Apocalypse Later Music Reviews: power metal

Showing posts with label power metal. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 January 2025

Grave Digger - Bone Collector (2025)

This is Grave Digger's twenty-second album and, because they continue to knock out albums every couple of years, it's the third I've reviewed here at Apocalypse Later. In 2020, Fields of Blood was a decent heavy/power metal album that warranted a lot of comparisons to Sabaton. In 2022, Symbol of Eternity was notably less successful, its songs enjoyable but unable to stick in the mind. This is a strong return to form and also to a faster and grittier sound that's often more reminiscent of the days when they were a speed metal band. It's not just the tempo, it's a more jagged edge to these songs.

Certainly, Bone Collector and The Rich, the Poor, the Dying open up fast and heavy. They're sung in English, as we expect, but it wouldn't be remotely difficult to identify the band as German, even if we'd gone in completely blind. I wonder how much of this is because there's a new guitarist on this album, Tobias Kersting, who joined both Grave Digger and vocalist Chris Boltendahl's heavy metal side project, Chris Boltendahl's Steelhammer, in 2023. Not all the edge is in the guitars, but I think it may well have started there. If so, thank you, sir.

Both tracks pass the test that the majority of the songs on Symbol of Eternity failed, namely that they're memorable. The chorus on Bone Collector sticks in the brain and I love the line in The Rich, the Poor the Dying that wraps up its chorus: "Money for nothing and death for free." Kingdom of Skulls opens with a tasty bass run from Jens Becker. When the album slows down with The Devil's Serenade, it escalates the hooks at the same time so it all works out. This is a strong song, but it's also the one that warrants the most obvious Sabaton comparison. I didn't hear them much on the opening trio.

The comparisons here definitely highlight the shift in tone. Sabaton were all over Fields of Blood but they're not here. This is edgier and, even when it slows down to chug, it has the gritty edge of German thrash bands like Destruction. Killing My Pleasure opens with a riff that could have been borrowed from early Iron Maiden but it's played with Destruction grit. There's a Destruction riff on Riders of Doom, which isn't a Deathrow cover, even though it's a slower song that's content to chug along rather than let rip.

Mirror Hate is reminiscent of Accept, a band who rarely stay away for long in the sound of German power metal bands. Some songs have a Motörhead vibe to them, both in tone (Boltendahl's voice has a similar grit to Lemmy) and in structure, like Forever Evil and Buried Alive. Graveyard Kings has a chant aspect to it that reminds of Manowar, though it's laid over that notably German style chug.

Another crucial note here is that, whatever tempo these songs choose, the album keeps shifting inexorably forward and it's over before we expect it to be. It's of relatively typical length at three quarters of an hour, but it feels shorter because the songs tend to get right down to business then give way to the next without hanging around past their due dates. Occasionally there's some sort of extended intro, as on Made of Madness or Whispers of the Damned, but those songs feel even more frantic afterwards as if to compensate.

The only song that doesn't adhere to that mindset is the closer, Whispers of the Damned. It's not just that extended intro, it's the fact that it's trying to be an epic track rather than a quick punch. It's well over a minute longer than anything else here and two longer than anything but Riders of Doom. It feels stretched, not least through a narrative section in the second half. And this isn't a bad thing. It's a good song. It just doesn't follow the same mindset as the ten tracks preceding it and that's noticeable.

So this is a strong album, a return to form after the weaker Symbol to Eternity and up there with Fields of Blood in quality. While I'm going to rate it the same at 7/10, I'll happily say that I'm much fonder of it because of the increased pace and grit, especially on the first half of the album. If I'm forced to throw out a flaw, it's that it's top heavy. My three highlights all sit in the first four songs, so all safely in the first half, which I presume would end with Mirror of Hate six tracks in, with the two longer songs on the second half. That's not much of a flaw though. All in all, this is the best of the most recent three Grave Digger albums.

Tuesday, 28 January 2025

Innocence Lost - Oblivion (2024)

I couldn't find a Best of 2024 list for South American metal, but what I did find tended to include a lot of mentions of a band from Rio de Janeiro called Innocence Lost, who play a mixture of power, prog and symphonic metal, so I thought I'd take a listen. They're hardly newcomers, dating back to 2007, but this is their debut album. I guess that means they've been working on material for a long time and probably playing live shows. They did release an EP in 2012, but that was it for recorded output until a string of singles in the 2020s. Three out of five of them made it onto this album.

What's immediately obvious, once Of Man's Fall, the movie trailer of an intro, is done, is that this is emphatically metal, in red ink with two underlines, without ever becoming extreme. The closest they get to extreme are the drums of Thiago Alves, because he has a lot of gears and he gives the impression that he could shift up another couple at any moment without any worries at all. When he's playing slow, which is often, it feels like he's playing in slow motion. However, even though he does find higher gears at points, he never goes full on extreme.

Nobody else comes close, but the mindset is always metal, with the bass prominent in the mix and often at the expense of the keyboards. That feels unusual for a few reasons. For one, I frequently have to point out in metal reviews how the bass is lost in the mix, but far fewer where it buries the keyboards. I can't remember the last time I pointed that out when the keyboard player happens to be a founder member. That's Aloysio Ventura, who provides keyboards and occasional vocals. The other founder member is Mari Torres, the lead vocalist. Everyone else, including the bassist, was brought on board more recently, around the time that they started putting out singles.

What they provide is interesting music, definitely progressive but rooted deeper in power metal. The symphonic element is there from the outset too, in the choral swells on Dark Forest, and it's never far away, but it always plays second fiddle, as it were, to the power and the prog. The female vocals are clean but very powerful. Torres has a strong set of lungs on her and, while there's a lot of nuance in what she does, she doesn't hold back much. When the Light Fades Away opens up like a ballad, so I wondered how she would sound with some restraints on. She sounds great, though her accent does show here—she sings in English throughout—but she doesn't keep the restraints on for long.

The thing is that everyone else follows suit. The guitar of Gui DeLucchi doesn't solo as often as we might expect but, when it does, it sears, not least in a prominent section on When the Light Fades Away. This sound feels like there's two guitarists, not in the sense that they're duelling but in the sense that there's so much bite. However, there's just DeLucci, which means that he's really giving it some. The same applies to Ventura's keyboards, so often a tease in the background but once in a while a tasty solo instrument, like during the second halves of City of Woe and Downfall.

And then there's the bass of Ricardo Haquim, so prominent that it would dominate this sound if it wasn't for Torres. In many ways, it serves double duty, both in the traditional role of the bass and as a substitute for a rhythm guitar. Check out the beginning of Downfall to hear it shift between those two modes. It's usually up front and powerful, but there's a completely different texture to it at the beginning of When the Light Fades Away, where it turns liquid and subtle and very tasty indeed. It's liquid during the intro to Fallen too, but not remotely subtle. Overall, it helps to bring a more modern touch to the sound.

It's hard to pick out favourite tracks on this album, though When the Light Fades Away has to be in and amongst them. Regular readers know that I rarely pick ballads as standout tracks and, in fact, I'm far more likely to call them the least worthy on any album, but this one has class and variety without any hint of cheese. Dark Forest is up there too, because it's a real statement of intent, in many ways the album in microcosm. Downfall is a strong contender too, because it has everything this album does best in there somewhere. Then there's The Trial, with a bunch of male narrative sections that come close to duetting with the female lead vocal. It's a very interesting song.

And it's a consistently strong album throughout. The intro did nothing for me at all and I'd like to have heard more extended solos, both on guitar and keyboards, with the bass down a little so we can hear more of both, but what's here is all good stuff. It's all heavy power metal that's happy to get right into our face, but with the added depth that comes from the prog angle and, to a lesser degree, the symphonic one. It's a very good debut. I'd love to hear what they come up with next.

Monday, 6 January 2025

Enchanted Steel - Might and Magic (2025)

Country: Poland
Style: Symphonic Power Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 2 Jan 2025
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | YouTube

I hadn't heard of Enchanted Steel before, but they're a one man band from Poland, that one man being Arion Galadriel, or Mikołaj Kowalik, as he's known when he does the same thing in one man symphonic black metal band Yog-Sothoth. This is symphonic too but power metal and it's obviously designed to bring colourful fantasy landscapes to mind, just like the cover art, and in just as bright a fashion. Everything's upbeat and comradely, even when the lyrics hint at darkness. This is a clean fantasy world when heroes will always vanquish their foes and the only time it rains is to show the fortitude of those heroes as they struggle through it regardless.

I don't know precisely what Kowalik plays here, other than everything, and I mention that because it feels fundamentally keyboard-driven, even when instruments could be something else. I wonder if he's playing a drumkit or programming a drum machine. I wonder if he's blistering through some sort of DragonForce-esque guitar solo or using a guitar filter on a synthesiser. The only thing that I didn't wonder was about his voice, which is fine in frantic sections but shows its limitations in more mellow parts. That's a real and honest voice, even if it isn't the typical lead singer's voice.

DragonForce are one side of the sound and a frequent one, but it's not the only one. The Flame of Warrior's Might is much slower and softer and more reminiscent of European power metal bands, as well as Manowar, who are apparent in some of the epic vocal structures and also the fact that I can't quite tell how serious Kowalik is. Everything here's played straight, at least until the bizarre bonus track, called No Cock Like Horse Cock, which is clearly not meant to be taken seriously in the slightest, not only because of its lyrics, which are roughly what you might expect from its title, but also because it's a pop punk song wrapping up a symphonic power metal album for no reason that I can fathom.

However, how seriously are we supposed to take Keeper of the Seven Beers, which is ironically over in under three minutes, given how Helloween can sprawl instrumentally, but then it owes more to Alestorm than the German pioneers. And what about Quest for the Battle of Battle, with its lyrics that are so redundant and generic that they veer deep into parody. The chorus, for instance, kicks off with "We're on a quest for the battle of battle, on a quest for the battle of fight", so ridiculous that it could win awards. Kowalik's command of the English language isn't problematic elsewhere, so either these are old lyrics he couldn't be bothered to rewrite or he has his tongue firmly placed within his cheek. Then again, it is another song fuelled by an barrelling Alestorm approach.

What's frustrating is that there's some serious talent in here, both in songwriting structure and in the guitar solos. The latter may not be particularly complex but they're damn fast and they sound highly impressive. It isn't trivial to sound like Herman Li at the best of times, but it's not trivial to shift over to André Olbrich of Blind Guardian on the next track and make it seem natural. Kowalik can clearly play, whether he's actually playing a guitar or mimicking one on a synth. Check out the beginning of The Greatest Warriors and see what you think on that front. My favourite solos show up on Keeper of the Seven Beers and We'll Fight.

I'd like to know more about Kowalik. I googled around and discovered that he's a nineteen year old student who clearly loves metal and wants to make it himself. Right now, he's doing that entirely on his own in an undisclosed part of Poland and throwing it up onto Bandcamp to see how folk will respond to it. I don't think this is entirely successful for a number of reasons, but there's talent on show that I hope finds a better outlet in a real band with other members who can do this on stage as well as in the studio.

It doesn't help that my favourite songs are probably Keeper of the Seven Beers and Quest for the Battle of Battle, even though my brain screams at me that they can't be taken seriously. However, they just rock. They blister along with emphasis and the hooks are powerful. I respond to them on every listen. Quest for the Elven Blade is another song that I find irresistible and, once again, it's Alestorm-influenced. Maybe that's the band he can mimic best. The worst song for me is one that doesn't come close to Alestorm, namely The Flame of Warrior's Might. It relies on vocals far more than the instruments and he just doesn't have the chops to make it work.

So this is a real mixed bag, fascinating but problematic, impressive but with serious caveats. For me, it asks a lot of questions and doesn't answer any of them.

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Wind Rose - Trollslayer (2024)

I had a feeling this would be the case, so I very deliberately avoided reading my review of the prior Wind Rose album, 2022's Warfront, before listening to this new one a bunch of times and taking all my notes. Sure enough, though, most of what I jotted down echoes what I said last time, meaning that this review could mostly be reduced to the single word "Ditto".

Now it's not quite that simple. This isn't as good as its predecessor, but I still enjoyed myself on my first time through and I find that I'm still enjoying myself in much the same way half a dozen more listens in. It's notably shorter, mostly because its songs are shorter. Intro aside, Warfront had only two of nine tracks lasting fewer than five minutes. On Trollslayer, that's five of eight with a further two exceeding that mark by no more than five seconds. The exception is the closer and, while it's a departure from everything else, as indeed Tomorrow Has Come was last time out, the two songs are very different otherwise.

So they're not quite the same album for a few reasons but fundamentally they sound very similar. This band know their sound and they stick to it ruthlessly. The line-up remains unchanged, as it has been since 2018 when drummer Federico Gatti, added as a touring member a year earlier after the departure of Daniele Visconti, joined officially, and their approach is exactly the same. As before, the weakest aspect is that every song works in exactly the same way and sounds very similar. Try a song, any song (OK, maybe not No More Sorrow). If you like that song, you're going to like all the other songs too. If you don't like that first one, nothing else is going to change your mind. Extend that suggestion to cover both albums and it would hold true.

That style is consistent power metal with copious folk elements and a fundamental welcome in its sound. The lead vocals of Francesco Cavalieri are deep and resonant and they constantly invite us to join in. Behind him is Tommaso Corvaja who serves as a choir. Much of the time, while there's a single vocal line, it feels like there's more than one voice and that holds even when there really is only one voice. That adds to the sense that Wind Rose are the jukebox in Valhalla and everyone in the vast room sings along. Of course, chests are ample so microphones are replaced by huge mugs of ale.

It primarily works at two tempos, one of which tends to bulk up to the other. That means that it's a tough call to identify standout tracks because what makes a song our favourite is going to fall to a personal connection to a hook or a melody. Mine are probably The Great Feast Underground and To Be a Dwarf. I happen to like the melody in the former and I also dig the softer midsection where most of the instrumentation falls away for the vocals to continue over what sounds very much like a harpsichord. The hooks on the latter are irresistible and there's also a glorious keyboard riff to kick things off.

I could imagine a lot of people plumping for Rock and Stone, which is a real stomper of a song, an audience participation number in an album full of audience participation numbers. It's catchy and it absolutely knows it, which is why it's one of the few songs to stay at the slower tempo for most of the song. It simply doesn't need to speed up to feel powerful and so we don't move as fast, here in our chairs. Every song here makes us move, even if it's just to sway back and forth as if we're on a bench with a thousand of our brothers in arms singing and swaying in unison.

All that said, there's something to be said for all these tracks. Dance of the Axes maybe increases the tempo just a little bit more to add a sense of speed and urgency. Trollslayer features a lovely instrumental section during its intro. Legacy of the Forge plays up the choral approach even more, with whole sections ditching words and relying entirely on vocalisations. Then there's the closer, No More Sorrow, which changes almost everything.

It's a good song, but being the only one of nine to really attempt something different means that it feels a little out of place. Cavalieri does the same job, as do the various other musicians when it picks up power, but the mood is totally different. There's a second voice that seems pleading and sad, two words that don't apply to anything else on this album. That's especially apparent during the softer section that wraps up the song, a nod back to that harpsichord midsection in The Great Feast Underground. There are hints at harsh voices too, albeit mostly behind clean ones. And, of course, it runs on for seven and a half minutes when nothing else gets its claws past five.

All in all, this is a good old friend of an album, as Warfront was, but it's not quite as successful. On that one, I felt safe with an 8/10 and pondered a 9/10. This is a solid and utterly reliable 7/10.

Tuesday, 24 September 2024

Blitzkrieg - Blitzkrieg (2024)

Given how many NWOBHM-era bands have been reforming and releasing new material, I shouldn't be surprised to see Blitzkrieg added to that list. They were formed back in 1979 as Split Image, but renamed to Blitzkrieg a year later when Brian Ross joined on vocals. They released just one single before splitting up, but up and coming legends Metallica covered its B-side, also called Blitzkrieg, on their first Garage Days Revisited release, along with Diamond Head's Am I Evil? on the flipside of their Creeping Death single. And so Blitzkrieg reformed, released an album, split up, reformed, split up, reformed, knocked out three albums, split up, reformed and seem to mean it this time.

This is their sixth album since that reformation in 2001, though only Ross remains from that point or indeed any other before it, and their first since 2018's Judge Not! It's roughly what you expect from a NWOBHM band, though I do resist labelling 2024 releases that way because it was as much a point in time as a sound. 21st century production aside, You Won't Take Me Alive sounds like it's a song that could easily have been on a 1980 NWOBHM album, but nowadays it's just heavy metal. It's a powerful opener, with elegant guitarwork and clean resonant vocals, plus a drop in intensity midway that's very tasty.

Much of this is Brian Ross, whose vocal style is gloriously out of fashion but nonetheless precisely right for this sort of music. He doesn't scream (except for a rare exception like the one that closes Dragon's Eye), he doesn't growl and he doesn't shriek. He dishes out clean vocals that we can hear and easily understand and often includes a point in his lyrics. That's most notable here in If I Told You, flavoured by its opening sample, sparse riff and plodding bass to be a song about conspiracy theories, JFK, 9/11, Area 51 and the rest. If I told you, I'd have to kill you. However, his resonance is what makes his voice special. The only overt comparison I'd give is to Danny Foxx of Blood Money, who never made it out of the eighties, but he sang faster and with more urgency.

However, it's not all Brian Ross. The rhythm section of Liam Ferguson on bass and Matt Graham on drums, is rock solid, and the guitars sometimes have just as much voice as Ross. There are a couple of them here and I don't know which guitarist delivers which riff or which solo, but I get the feeling that they divvy them up. Certainly there are duelling guitar solos that suggest that both play lead at least at that point. They establish themselves early with the buzzsaw guitar that starts out You Won't Take Me Alive and seem to be simpatico whatever genre they move into, whether it's speed metal midway through Dragon's Eye, power metal on much of the rest of it or neoclassical shred in quite a few solos.

It's weird to suggest that one of those guitarists is Alan Ross, not because he's the son of Brian, a scenario with plenty of precedent nowadays, but because he's had the longest tenure in the band after his father, having joined as late as 2012, thirty-two years after Split Image became Blitzkrieg. Surprisingly, he's also the current vocalist in Tysondog, though I now realise that he didn't sing on their most recent album, Midnight, which I reviewed a couple of years ago, as that was their prior singer, the late John Carruthers. Ross's cohort here is Nick Jennison, the most recent arrival who joined in 2020.

And so this line-up, as recent as it is in context, seems like solid and strong bedrock for the albums to come. Ross is just as good as he's always been behind the mike, bestowing appropriate gravitas on these songs, even duetting acrobatically with himself on the suitably titled Vertigo. Jennison and Ross Jr. are a real highlight for me, bringing some consistent bite with their guitar tone. They can clearly play, as their solos ably demonstrate, especially the duelling ones. If they can conjure a set of more memorable riffs on the next album, they'll be unstoppable. And they're all backed up by a highly reliable rhythm section in Ferguson and Graham, who do the job without ever seeming to stretch themselves.

So what this comes down to is how memorable it's going to end up. I enjoyed all nine tracks, but I'm not sure how many are going to stay with me for long. You Won't Take Me Alive stays the standout from the very outset. That one's memorable. Otherwise it's moments that are memorable rather than complete songs. The frantic section midway through Dragon's Eye is one. The vocal approach in Vertigo is another. The drop late in of Above the Law fits that too, with acoustic guitar and flute but crunchy guitar punctuation and Ross remaining powerful throughout. There's also the hook to I am His Voice; the way they include the Halloween theme in their homage to that film, The Night He Came Home; and the epic opening to the operatic closer, On Olympus High - Aphrodite's Kiss. None of these songs are bad, but it's these moments that are special.

Mostly, I think what I wanted out of this album is something that Blitzkrieg don't want to provide, namely a little more speed. They have all the power they need, across the board, and they have a few moments of pace that are the moments that this material comes alive. More of those and I'd like it a lot more than I do already. Either way, it's good to see Blitzkrieg putting out new material and I look forward to their next album. Why this one was self-titled, I don't know. It's strong but it isn't a career-defining release.

Monday, 2 September 2024

Black Wings - Whispers of Time (2024)

Country: Italy
Style: Melodic Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 30 Aug 2024
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Twitter | YouTube

Black Wings are showing on Metal Archives as having split up, after an active spell between 2005 and 2011 resulted in one album, 2008's Sacred Shiver. But hey, here's a 2024 album, of what seems to be entirely new music, performed by two of the same musicians and three new ones. Facebook seems to suggest that it was recorded in 2010 before the band split up and was rescued from the vaults by one of the studios in which it was recorded, Sonika, in the band's home town of Ferrara. Having not heard Black Wings before, I'm very happy to hear them now, though I'm sad they are no longer together.

It seems appropriate to start some catch up at Apocalypse Later after a tough few months dealing with real life issues. They're fourteen years late with this album. I've only been away since June.

The album came to me as melodic heavy metal, which is fair, I guess, but they mostly play a sort of European power metal that veers into melodic rock, hard rock and traditional heavy metal. It also gets epic, with a cinematic intro in Opening the Gates that shifts from demonic spoken word to an enticing, almost bouncy, Danny Elfman-esque theme, and a less successful closer that runs far too long. That's Back to Consciousness and it combines narration, elegant piano and orchestration.

While Strangers to This World (Like You) is emphatically a melodic rock song, driven not by guitars but the keyboards of Alessandro Duò, most of this does give Claudio Pietronik the traditional lead guitar role for heavy metal alongside the powerful vocals of Diego Albini, and not one of the seven other tracks feels comfortable lumped into melodic rock. The opener, Cold is the Wind, is a suitably lively track with good strong vocals and lively riffs, especially after a brief drop to piano midway, those riffs wrapped in effective orchestration. This is a statement of intent and, while that intent is briefly interrupted by Strangers to This World, it holds true for much of the album.

Cold is the Wind is definitely one of my highlights, but there are others. Calling to a Fool ups the power again after Strangers to This World and Albini is especially eager to deliver, but it elevates through a unexpectedly loose and jazzy midsection that kicks the song back into gear through an excellent pair of solos, one on guitar from Pietronik and another on keyboards from Duò. Talking of blistering, the most blistering heavy metal here is the guitarwork during the second half of The Sense of Emotions. It's a powerful song anyway but that guitar is gorgeous. I should also call out The Story Ain't Over, because it finds a particularly strong groove in the second half, both before and after Albini hands over to the instrumentation.

While those are my highlights, the remaining songs don't really let the side down. Another Sun is a capable song with a lot of Iron Maiden to it and even more of the European power metal bands who came into being because of them. It would be a good song on any other album, but I can't say it's as good as the songs around it. Whispers of Time is more generic for a European power metal song, even though it's the title track. It's decent, but it doesn't stand out the way those highlights do. And Waiting in Heaven slows things down considerably, opening like a ballad but powering up in its later stages. It's the least effective of them all for me, if still enjoyable.

The worst song for me is easily the closer, which isn't really a song at all, just a five minute outro that dips back into cinematic territory, as if it's wrapping up a concept album. Maybe it is, but I'd not caught any link between songs otherwise. Its only vocals are narrative and it never manages to find a focus instrumentally for me. Sure, it sets a mood but it's not the mood I wanted from an outro to a power metal album. Even on a third or fourth time through, I never wanted to skip any of these songs, even the partial ballad, but the outro lost me first time around and got more and more annoying with each further listen.

Without an active band behind it, I guess this only has a couple of possibilities to live up to. One is to enhance the reputation of a band who are no longer together, and I'd suggest it succeeds there. I haven't heard Sacred Shiver, so I can't say if this is better or worse or even remotely similar, but it seems like a valid rescue from the archives. The other is to introduce people like me to a band who might, even individually, benefit from fresh attention. Is this good enough to prompt a reunion? It probably isn't, but it's a quality addition to the resumes of everyone involved, whatever they may be doing nowadays.

Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Feuerschwanz - Warriors (2024)

I could have sworn blind that I reviewed the previous Feuerschwanz album, but apparently I didn't. Maybe I'm mixing them up with another German comedic mediaeval rock band turned serious folk metal band after signing for Napalm in 2019. This is their fifth album since that point, one arriving each year, even during the pandemic, but it's a little different for a couple of reasons. For one, it's mostly not new, being a sort of greatest hits of their Napalm era, plus a cover and a couple of new tracks, but reworked to serve as their first entirely English language release. Most of these songs are therefore recent but not new and only sung until now in German. Some feature guests.

Given that it's a decent album on a first listen, all delivered in a consistent lively folk metal style, but a real grower on repeats, it suggests that these recent Napalm albums have featured plenty of excellent material. What's more, the best song on offer is arguably one of the new tracks, The Unholy Grail. I say "arguably", because these dozen songs feature such a consistent approach that it's always going to come down to personal choice. Generally speaking, listen to any one track. If it works for you, then all twelve will; if it doesn't, none of the others are going to win you over.

Personally, I think The Unholy Grail flows the best with the most successful melodies. That's a huge chorus for sure. However, The Forgotten Commandment isn't far behind it, as the title track to Das elfte Gebot in 2020. Wardwarf, formerly Kampfzweg on the same album, is right up there too, as is the opener, Highlander, formerly on last year's Fegefeuer. All that said, I'm going off a succession of listens today. I may give you completely different songs toorrow. Right now, Song of Ice and Fire, also from Fegefeuer, is growing on me substantially and who knows what's going to follow it.

All told, I believe there are five tracks from Fegefeuer, a couple from Memento Mori in 2021 and a couple more from Das elfte Gebot. Then there's a cover, Valhalla Calling, formerly by Gavin Dunne, who goes by Miracle of Sound, an Irish singer/songwriter who creates music primarily about video games. That leaves the two new tracks, which I believe are Circlepit of Hell and The Unholy Grail.

The guests appear on the even numbered tracks, for some reason, and they're all vocalists, even if they play instruments in their own bands. The Unholy Grail features Dominum and Orden Ogan, in other words Felix Heldt and Seeb Levermann. Their power metal approach fits well here, because this is primarily clean up tempo folk metal. Chris Harms of Lord of the Lost shows up on Memento Mori, which means that there's a gothic undertone to it in the lively Sisters of Mercy vein. Hardly surprisingly, Francesco Cavalleri from Italian power metallers Wind Rose guests on Wardwarf, an obvious choice that works. That leaves Patty Gurdy on Song of Ice and Fire; she's apparently best known for hurdy gurdy covers on YouTube.

There's not a lot to say about any of these songs that couldn't be said about them all, namely that they get down to business quickly; deliver three minutes of melodic power with violin, hurdy gurdy and bagpipes an integral part of the assault; and get out of the way for the next one right coming behind it. The vast majority of it is sung clean and heroic in surprisingly unaccented English for a band known for singing in German for a couple of decades, but the backing vocals sometimes slip into a slight harsh delivery. Given that Feuerschwanz heavied up when they signed for Napalm, it seems telling that the crunchy metal guitars are fundamental nowadays, because their absence is obvious when they take a backseat for a verse during Memento Mori.

That said, there are some notable intros, most obviously Wardwarf, which launches neatly with a sense of both nuance and power, and Bastard of Asgard, which opens up rather like Iron Maiden taking on folk metal. None of the intros are long, as we might expect for three minute songs, but they set the stage well and continue to shape the songs after they bulk up. It's also worth adding that a number of these songs tie into pop culture, not only the Assassin's Creed influenced cover. Highlander is about that movie; Song of Ice and Fire is about that series, which you may know as Game of Thrones; and there's a memorable Lovecraft stanza in The Forgotten Commandment. It makes me wonder how many other songs tie to pop culture that I simply don't recognise.

And that's about it, I guess. This is strong stuff that sounds entirely like German folk metal even if we don't know that it's German folk metal. It tells me that I really ought to check out the previous four Feuerschwanz albums for Napalm, because I haven't done that even if I thought I had.

Wednesday, 1 May 2024

About Us - Take a Piece (2024)

Country: India
Style: Melodic/Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 12 Apr 2024
Sites: Facebook | Instagram

I reviewed the self-titled debut album from About Us in 2022 and pretty much everything I said in that review holds true here. Most notably, they have a truly bizarre mix of styles that sometimes works really well and sometimes leaves me wondering why. This sort of mix simply isn't done and for good reasons, because the fanbases for some of the different styles on offer here tend to hate the other styles. However, they've doubled down on this sort of thing since that debut, so it must be working for them.

They start us in relatively easy, with an opener in Come to You that's half heavy/power metal and half melodic rock. Their base style remains melodic rock, which is why they're on Frontiers, but it's fair to say that I doubt anyone else on Frontiers sounds like this. There are plenty of bands on that label who play melodic rock and plenty more who play power metal and perhaps a few that sound like both put together. However, I can't name another one who adds nu and alt metal into the mix, as About Us promptly do on Endure.

Come to You is fundamentally a melodic rock song with the sort of melodies we expect built on the sort of structure we expect, but it's bulked up with beefier guitars and notably fast drumming. I'm pretty sure Yanni Ennie is using a double bass approach here, which I don't believe I've ever heard in a melodic rock band before. Sochan Kikon takes on an escalating metal vocal at the very end of the song too. Endure, though, is melodic rock with a Hot Topic filter laid prominently over it like a blanket. Renlamo Lotha and Pona Kikon shift their guitars to rhythmic monotone riffs and djenty chords and both Sochan Kikon and whoever's adding backing vocals go trendy harsh. However, the solos are back to power metal again.

Legion mixes those approaches, building from an elegant power metal intro to djenty verses and back into power metal choruses, the melodic rock not as clear but still there in the structure, and the majority of these tracks continue to mix these approaches in different amounts. Fire with Fire is more melodic rock but with grungier guitars and Sochan Kikon singing clean but with more grit and, at the very end, another metal scream. EVH is bouncy hard rock with much more prominent keyboards from Renbomo Yanthan, so it's AOR with a little crunch. This one could easily be heavy Journey. Beautiful Misery is melodic rock that ramps up to power metal but with those alt metal touches when that sort of middle finger attitude is warranted.

About Us hail from Wokha, which is so far to the northeast of India that it's far closer to Myanmar than the majority of India, so I wonder what their local music scene sounds like. It's not the usual home for a rock band of any description, so maybe rock fans there are more accepting of this sort of wild mix. If Journey and Blind Guardian and Avenged Sevenfold are all simply rock bands there and a notable change from Bollywood soundtracks and traditional Indian music, then a band like About Us makes total sense. Here in the west, where trad metal and alt metal have two separate fanbases, especially outside the US, About Us make us wonder a lot more.

What I can say is that they're highly capable. Sochan Kikon sounds effective whatever style he's adopting at any particular moment. Check out the guitar solos in Reels for Eternity and Hope to see what a double act like Lotha and Pona Kikon can do. Ennie impresses throughout, even if it sometimes feels as if he'd be more comfortable in an extreme metal band. Yanthan rarely takes the spotlight, which holds true for bassist Soren Kikon, a third Kikon in this band, but they both deliver exactly what they need to do to support these songs.

I'm going with another 7/10 here, as I did with the About Us debut. This feels a little heavier over a forty minute stretch but it hasn't lost its melodic rock roots, especially with a thoroughly melodic song like Fortitude wrapping things up, even if Sochan Kikon gets edgy at points and there's a nice slow and heavy section early in the second half. My least favourite songs are the ones that venture deepest into the nu metal approach, Endure and Legion among them, but they stay varied too, so I'm not desperately upset. Later songs, like Hope and Beautiful Misery, strike a better balance for me, mostly unfolding in traditional melodic fashion but with the occasional edgy texture.

What I don't hear yet is something new coming out of this merger. It still sounds like a merger of two very different sounds coexisting on the same album. Maybe, if About Us keep knocking these albums out, they'll find a way to make the two sounds feel like one, at which point they'll certainly have staked out a very new claim within the genre. Best of luck to them!

Monday, 29 April 2024

Rage - Afterlifelines (2024)

Rage are one of the few metal bands from the eighties to survive to the present day without any blips in service, having stayed together as Rage since 1986, plus another three more years before that if we count their time as Avenger. They've always been prolific as well, this counting as their twenty-seventh studio album, but they appear to be bursting at the seams with new material, so much so that I actually missed their 2021 album, Resurrection Day, after enjoying 2020's Wings of Rage enough to give it a highly recommended 8/10. I did cover Spreading the Plague, their 2022 EP, though, and I didn't want to miss this double album, their first such, even if I'm a month late.

After a deceptively soft intro, In the Beginning, they shift instantly to full gear for End of Illusions and Under a Black Crown and we're off and running. I talked about their particular balancing act in my review of Wings of Rage, how they're often "up tempo without being thrash, heavy without being death, powerful without losing melody." That phrase applies to these openers and to many others as the album runs on, such as one of my personal highlights, Dead Man's Eyes, which also adds a little death metal crunch. There are a few hints at extreme metal here that remain hints only, especially through harsh moments in songs like Dead Man's Eyes and Lifelines.

Other songs drop the pace a little, never too much, remaining heavy but maintaining their sense of melody. Afterlife, Mortal and Toxic Waves fit that bill and they're just as tasty as the fast ones. Waterwar shifts between the two modes, mostly staying in the slower mode but punctuating the verses with a neatly fast machine gun riff, almost a call and response with vocalist Peavy Wagner. This is another highlight for me, aided by a strong guitar solo from Jean Bormann. I've liked this new Rage with two guitarists, but Stefan Weber has gone on hiatus for health reasons, so they're temporarily back to being a trio for now, with Bormann handling both lead and rhythm.

The double album is broken up into two albums with different names, Afterlife and Lifelines. The former, from In the Beginning to Life Among the Ruins eleven tracks in, that includes everything I mentioned above except Lifelines, is consistently strong with a few highlights: Dead Man's Eyes, Waterwar and a third called Justice Will Be Mine, which is a clear single with an emphasised melody that's almost Celtic in nature and a neat slow heavy section in the build up to the finalé. Not everything is up to that quality but there are no bad tracks here and I wouldn't call any average either. All are good heavy/power metal songs, with some of them merely a little better than others.

The second album continues in the same vein except that there's an extra element in play that's a tasty addition. That's made obvious in Cold Desire, which kicks it off, beginning with sassy violins and piano that don't disappear when the song launches into the usual mode, those violins happy to hang around in the background to keep playfulness in power. And they continue on throughout the rest of the album, with orchestrations woven into the sound by pianist Marco Grasshoff. That isn't a new approach for Rage, who collaborated with the Prague Symphony Orchestra on Lingua Mortis in 1996 and continued to include orchestration from the Lingua Mortis Orchestra on later albums, like XIII, Ghosts and Speak of the Dead.

I'm all for that approach, for which Rage should be credited as pioneers, and there are a host of neat touches on this second disc that are emphasised or indeed created by the violins and piano. However, I found the songs a little less effective on the whole than on Afterlife. There are obvious exceptions, like Cold Desire and the highly ambitious Lifelines itself which are highlights for me, but there are fewer of them and the lesser material isn't as strong. I should call out Dying to Live too, which is a ballad that turns into a power ballad but, shock horror, sounds good to me.

Much of the reason Dying to Live works is the vocal performance of Peavy Wagner. He's never had the best voice in rock music in the traditional sense and I'm sure a vocal coach could find all sorts of little issues to highlight, but he has a strong balance between power and melody that any band like Rage need to thrive so I've never cared. However, he sells Dying to Live by endowing it with an emotional lead vocal through plenty of nuance. He continues that into The Flood and it's there on the final track, In the End, too, Bormann joining him for good measure.

In the end, I think I have to go with a 7/10 for this and feel a little guilty about it. There's a lot here that's worthy of an 8/10 but I don't think it's quite consistent enough over nearly ninety minutes to warrant that. There's well over an album's worth of really good material here, so I'm tempted but there are enough other songs here to pull it back down. Maybe I'd have gone 8/10 for Afterlife but a 7/10 for Lifelines, the result being the sort of 7.5/10 that I don't give out. Really, though, to keep me debating that after ninety minutes ought to tell you that this is worthy.

Tuesday, 9 April 2024

DragonForce - Warp Speed Warriors (2024)

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?

Wednesday, 3 April 2024

Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project (2024)

Country: UK
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 1 Mar 2024
Sites: Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Wikipedia | YouTube

This is a strong album from Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, his first in nineteen years, his previous solo release being Tyranny of Souls in 2005 and his first album since Maiden's Senjutsu in 2021. It's clearly heavy metal but with an emphasis on heavy rather than speed; it flirts with doom and doesn't remotely sound like Maiden except in certain moments when his immediately recognisable voice falls into the sort of patterns that we know from so many Maiden albums. It's patient stuff and while the hooks seem good on the first time through, it requires multiple listens to truly appreciate them.

It's clear that Bruce and his colleagues are on form in the opener, Afterglow of Ragnarok, which is patient heavy metal. Many Doors to Hell follows suit and then Rain on the Graves escalates things as the most immediate song on the album. This becomes an obvious highlight the moment Bruce starts to tell its story and it's very much a storytelling number, the instrumentation falling back to allow him to effectively tell us to pay attention while he recounts what's going on with utter relish. It gets better as it goes too, so I'm not shocked that it was the second single except to note that I don't know why it wasn't the first. That was Afterglow of Ragnarok.

He doesn't stay in storytelling mode throughout, in the sense of inviting us to his campfire so that he can have us hang on every word, but he's back there for Eternity Has Failed later in the album. This one opens up with flutes and ambience, as if we're on a battlefield after all the fighting has been done. Something epic happened here and we're eager to find out what. Story is important to this album though, because this isn't just a record; there are comic books within the package too, but I haven't read them so can't speak to where they take proceedings and how they all tie to the lyrical content of these songs.

Mostly, what I caught from the music is a epic approach, which shouldn't surprise for the singer in Iron Maiden but this is a very different sort of epic. Even Sonata (Immortal Beloved), the nigh on ten minute closer, a Maiden trademark, doesn't feel remotely like Maiden. This is more old school heavy/power metal, built on hooks and themes rather than stories, and it's a haunting example of that style, with Dickinson repeatedly pleading, "Save me now!" with some huge emotional impact.

There are also sounds here that wouldn't normally sit in heavy metal but play into that epic feel. Those plaintive flutes that kick off Eternity Has Failed have a Native American flavour to them as well as a Japanese one. Resurrection Men opens up like a spaghetti western soundtrack. Fingers in the Wounds adds some middle eastern textures that work wonderfully, even though everybody and their dog is throwing those into metal songs nowadays.

There's another touch that I wasn't expecting. Face in the Mirror starts out softer and stays there but Shadow of the Gods, which starts out softer too, doesn't. When it eventually ramps up during its second half, it gets angry in a very modern way, almost channelling some nu metal for a while that I wasn't expecting from the air raid siren, a nickname he lives up to often here, soaring above the music in a way that only he can. He doesn't need to get trendy and he generally doesn't, but a moment in Shadow of the Gods does go there and somehow it works.

In fact, everything works here. This is a deep album and we know that from moment one, because it feels inherently deep and epic and meaningful, but we also have a feeling that it's a lot deeper than we might initially think. I liked it on a first listen, but I liked it more on a second and I have to move on after maybe five or six times through with me liking it progressively more each time but with a strong feeling that it hasn't reached its peak for me yet. I'm going with an 8/10 but it could well warrant a 9/10.

Maybe I'll get a chance to come back in a few months and see. For now, I'm staying at 8/10 because some of these songs still feel like a step above the others. I'm thinking the two bard songs, Rain of the Graves and Eternity Has Failed, then the closer, Sonata (Immortal Beloved), which may well be the best of them all. Nothing else lets the side down, but nothing else touches those three either. Maybe in time they will. Mistress of Mercy is already thinking about it.

Thursday, 14 March 2024

Sonata Arctica - Clear Cold Beyond (2024)

I've been waiting for this one, apparently for five years now. I've always enjoyed Sonata Arctica to a degree, but I've never become a dedicated fan. Their brand of European power metal is easy to like but they've never really distinguished themselves to me the way some equivalents have, so a few of their earlier albums blur together in my memory with others by other bands. That thinking led me to their tenth album in 2019, Talviyö, so I wasn't expecting something special but I was still open to something that the younger me might have missed. What I found disappointed me, even as a casual fan. That didn't bode well.

Apparently, a decent amount of their fans had been disappointed with a gradual shift away from their roots to a more pop rock direction and, after listening to Talviyö, I could see why. I rarely give anything here at Apocalypse Later less than a 6/10 because, if it's bad enough to warrant a lower rating, then I'd prefer not to review it. I gave that a 5/10 and wondered if I'd even bother to listen to the next one, wrapping up my review with "Regular readers will know that there's a lot of great music coming out of Finland. I hope that Sonata Arctica find their way back into that category."

Well, fast forward five years and I checked out the next full album, just in case, and I'm very happy that I did so because it was clear very quickly indeed that the band either listened to their fans or found themselves joining them, because this is old school power metal from the very outset. I've read that lead vocalist Tony Kakko stubbornly resists that term, preferring melodic metal, which is fair enough, but it's power metal to most of us until they soften up like on the last album and, I guess, the few before that.

They don't soften up here until A Monster Only You Can't See six tracks in and, even when they do, the result is still worthy material. I liked that song, even before it perks up a little way in to turn back into power metal, albeit with plenty of hints at Abba in the melodies. Teardrops is a heavier song throughout but it has a softer ending and yet a very tasty one indeed. The slowest parts of the title track, which are much slower than most of the album, are also neatly heavy. The closest it gets to a ballad is The Best Things and nothing soft here feels inappropriate.

So, with this back to being roughly what we might expect from the band, the question becomes a matter of quality. How good is this? Are they back to their peak form? Have they rekindled a sense of energy to go with their sense of melody? And have they converted me into a dedicated fan, not just a casual one who likes them when he hears them but doesn't feel the urge to dip further into their back catalogue. The bad news is that I can't answer all those questions with a yes. The good news is that I can, at least, answer most of them in the affirmative.

For a start, this is clearly a much better album than Talviyö, which seemed likely from the opener alone, appropriately titled First in Line. While that remains an up tempo highlight with a bunch of excellent solos, California continued its approach, perhaps even faster again outside of one quirky slower part, and Shah Mat too, which takes a while to speed up but does so. Dark Empath is a little slower but it's a highlight for me, full of mood and emphasis, and, by this point, I started to realise that this was massively different from last time. It's like night and day and that's refreshing, even if I've only been waiting five years for it while the diehards have been waiting twenty.

So yeah, maybe they're back to their peak form. I wouldn't call this their best album, but it's much more likely to be talked about alongside Winterheart's Guild or Reckoning Night than something like Talviyö and that suggests pretty close to peak. I'm going 7/10 rather than a highly recommended 8/10, but I thought about it. Think of this as a 7.5/10. I can't remember the last time I found a Sonata Arctica song as vibrant as Angel Defiled, which kicks off almost like power metal built on harpsichord. The keyboard solo, presumably courtesy of Henrik Klingenberg, is a neo-classical joy, and the recurrent theme leads to a strong guitar vs. keyboard duel at the end too.

And that tells me that the band are enjoying themselves, meaning that I've gone with two yeses and a pretty much to answer my first three questions. So to the fourth. Did this turn me into a big Sonata Arctica fan? Well, not really, but I'm a lot closer than I've been and that surprises me. This is definitely my sort of thing, in much the same way that Talviyö wasn't and I hope that the band is truly on board with this new approach. They sound like they're having fun, even Kakko who sings a song like it would be sung live without post-production to turn it into something else. Maybe they truly are back on the same wavelength as their fanbase. If so, I'm looking forward to their twelfth album in a few years time.

And I'll definitely check that out, if partly to confirm they're not leaping backwards again.

Monday, 15 January 2024

Scanner - The Cosmic Race (2024)

Country: Germany
Style: Heavy/Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 12 Jan 2024
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Official Website | Wikipedia | YouTube

I remember Scanner from their excellent debut album, Hypertrace, back in 1988. They're another of many German heavy/power metal bands but they're one of the first, because they started out in 1977 as Reinforce, changing to Lions Breed in 1982—who released one album—and eventually Scanner in 1986. However, this is only their seventh studio album, for reasons I can't fully explain. As far as I can tell, they've never actually split up, though they have completely changed the line-up behind founder guitarist Axel Julius more than once.

They just took long breaks, I think, so this arrives no fewer than nine years after The Judgement, which showed up thirteen years after Scantropolis. I haven't heard those two, but this only seems like a strong release to make up for lost time for a few tracks, perhaps until Warriors of the Light three songs in. After that, it's still decent, but it loses the sort of strength it needed to keep fans happy after so many years.

Initially, it's great. The Earth Song doesn't reach Warp 7 speeds, the track which opened up their debut, but it's an agreeably fast one. I actually remember Scanner being faster than they are, on the basis of tracks like that one. In 1988, thrash metal was my go to genre with speed metal right behind it, so I'd have eaten up songs like Warp 7, even if the rest of the album was a tad slower, in more of a power metal style. I'm all for that pace in 2024 too, but The Earth Song has more going for it than just speed. There's also a tasty guitar opening and a neat chanting section late on.

Just like their debut, things slow down after that but I'm more open to that now than I was then. Face the Fight is a real anthem of a song, high energy power metal with a hook-laden chorus that we're singing along with on our first time through. Warriors of the Light follows suit, maybe a tad less effectively because of a weaker midsection, but still very effective indeed. At this point, I was totally sold on this new Scanner, but they can't quite maintain that sort of stellar opening.

I say this new Scanner, because it's another mostly new line-up. Julius is still there, of course, as he has been throughout. Greek vocalist Efthimios Ionannidis is the only other member who's been in the band long enough to have performed on their prior album, having joined in 2003. Bassist Jörn Bettentrup is six years into his run with the band, but this is his first recording with them. Second guitarist Dominik Rothe and drummer Sascha Kurpanek arrived in 2023, presumably as a package deal, given that they've both played for Marauder and Taskforce Toxicator.

I should add that both those bands play thrash so I'd say that this material must feel slow to Rothe and Kurpanek, even with a few fast sections here and there, like the opener to Scanner's Law. It's fair to say that there are a number of points where the latter is the fastest aspect to the band, on that song particularly. Of course, I wish they'd speed up a bit more in general, but they play power metal well. Nothing quite matches Face the Fight in the anthemic chorus department, but a bunch of other tracks do try, Scanner's Law among them.

Others fall a little short for me. Dance of the Dead has its moments, but it doesn't seem to be too sure about what it wants to be. It starts out with a Dio vibe, before finding another big chorus, but there's some grind in between the verses. Each section works, but they don't all work together. A New Horizon kicks off with some lovely guitar, turning an Outlaws-esque riff into a layered power metal setup, but it falls into routine. It's the song I wanted to speed up the most, even if I liked its slower guitar. I liked the folk vibe midway through closer The Last and First in Line but the rest of the song around it isn't quite as enticing.

The most frustrating song is Space Battalion, again one that moves through a number of sections that all work individually but somehow not together. The reason for the frustration is that it kicks off relying on a rather well known riff that's lifted from Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction. It isn't quite the same, and it's a much busier song around that riff, but it's so recognisable that I'm singing along with Dave Mustaine before I realise that he's not there.

If I'm sounding acutely negative here, I don't mean to. I enjoyed this album and it's great to hear something new from Scanner. I remember Hypertrace and enjoyed its follow-up, Terminal Earth in 1989, but I don't believe I've heard the four albums in between that pair and this one. I should, not least because of the variance in line-ups. It seems that at least one of them had a female vocalist. However, it promises much for three neatly different tracks and the rest of the album simply can't live up to that promise.

Wednesday, 13 December 2023

Skiltron - Bruadarach (2023)

I've been fascinated with how South America has fallen in love with Celtic music ever since hearing Tuatha de Danann. They're from Varginha in the southern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and this band are from Buenos Aires in Argentina, but Varginha is closer to there than it is to half the rest of Brazil. Well, I say Buenos Aires because that's where they started, as Century in 1997, shifting to Skiltron in 2004, but only two of the five current members are Argentinean. New vocalist Paolo Ribaldini is Italian and based in Finland nowadays, where drummer Joonas Nislin already was, playing for folk/melodic metal band Frosttide since its founding in 2009. That leaves Pereg Ar Bagol, a French piper who contributes tin whistle in addition to bagpipes.

This is Skiltron's sixth album, but also their first since 2016, which helps explain why I haven't heard them before. I like what I hear and it really does combine the two genres I listed above. It starts as folk metal, the intro kicking in with rhythmic acoustic guitar and growing into full on bagpipes, and much of it stays there, with songs about Rob Roy and Scottish independence, those pipes a pivotal part of the band's sound, even if Bagol used to be considered a session musician before joining the band as a full fledged member. However, Ribaldini sings power metal almost exclusively across the entire album and the instrumentation behind him sometimes follows suit.

Case in point: the first track proper, As We Fight. It opens with bagpipes, so it's no stretch to see it as folk metal. However, when Ribaldini opens his mouth and Bagol closes his, it's power metal and we start to wonder where they cross the boundary between the genres. In many ways, they don't, because it's never as simple as being folk metal when the bagpipes are playing and power metal when there are words to be delivered. There are plenty of moments when both are happening at the same time and we hear both genres simultaneously.

What's more, there are tracks that play far more overtly as one or the other. Where the Heart Is feels like power metal, even when the bagpipes start playing. It feels like the song was built from the ground up to be power metal and they're a folk decoration. On the other hand, the very next song, Proud to Defend, feels like folk metal from its very first drum beat, which arrives before the bagpipes show up, and it continues to feel like folk metal even when Ribaldini starts singing. He's anthemic on this one but in a timeless manner. The song and its lyric feel aged, as if it doesn't only predate this album but all of us and a few generations before us. It's just showing up again here in a new form.

What I found fascinating was how versatile the power metal is. The folk metal is always very much in the Celtic tradition, whether we look at it lyrically or instrumentally. However, the power metal varies depending on the song. Initially, it starts out in the European vein, perhaps unsurprisingly given that all the Celtic nations and regions are part of Europe. However, there are songs where it seems far more American and sometimes even dipping more into a commercial arena rock or glam metal vein, as on I Am What I Am, which is rather like a folk metal band covering Twisted Sister.

Most unusually, I heard the American sound in the verses of A Treasure Beyond Imagination, but a European one in the choruses. In the midsection, when it shifts into instrumental mode, it's purest folk metal, suggesting that we get up and dance a jig. It's a fascinating melding of genres and, for that reason, it's probably a good place to start for anyone who hasn't heard Skiltron before but is interested in finding out what they do. They do a lot and they sometimes do it all in the same song. What's important is that it works. Not one of these songs seems lesser for staying in one genre or for expanding into two or three.

If I had to call out favourites, though, I'd go with Proud to Defend, Rob Roy and Haste Ye Back. This suggests that I'm more on board with the folk metal than the power metal. The middle of those three is a pacy piece that, just as its title suggests, tells a historical story, a quintessential folk tale based, however loosely, on a real person. Its bookends both play out emphatically as Celtic folk metal, Haste Ye Back in particular featuring some wonderful pipes that shape the riff and set the whole song into motion. It's a ceilidh of a song.

And so the mystery deepens. Why has Celtic folk music made such a strong impact in South America? Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address. In the meantime, I'm happy that it has.

Friday, 24 November 2023

Heavy Load - Riders of the Ancient Storm (2023)

Well, here's a real blast from the past. I've seen it written that Heavy Load were the first Swedish heavy metal band, setting the stage for everything that followed within a country that has firmly punched above its weight for the last few decades. However, this is very much a comeback, as their previous album, their third, came out the year before I discovered rock music. I'm a grandfather of ten who's listened to rock and metal for most of my life and yet this is the Heavy Load's first album since I've known what that was. That's how long they've been gone!

To put some actual dates on that, the Wahlquist brothers founded Heavy Load back in 1976, so the same year as U2, Foreigner and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers or, to pick a far more comparable band, Diamond Head. They put out albums in 1978, 1982 and 1983 before splitting up, so this album arrives no fewer than forty years after its predecessor. Given all that, it really ought to be good to be worth such a wait and to highlight that Heavy Load are relevant in a completely different era. I am very happy to state that it is. I like this a lot. Welcome back, folks!

I remember the name of Heavy Load but don't remember what they sounded like back in the day, a combination of heavy/power metal about all I can bring to mind. They're still there today, with this sounding very much like old school heavy metal with progressive and epic layers. Think bands such as Manilla Road or Brocas Helm rather than more modern power metal bands like Dragonforce or Blind Guardian. Then add some early Rush, mostly in the changes, and stir to taste.

Ride the Night opens up in that style and sounds good without really generating much else worthy of comment. We Rock the World continues it, though in a slightly more slimmed down version. The lyrics are precisely as clichéd as you might expect, with whichever Wahlquist brother sings lead on this one telling us that they're going to rock the world, shock the world, shake the world, you name it. However, the music sounds great, this one being a real stalker of a song that follows you down a street with serious intent.

So far so good, but it elevates from there for me. Those two openers are the shortest songs on the album, We Rock the World at four minutes and Ride the Night at five and a half, but they let these songs breathe from then on. Walhalla Warriors doesn't quite reach six but it features a section in which the band step back for Torbjörn Ragnesjö's bass to take the spotlight and, while he doesn't do anything particularly flash, he sounds absolutely wonderful and the band gradually join back in to equally strong effect.

Angel Dark is better still, a heavy song with some of those early Rush changes, harmonies and bass that brings Budgie to mind, maybe even some Demon. Ragnesjö contributes more joyous bass, but a guitar steals the spotlight midway in memorable fashion. The song almost stops dead, so they're able to shift into a completely different gear but the accompanying guitarwork is delightful. I have to assume that this is the work of new fish Nic Savage, cementing his place in the band. He joined in 2018, when they reformed, taking the role previously played most frequently by Eddy Malm. The rest of the musicians all date back to the seventies, even if Ragnesjö wasn't there for the start or the end of the original run of the band.

Slave No More seriously takes its time, mixing some slow old school epic power metal with middle eastern flavours as Rainbow used to do. Then it gets slower still. It's almost doom metal when the verses kick in, but it never loses its epic flavour and it stays heavy throughout. Raven is Calling is a more up tempo track and it's a good one but a less noteworthy one. Sail Away kicks off with a Blue Öyster Cult vibe and finds a magnificent groove. That's four great songs out of seven, with a fifth not far behind them. That's a damn good hit rate for a band who haven't recorded in forty years.

What's left is Butterfly Whispering, which isn't at all what I expected. There's a long intro done on acoustic guitar that's folky but powerful and, well, it isn't an intro. It keeps going in that vein for seven minutes and three seconds. There are no vocals, drums or bass. It's just two guitars weaving back and forth for the entire track, so it's less of a song and more of a piece of music. I liked it a lot but I don't know yet whether it'll stay as strong after many repeat listens. It's doing OK so far.

And, while that's a pretty traditional track by track runthrough, which I generally hate doing, it's how it seems to play to me. It starts decently but improves quickly. The best songs are right there at the heart of the album, from Walhalla Warriors to Raven is Calling, followed by another good one and then that long outro, if that's what we should call it. It's hard to think of it in a different order, but fortunately we don't have to. It's a strong return for a pioneering Swedish band and I'm happy that they're back. Here's to the next one!

Tuesday, 10 October 2023

Eigenflame - Pathway to a New World (2023)

Country: Brazil
Style: Symphonic Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 27 Sep 2023
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | YouTube

I wasn't sold on this album immediately, though Eigenflame certainly demonstrate serious musical chops on the opener, Created by Chaos (Ad Astra). It sounds good, symphonic power metal firmly in the European style, sung in English with high pitched vocals, choral backing, ambitious guitarwork and fast-paced drums, but it doesn't sound particularly new. My immediate takeaway, beyond clear talent, was to assume that the capital F in their logo is an homage to DragonForce, even if they're not using it otherwise. In fact, maybe the entire name is an homage as it sounds highly similar and they're an obvious influence.

I started to really pay attention with the next track, The Mighty Gaia, partly because it felt a little more inventive from the outset in a Gamma Ray style but mostly because they promptly drop into something wildly different a couple of minutes in. And I do mean drop. It's like they fade the song out to make way for flutes and tribal drums and suddenly we're in the middle of the rainforest. It's a major shift but vocalist Roberto Índio Santos is there too to deliver a folky melody that the choir pick up and suddenly we're back in the song at full tilt. There's another drop at the end, into some sort of organic texture and the second half feels elevated within these bookends.

While they never lose the Gamma Ray meets DragonForce comparison when playing in symphonic metal territory, they find their own identity in these folkier sections. Stardust kicks off with pipes and choirs, literally drumming up our attention. Way Back Home is even more pastoral, with flutes and tramping feet and a delightful acoustic guitar building to a soft folky vocal introduction. That also transitions beautifully into the song proper, showing some real imagination. Early on, it's the choirs that provide the imagination but the folkier side increasingly takes that on.

Frankly, this is at its best when one or both of those angles is being explored. I love the folky intros and midsections and wanted more of them. I love the choral punctuation too, especially as it's not only punctuation but often the means to change a song's direction. I wanted more of that too and I wouldn't mind more of the operatic style vocals that show up in softer sections of Stardust. What's unfortunate is that the album lets those angles drift after four tracks, so my favourite songs are a trio early on: The Mighty Gaia, Stardust and Way Back Home. Eclipse of the Fifth Sun has another folky midsection but without dropping out of the symphonic metal. That becomes the norm.

What saves the rest of the album is the fact that it's such uplifting material. Whatever mood you'd fostered as you pressed play on track one, I can guarantee that you'll be in a brighter one once you had let these songs wash over you. I wasn't in a bad mood but I could have been in a better one and I soon was, songs like Cosmic Symphony absolute delights, for their mood-improving effects, on top of whatever else they happen to do. The more I let the album run on repeat, the happier I felt.

i'd be remiss if I didn't call out the members, because they all shine from a technical standpoint. At the front of the sound is Santos's vocals and he seems effortless at a high pitch and also when he's sustaining notes. There are a few moments, one on Way Back Home, where he holds a belt without seeming to struggle for an impressive length of time. Behind him, I'd call out Jean Gardinalli, as he is fast and intricate behind the drumkit without ever seeming to move beyond slow motion. I swear he could do this at double the speed and that's a scary thought indeed. The other two credits I see are Fernandes Bonifácio on guitar, who is highly versatile, and Fabio Tapani on bass, who gets less opportunity to show off but shines whenever he does.

This is Eigenflame's debut album and it's accomplished stuff. I look forward to them developing an entirely Eigenflame sound though. It's certainly here at the beginning of their recorded output, a teaser of what could come in the future, but it's not fleshed out yet and I hope they feed it. If they do, then the cover ought to seem highly appropriate, with a Brazilian band opening a portal to the established European sound but bringing something new to the mix.

Friday, 16 June 2023

Burning Witches - The Dark Tower (2023)

I've heard a lot about Burning Witches, a Swiss quintet who play a fast and powerful brand of heavy metal, but I don't believe I've heard anything they've done before. And that's on me, because two of their previous four albums were released while I was writing reviews at Apocalypse Later and it seems abundantly clear now that I should have given them a shot. They started out in 2015 and this is their fifth album in only seven years, so they're prolific, but that rapid pace does not result in an inferior release. There's almost an hour of music here and it's all strong.

Sure, a minute of that is dedicated to an intro and there's another minute for an haunted house of an interlude halfway but otherwise this barely slows down for a breath. The only time you'll get an opportunity to relax is Tomorrow, which is the closest thing to a ballad in this style. Otherwise, it's a solid slab of metal, built on a bedrock of classic Iron Maiden before they started extending songs into epics, but with a host of influences to heavy that sound up. Start with Powerslave and pour on a slew of influences, so quickly that they'll often zoom past in glimpses before the next arrives.

Generally, I caught the crunch of Metal Church, the melodic drive of Lizzy Borden and the punch of Arch Enemy, but that's just the start. For instance, I also caught plenty of Judas Priest in the hyper opener proper, Unleash the Beast, but there's Blind Guardian in the chorus and Helloween in the guitar solos, along with some Metallica chug under it all. At the end of the day, it stands on its own as a Burning Witches song and, let's face it, a statement of intent to kick off this album. It doesn't hang around and, while it may remain the most up tempo song after it's all done, it's not by much.

The vocalist is Laura Guldemond, a Dutch singer who joined this group of Swiss musicians for their third album, and she's an excellent front for the band. She has plenty of Doro grit in her voice and a a relish in her delivery that works very well with this material, especially on songs with emphasis and attitude like Evil Witch with its samples to set the bar, and Into the Unknown, where she comes close to a Martin Walkyier approach, spitting out lyrics with venom. However, it's the musicians on the stage behind her that I found myself increasingly focused on, because they're utterly reliable, nailing glorious groove after glorious groove as they barrel along.

I first felt that on Evil Witch, which is a standout track four into the album, but World on Fire isn't far behind and I started to realise how strong the drive is on every song here. I don't know how the two guitarists, Romana Kalkuhl and Larissa Ernst, divvy up their duties between lead and rhythm but, as fun as the solos are, it's the emphatic drive of the rhythm that I found myself amazed by. I can't ignore the crisp production, which helps too, but these two have a habit of building a riff into a juggernaut that's hurtling towards us and has absolutely no intention of stopping.

Once you hear it instead of just taking it for granted, you can't not hear it on every track, from the fast Priest-influenced ones like Unleash the Beast to the slower more Sabbath-inspired songs like Arrow of Time. There's a new Metal Church album out that I'm very much looking forward to, but I started to realise just how much those mainstays of heavy/power metal are going to have to bring their A game to match what Burning Witches did here on songs like Doomed to Die that come right from their songbook.

Add Jeanine Grob's bass to deepen the bottom end and this is a rhythm section so textbook that I'd imagine they're taught in classes. The drummer underpinning them is Lala Frischknecht, who's not just effortlessly there with them throughout but always ready for the magic moment we sit back to admire how tight everything is, because then she'll add another beat to the mix and so increase the emphasis again. As impressive as Guldemond is at the microphone, she's really a bonus in the captain's chair on top of one of the most reliable engine rooms in the business.

I liked this on a first listen, because it's right up my alley, even if I tend to prefer a little more speed in my metal. It was clearly good stuff from the killer opener, but it just got better with every song and every repeat listen. It's clean and melodic, but as powerful and emphatic as power metal gets with a tight delivery that most bands would kill for. How effortlessly tight and heavy is the opening to The Lost Souls, the closer to this album, almost an hour in? I seriously need to check out the four albums that came before this one. I'm certainly not going to miss out the next one. I'm very much on board now.

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