts out achingly slow with three minutes of funeral doom called Ouro, that's emphatically an intro to set up the sound palette and lead us into the best track, Lethean Dreams. This isn't three minutes long, needless to say—it runs eight and half—and it builds carefully.

It begins mellow in the closest section anywhere on the album to take me somewhere. It feels like I'm in a huge echoing cavern, perhaps like the cover art, but I'm not the character walking towards it. I'm inside waiting. There's a real sense of patience to it, as if there's no reason to move at all, a feeling of centering where I settle down and wait for everything to come to me. And it does, but I sit, safe and still, in the middle of that cavern while the music changes around me. Even when the song ramps up into heavy mode, playing out like a force of nature, I'm not part of it. I'm calm and unaffected, but not unappreciative, as it rages around me. I listen and enjoy.

And I remain there for forty calm minutes, listening and enjoying, while the remaining four pieces of music play out, along with an interlude in the middle of them. It's odd to see an interlude, as it's not uncommon for the shift between heavy and mellow to effectively incorporate interludes as an inherent songwriting component, but Innervision is very mellow and introduces the heaviest piece on offer, which is the bludgeoning Hundred-Handed Wards.

I like Qilin when they're being mellow, though Innervision may be the weakest such section on the album. However, I like them most when they're raging and the swirl of tasty feedback that wraps up Hundred-Handed Wards is raging indeed. It's probably beaten only by the finale to On Migoi's Trail and the core of Lethean Dreams. I love how they generate maelstroums of energy and whip them around like ancient wizards, destroying everything in their wake yet never losing control of their tools of destruction.

These two aspects constitute the majority of the album, but there's one further touch I should let you know about, because it surprises me every time those waves of feedback in Hundred-Handed Wards feedback subside and Qilin launch into the final track. This is Boros and it opens up entirely like AC/DC. Sure, the bass is drenched in fuzz, but that's an AC/DC build if I've ever heard one. It's happy to not continue down that path as the piece grows and no vocalist shows up, whether Brian Johnson or anyone else, but it does still stay perkier than anything else on the album, even as the longest track here. It doesn't really slow down until about halfway through its nine minutes and it doesn't calm until six and a half minutes in.

And so that's Parasomnia, which refers to sleep disorders that crop in when you're not asleep but not truly awake either. Your brain is still only partially awake and that does seem to be the perfect time to let an album like this wash over you. That would be a way to start the day!

Amarok - Hope (2024)

Country: Poland
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 5 Apr 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Prog Archives | Twitter | YouTube

It ought to be easy to say that Amarok are my favourite Polish prog rock band but, like Norway, it's fair to say that Poland are punching seriously above their weight in that genre right now, so I can only say that they're one of my favourites. However, I gave their sixth album, Hero, a rare 9/10 and my Album of the Month in September 2021 and this seventh album is a worthy successor two and a half years on. What's more, it's an album that surprised me, albeit not immediately. For a while, it continues much in the same vein as Hero, which isn't a bad thing at all.

Hope Is kicks off with ominous bass tones and then adds exploring keyboards. There are narrative vocals from Marta Wojtas and sung ones from her husband Michał that work well together, even if it took me a few listens to get fully on board. What didn't take me a few listens is Michał's searing guitar solo that's right out of the Dave Gilmour playbook. It's timeless stuff, the sort of thing that could have been recorded in the sixties and still sounds just as perfect now. I like the countdown at the end too; it doesn't seem like the band can meet the timeframe of Marta's numbers, but they do and it works wonderfully, wrapping up just like that.

If that solo reminds us of Gilmour, and I don't see how it can't, then Stay Human reminds us of Pink Floyd as a whole. You wouldn't mistake it for a Floyd song, but it has exactly the same sort of build that's apparently effortless but still gets under our skin so that we find ourselves grooving along with it even a couple of minutes into our first listen. That's the sort of songwriting magic that most of the musical world wishes they could buy in a bottle and, in the absence of such a quick solution, spends years trying to figure out. Amarok have that down just like Floyd do.

There's more Gilmour-style soloing to kick off Insomnia, with some hints of Mark Knopfler too, and it's so far so expected. However, Trail adds two different directions to the sound. The first is to kick off with a dance beat, upping the electronicics in the way that someone like Steven Wilson might, but never leaving prog. Then it heavies up early in the second half, firmly remaining prog instead of metal but introducing a serious punch that's almost a prog rock take on the rhythmic aspect of djent guitars that sounds much better to my ears. It reminds me that, even with a few songs that sound rather like we expect, Amarok can't be taken for granted. They always bring surprises.

And those escalate with Welcome and Queen, not least because they're not sung by either Marta or Michał Wojtas. Drummer Konrad Zieliński takes over for the former, feeling like he'd find a true calling in one of the huge British alt prog bands like Radiohead or Muse. The song follows suit, the sort of prog song that seems designed to reach out to every corner of a huge stadium without any deliberate pandering to commercialism. He may not be a natural singer but he sounds good. And so does Kornel Popławski, Amarok's bassist who takes them in a completely different direction on the latter.

This is nothing like the songs that went before it on this album, though it flavours what follows it. Part of me thinks it's the least successful track here, because it utterly refuses to play along with the rest of the album, but part of me also thinks it's the most successful for the same reason. It's not one to ignore, that's for sure. It has a dark prog drive underneath it, but it feels more like an eighties post-punk song that finds some unusual grooves and some even more unusual sounds. It has some neat guitar feedback, some glorious percussion and vocals that veer from whispers all the way into punk. In addition to those vocals, Popławski also contributes a tasty violin solo.

And so the album changes, the remaining songs, with Michał Wojtas back at the mike, dipping into the various different textures outlined thus far. Perfect Run seems more subdued but grows more than anything else here on repeat listens. Don't Surrender is more commercial, hearkening back to the arena mindset of Welcome but with cleaner and catchier melodies, even adding a moment or two that reminds of the Beatles.

The last two tracks do much the same but in an even more stripped down form. Simple Pleasures, which is appropriately named, strips that mindset down to its basics, featuring a delightful, very delicate guitar solo during its second half. It's the longest song on the album at seven and a half minutes and it's like a fine wine to savour. Dolina follows suit to wrap up the album, even stripping away the instrumentation to make it a solo Michał Wojtas piece, told entirely with a harmonium and Wojtas's voice, eschewing English for once and delivering its story in plaintive Polish.

Those two are both delicate songs and, while they end Hope appropriately, they also leave us very aware that the album is over. I certainly found myself sitting in silence letting what it did soak in, before starting it over again and running through that emotional cycle. I don't think I like it quite as much as I liked Hero, but it's a close call and, while I've listened to Hero enough for it to not be still in that growing phase, this one's still growing on me. So I'm going with an 8/10 for now, with a strong possibility that I'll up it to a 9/10 soon.

The Dread Crew of Oddwood - Rust & Glory (2024)

Country: USA
Style: Pirate Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 15 Mar 2024
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Wow, it's been nine years since I saw the Dread Crew of Oddwood supporting Alestorm at the late lamented Joe's Grotto. They were great that night, playing their distinctive brand of pirate metal that's entirely acoustic, and it's good to hear them again on their fifth album. The line-up is most of the same people, with only the drummer changing since that time, the current occupant of the stool being named simply Pete, an uncharacteristically banal name for a member of this band. I'm not going to see them on the current tour, supporting Týr, but my son is and I'm eager to hear how they played.

Opener Lawful Evil is exactly the sort of song they ought to play at a folk metal gig. It's up tempo, vibrant, energetic, furious even, that makes it entirely sound like metal even though it's acoustic. There's a hard edge to the instrumental midsection and just enough harsh on the vocals to do the same there without stopping the lyrics being entirely understandable. And, of course, pirates are not remotely lawful evil, unless they're privateers. That's acknowledged at the end, when a Dread Crew member points out that they're clearly chaotic evil. That's the feel this album delivers.

The good news is that most of the rest of it plays into that chaotic evil acoustic metal mindset and the result is a lot of fun. The bad news is that not all songs are created equal and there are some here that simply don't carry the punch of others, so that, while I wouldn't skip any of these on my tenth time through, a few are going to slide into the background by that point while others won't. Leather Ship is one of those. It's not a bad song and it gets a little furious as it goes, but it's not a second Lawful Evil. And it's not remotely Lost Comrades.

The Dread Crew are a fascinating band because they're not out of place rocking out at a metal gig but they also fairly perform at renaissance festivals and Lost Comrades is a shanty that is overtly designed for the latter, not because it has an inherent sing-a-long melody but because it bulks up the backing vocals so much that they're often almost duet partners, even though it's really a call and response number. Let's run through the crew. How did he die? Better him than I! On the other hand, Squall of Death features some lovely frantic drums, that make it galloping stuff perfect to stir up some serious pit action.

Oh, and if its narrative section, introduced with a heartfelt "Holy shit!" isn't enough for you to see the humour inherent in almost everything the Dread Crew do, then next up is a song called Giant Fucking Demon Crab, which is about, well, a giant fucking demon crab. Because, why not? Hey, I'm a Guy N. Smith fan. I'm inherently on board with giant fucking demon crabs, even if Cliff Davenport isn't there in the lyrics to take them down at the end until the inevitable sequel. We could adopt it as a theme tune anyway.

And that's this album in a nutshell, even though I've only talked about the first five tracks. There are a bunch of up tempo rockers. The Glass of Firewine ups the energy again, even though it's an instrumental piece, while Give Me Your Beer doubles that, with delicate picking and an earworm bridge. The chorus isn't elegant but it's as catchy as you might expect given the song's title. There are a lot of fun songs here. Is it pirate party time in Tavern Brawl? That's an overt nod to the band I first saw them supporting. Give Me Your Beer easily counts as fun and the accordion of Wolfbeard O'Brady comes to the fore in Corpse Juice Medley.

The only catch is that there are more of those less obvious numbers, none of them bad but none worthy of being listed among the songs listed within the previous paragraph. Evil Tide is pleasant enough on its own but it's inevitably subdued, even tame, after Squall of Death and Giant Fucking Demon Crab. I can see people leaping into the pit for the former and following whatever madness O'Brady raises in the latter, then heading back to the bar for this one. And there are songs that I'd say are sadly most notable for their titles, like Revenge Prawn, which is a gem of a name for a ship and a song about it, and Locomotive Death for that matter. These songs are merely there. They're not bad, because there are no bad songs here, but they're unable to live up to their titles.

And so that's the fifth album from the Dread Crew of Oddwood, no fewer than eight years after a fourth, Lawful Evil, which, I should add, did not feature a song called Lawful Evil, which opens this one instead. That may seem weird, but if Led Zeppelin and AC/DC can do it, so can the Dread Crew. After all, they're pirates, right?