Battle Beast - Circus of Doom (2022)

Country: Finland
Style: Melodic/Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 21 Jan 2022
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This sixth album from Finland's Battle Beast didn't top any best of 2022 lists, though it did make it onto one of them, Metal Kingdom's Best Metal Albums of 2022, at a not unrespectable 11th, but I missed it a year ago and didn't want to let it slip by me entirely before I draw a line on 2022 and go full on dedicated to 2023. I liked the fifth album they put out in 2019, No More Hollywood Endings, or, more accurately, I liked a lot of it a lot. It started out well and it wrapped up well, with a bunch of outstanding songs at each end, but there was also lots of filler in between them and the vision of the band seemed to be all over the map. I wanted to find out if that was an anomaly or a norm.

And, based on this, I'm happy to suggest that it was an anomaly. This one is far more consistent in approach and I was especially happy to hear Noora Louhimo's voice dropped a little in the mix. It's not that I don't want to hear, because she's an outstanding vocalist. It's that she's so outstanding that she doesn't need to be out there in front as if this is a solo project, as it was last time out. On this album, she has to fight more for dominance and she's more than up to that task. Fortunately, so are the musicians behind her, starting with Pyry Vikki's drums, because the beat on the opener is just as emphatic as Louhimo's voice and it stays there throughout.

And it's not just him, because that opener is a very theatrical title track, appropriately given the subject matter. There are plenty of flourishes in the musical backdrop to keep us paying attention to everyone. Circuses are theatres in their way and this song is just as bombastic as the circus that it brings to life. It's a glorious opener, from its musical box intro through an initial vicious chug to the Flight of the Bumblebee style buzz and onward through the curtain into the ring, where we're treated to quite the show.

Wings of Light begins with a killer scream from Louihimo but also a guitar flourish. It isn't close to the opener in theatricality but it's just as emphatic. Master of Illusion kicks off with another huge vocal moment, so there's a clear trend in play. Those drums are in our face too and the guitars on Where Angels Fear to Fly refuse to leave us alone, even when they drop away during the verses. As the song moves towards its close, guitars and voice almost duet, like a game of tag with one doing its thing and handing to the other and so on.

I like all these little touches, Russian Roulette as full of them as Circus of Doom, with an intricate intro and outrageous late section on top of the flourishes during the song, but I honestly believe that Eye of the Storm is my favourite song here and that one plays it straight. It really doesn't do anything fancy until a brief and subtle outro but it's quintessentially urgent. Whatever defences we have left after the assault of the first four songs, it barrels right through them and bludgeons us into submission. It's content to just do the business for four minutes and twenty-six seconds.

Back to Russian Roulette though, I get the feeling that, as powerful as this song is, this could be a pop or even a dance number, something that might be at home at the Eurovision Song Contest in an utterly different presentation. I'd love to hear a pop cover of this to see how it works. Here, it's a heavy/power metal song and not a wimpy one in the slightest, but I bet it would play really well with completely different filters: keyboards instead of guitars, a soft voice instead of an emphatic one, pulses instead of rock drums. Someone cover this as a disco song, please!

If there's a downside, it's that the album doesn't end as strongly as it started but the second side isn't filler. These are good songs, just not quite as good as the ones before them. If they'd moved one of the killers, say Where Angels Fear to Fly, to the end, maybe I wouldn't have been seen it at all. And that means that either this is a big step up for them, which I doubt given the acclaim they have garnered throughout their career, or that last album was a step down they've addressed.

Chaos Magic - Emerge (2022)

Country: Chile
Style: Melodic Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 17 Jun 2022
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Here's another Best of 2022, according to Folk N Rock, where it won as Best Melodic Metal Album of 2022, featuring "a magic mix of both symphonic and modern melodic power metal elements". I can't say that I'm as sold on this one as I was on Vanaheim, but it's an excellent album and it's still growing on me with each listen.

Chaos Magic appear to have started out as one of those numerous Frontiers projects. They signed a highly capable Chilean vocalist called Caterina Nix, who had demonstrated her classical and pop training in a local band called Aghonya, who put out an album in 2008 and supported bands such as Edguy, After Forever and Within Temptation. They built the Chaos Magic project around her and a name guitarist, Timo Tolkki, formerly of Stratovarius, both of whom got "featuring" credits above the project name on the cover. Tolkki was gone for album two, so only Nix's name was credited on the cover. This third album is credited simply to Chaos Magic. I guess they're finally an actual band.

And they're a good one, most of whom were on the previous Chaos Magic album, Furyborn in 2019, and all of whom are from Chile. The guitars are surely the most obvious, courtesy of Mario Torres and Nasson, because they're what vary the tone of the songs. Sometimes they go for a traditional European power metal approach, but sometimes they go with a more modern staccato approach, which isn't as effective but doesn't entirely seem out of place. Nix herself mostly sings in the pop style, but occasionally leaps into an operatic register, like halfway through the title track. I wanted more of that but it's neither frequent nor sustained.

Emerge is a decent enough opener and I enjoyed it, but it didn't knock my socks off. Even on a fifth time through, I'm digging individual moments throughout it—the intro, some emphatic horns, the soprano escalation midway—but never quite seeing it as a song. I found Beneath Your Skin after it a more approachable song, with just as many praisable moments but also a more consistent feel. I realise that it opens up with those modern guitars that tend to bore me, but they're tempered by an orchestral swell and Nix is playful on this one as she works through the first verse into a strong chorus.

As the album ran on and as I listened through a second time and a third, songs started to stand out for notice. The first were Garden of Winter and Hearts Gone Dark, late in the first half. The former has a chorus with a killer hook and it incorporates some fantastic sounds late on, including Spanish guitar. Elena Siirala of Leaves' Eyes and Angel Nation lends her voice to this one too, elevating it in elegant fashion early on but then Nix adds power to Siirala's delicacy and it's a tasty combination. The latter builds elegantly too, with plenty of keyboards from Franco Lama, to another exquisitely catchy chorus.

The next to elevate itself was Days of Lions and When If Not Today, both of which boast killer hooks, suggesting that it's the hooks that stand out and bring the songs with them. However, the latter is all the better for an excellent guitar solo and a temporary drop in intensity late on, so there's a lot more going on than just hooks.

And then it was In the Depth of Night, because of how it transitions from a soft, poppy beginning, as if it's going to be a ballad, into that modern guitar for an effective contrast. Maybe it's my own bias against that particular jagged style that treats the lead guitar as a mere rhythmic tool that has me think a little less of this album than the reviewers at Folk N Rock, but it's not omnipresent. The album as a whole feels like a European power metal album with the expected focus on melody and solid guitar solos, but with a symphonic edge, and I'm on board with all that. So I don't know. I like it. It's clearly an excellent album. I just don't love it.

So, this is a 7/10 for me. If you're a particular fan of that modern guitar sound, feel free to add one more point. It'll be a little more special for you.