Lynch Mob - Babylon (2023)

Country: USA
Style: Glam/Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
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I was a little surprised to see a new album from Lynch Mob, given that sole founding member and reason for the band name, George Lynch, said a few years ago that he planned to stop using that name because of its racial connotations. Apparently he changed his mind. Now, I know that Lynch Mob changes its line up more frequently than some people change socks, which has to affect their sound, but I wasn't expecting this particular sound.

Obviously, the primary reason to listen to this is Lynch's guitar solos, which are always fascinating, starting on the opener, Erase. However, when not soloing, this has a strange sound for a band that I remember being rooted in hard rock and glam metal. The tone is very alternative, the guitar low in the mix and the bass high, as if they're trying to emulate Saigon Kick's sound without realising that there really isn't a particular Saigon Kick sound because their sound shifts effortlessly from song to song. There's a lot of sleaze here too, especially in the vocals of Gabriel Colón, who has an Axl Rose thing going on.

What's oddest, though, is that, while the tone sounds alternative, the actual songs feel like more traditional hard rock songs with that sleazy filter overlaid for effect, as if we could fiddle with our graphic equalizers and suddenly they'd sound exactly like other bands, like the Cult on Time After Time or Great White during the intro to Erase. Sometimes they might sound like other songs, like How You Fall, which bothered me for a while until I realised it merged the riff of Rainbow's Gates of Babylon with the phrasing of Iron Maiden's The Sheriff of Huddersfield, of all things.

It all means that there's a constant nostalgic feeling here, just like we've heard a whole bunch of these songs before, but never like this. It sounds decent, even if it takes some getting used to, but I think it's at its best when it's trying to actually be sleazy from the inside, starting with the birth of a song, rather than to just write a hard rock song and apply that sleazy filter after the fact. It's Let It Go that connected for me, because it's so raw it could have been on Too Fast for Love. That's a funky stop/start guitar that's delightfully dirty, as if someone was pouring Jack Daniels on it as Lynch is playing. Is there a bass player on this track? Not all of it, that's for sure.

There's some of that on the title track too, which closes things out, but there's an extra layer that might be keyboards to render it a little more complex. It's another one that mixes genres, with a fresh Rainbow vibe, albeit not Gates of Babylon this time even though the song carries part of its title, but underpinning something far more nineties, maybe Soundgarden at their punkiest but a tinge of Queensrÿche too. So, you know, classic sleazy punk grunge prog. This can be fascinating to dissect and it's why this keeps growing on me.

Initially, I really didn't like this sound. There's a song here called Million Miles Away and I couldn't get past how the sleaze filter didn't remotely push the sound anywhere near Hanoi Rocks. And no, it's not a cover, but the shared song title didn't help the comparison. Neither did how laid back it was. However, I listened to the whole album and kept finding little details that stood out to me, so simple dismissal wasn't an option. After a couple of repeats, I found that I wasn't frustrated by the sound any more. I'd got used to it and actually was rather digging it. It's merely a weird texture to find behind Lynch's guitar. That doesn't mean it's a bad one. It just took me a while to get on board.

In fact, while Let It Go is easily the most immediate song here, Babylon is probably the best track on offer. Not only does it not remotely outstay its welcome at a whisper over eight minutes, I felt that it should have kept going. It had found its groove and was milking it nicely, in a manner that goes all the way back to something like Kashmir. Certainly, that groove kept on in my head after it had faded away on the actual album.

It's been a while since I've heard Lynch Mob, so I have no idea how they got to this sound. George Lynch is the mainstay, of course, because it's his band, and drummer Jimmy D'Anda look like he's on his fifth stint so far this millennium. Other frequent members, who seem to leave the band but return again in the time it takes to walk down to the corner for a lottery ticket, aren't present, so the rest of the band is pretty new. Both Colón, on vocals, and Jaron Gulino on bass, only joined in 2022, which means that this is their first album with the band, as The Brotherhood, their previous effort, is six years old now.

I'm intrigued. I didn't like it for a while. Now I like it a lot. The question is how well this will stay. I guess only time will tell.

Angelus Apatrida - Aftermath (2023)

Country: Spain
Style: Thrash Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
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I haven't bumped into Angelus Apatrida's music before, but they arrived with the millennium and put out a steady stream of albums, this being their eighth, two years after their self-titled album in 2021. They hail from Albacete in southern Spain and play thrash metal with quite a variety.

This album starts out relatively traditional, Scavenger playing firmly in speedy Bay Area style, but Cold features a chorus that wouldn't have felt out of place on the Within Temptation album that I reviewed yesterday. That's not unusual for this album, where verses sound like thrash verses but a lot of the choruses are big hookladen efforts that reach far beyond the genre. This one works in a commercial gothic metal style before launching right back into the traditional thrash.

Cold also shifts into crossover during its second half, reminding more of Anthrax than Death Angel, an approach which continues on Snob, the first of four tracks to feature a guest. On this one, that's Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed, who inevitably brings his hardcore background to the song, though the band remain technical behind him. If you're counting, that's three styles so far, each of which is built on technical thrash but doesn't stay there: Bay Area technical thrash, New York crossover and commercial gothic metal. Keep counting.

Those guests are a fascinating mix, so I should highlight them. Three are vocalists, but in different styles indeed. From Jasta's hardcore on Snob, they shift wildly to Spanish rapper Sho-Hai on What Kills Us All and Todd La Torre of prog metal legends Queensrÿche for Vultures and Butterflies. The fourth is a guitarist, Pablo García, best known for a heavy/power metal band called WarCry. That's quite a range and, for those wondering why one of these guys is a rapper, what Sho-Hai does here is fascinating. He almost sounds South American and there's a real Sepultura vibe to that track as it shifts into his territory during the second half. It has no pop element to it and his rapping style is fast, dangerous and a good fit. I don't say that too often.

Fire Eyes is a nice fast thrash song, so I don't know if García just plays along or whether that's him providing an elegant intro. There are more of those on To Whom It May Concern and Gernika, two songs without guests, so maybe not. It's not thrash at all during the midsection, instead a sort of heavy/prog metal song, with a very tasty guitar solo. It often reminds of Iron Maiden, as it did at points during the intro. Again, it has a big hookladen chorus, which only underlines just how much Maiden is on this song. Of course there's a heavy metal bias to Vultures and Butterflies, but it's a slightly more progressive one, as befits the guest.

So, how many genres are we up to now? I'm used to thrash albums lately delineating themselves in pace. There are bands playing old school proto-extreme metal with a thrash base, bands playing a relatively straightforward fast thrash and there are bands who have slowed down a lot and spend much of their time chugging at mid tempo. I have a personal bias towards the faster bands but I'm very nostalgic for that proto-extreme era and find a lot of those bands fascinating. It's chuggers I find less interesting, because the approach gets old for me.

Angelus Apatrida refuse to be thrown into any one of those buckets. They're closer to the middle one than the other two, and I'm happy for that as they blister nicely on songs like Scavenger, Fire Eyes and the instrumental parts of Rats. However, there are plenty of songs here that work at an overtly chuggier pace, Rats moving there during the verses, and others are happy to drop out of thrash entirely to become elegant heavy or prog metal, most obviously To Whom It May Concern, when it's not blistering as it does briefly.

That makes this a highly varied album and the variety really works in its favour. Instead of losing a listener like me by stubbornly sticking at mid tempo, they mix it up from track to track and often in individual songs. I'm good with the chuggy ones because it's not going to be long before there's a speedy part and I love those. I'm happiest there, but a drop into something else for a while keeps everything interesting, especially when they launch into another big hook of a chorus, then blister out of it with heads down and fingers flying.

In short, I like this a lot and, while I appreciate the faster songs the most, it's not as clear cut as I'd usually expect. I like the variety they bring to the table and that ought to translate really well into a live environment. They tour a lot, I believe, though I'm not sure they've made it over to this side of the pond, certainly not while I've been paying attention. I hope they do because I'd love to check them out live. In the meantime, I have seven previous albums to locate to see how they built to this style.

Within Temptation - Bleed Out (2023)

Country: The Netherlands
Style: Alternative Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
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I've been disappointed with Within Temptation of late, but much of that seems to be because I've been reviewing their EPs. I need to stop doing that and focus on their albums; in the meantime I'd better review in this in two different ways.

From my usual perspective, based on what I've previously heard, this is automatically problematic because I've heard half of it already. Bleed Out contains eleven tracks, seven of which have seen a previous single release, but they've also been included on a progression of EPs. Initially, Entertain You and The Purge were released as stand alone singles, but then they were included on the Shed My Skin EP, along with that song. That trend of including all the new songs up to that point on each new EP, along with one more, continued through the Don't Pray for Me EP, Wireless EP and Bleed Out EP. Thus, Entertain You and The Purge are showing up here for the sixth time. That's nuts. I'm officially done with Within Temptation EPs.

I haven't been as fond of all these new songs on the EPs either but even my least favourite of them sounds a little better here on a full length. Why, I don't know. The main problems I have with them still hold true but they feel somehow better in a relatively consistent full length environment. The vocals work for me throughout, Sharon del Adel getting poppier on most of these songs than even their previous album, Resist. However, there are points where she'll ramp up to something a little closer to the symphonic metal with gothic edges that they're mostly known for. What's important here is that I find that I don't favour one or the other, as they work well as a range.

However, while the light end of the band, epitomised by the vocals, is poppy, veering not only into modern American pop and Celtic lilting, on songs like Don't Pray for Me, but even a sort of floaty tentativeness on Cyanide Love that feels hauntingly Japanese because of its rhythms, the heavy side, that often felt industrial on Resist, continues to morph more into metalcore. I rarely found distinguishing marks between those three guitars, because they exist to combine into a tone, one that's inherently limited, often monotone and rhythmic, so doesn't interest me much. They could have been replaced by a simple keyboard line.

Certainly the keyboards of Martijn Spierenburg become the only instrumental source of melody, very welcome too as the forty-seven minutes run on. My favourite song is easily Worth Dying For, because it feels like an actual song, with dancing keyboards, a strong vocal performance and an honest to goodness guitar solo. There are precious few of the latter anywhere on this album, as it doesn't seem to be important to the band any more. That it also features some effective dynamic play is a bonus. Other potential highlights like Ritual, The Purge and Don't Pray for Me are all let down by the guitars.

Frankly, the only time that guitar tone worked for me is on Cyanide Love, as the contrast between the vocals and instruments reaches its most overt. Del Adel is so light here that she floats in the air in an almost kawaii manner, but the guitars churn in slow and heavy metalcore chords, so deep that they flirt with sludge metal. That one stands out here, because nothing else dares to be that light or that heavy. Putting the two approaches together is fascinating. Is this where the band will end up if they continue travelling down the road they're currently on?

Somehow I don't think so. I think they're more likely moving towards more songs like Shed My Skin and Entertain You, which feature guest vocalists. The former is upbeat and very commercial, with a chorus that reminds of a commercial era Paradise Lost track, but it heavies up during the second half. I kinda like it but I kinda don't at the same time. The latter is a loud pop song, something that I could hear Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga doing, merely with a different filter. While den Adel finds a strong vocal line, it's easily my least favourite song on the album. And that sums things up for me, which makes it hard to rate.

I'm totally on board with den Adel's vocals because she takes quite the journey across these tracks, always remaining interesting, whether she's fluttery or soaring. If I were just rating her, she's 8/10 for sure. The keyboards are massively important, maybe a 7/10, as this would be a wildly different album without them. The guitars are tedious and boring, so much so that I truly wish they weren't there, a 2/10 or maybe a 3/10 if I'm lenient because of that guitar solo. The songwriting is between those extremes and I'm going to go with a 6/10 because of that. That's compared to the 8/10 I gave Resist.

Now, let's see where the next album falls. It could be another 8/10 because they're interesting at this point in their journey, whether I happen to think it works or not. It could be something dismal though. I hope it's the former.

Soulkick - Hide the End (2023)

Country: Argentina
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
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Lead vocalist Pablo Zuccalá kindly sent me a copy of Soulkick's debut album a couple of years ago. I was happy to review it and they were happy enough with what I said about it to send me the follow up. I'm glad that they lived up to the title of that debut, No Turning Back, because this is a slightly more mature version of the same thing and it sounds very good indeed. They hail from Argentina and play a contemporary form of hard rock that's rooted in the classic rock era but with touches of more modern alternative rock, toned down a little here in favour of glimpses at prog metal.

The word of the day is elegance, starting with the mix, which is absolutely pristine. That's elegant riffing to kick off Sign of the Times and a powerful back end to punctuate it. Soulkick remain a four piece band, so the bass of Charlie Giardina is easily identifiable throughout without dropping the sound into bass heavy mode. I liked that about the debut and I like it even more here. Zuccalá is a little reminiscent of Geoff Tate on this song and often throughout the album. He doesn't have the same range, of course, because precious few singers do, but he drops impressively low on Empty Faces given how he's much higher everywhere else, and he never stretches beyond his limits.

If there's a flaw, it's in how he sometimes tries a little too hard to emulate other singers or styles when he could have remained in his own style just as effectively. He doesn't need to, but it's easy to tell when he does. Empty Faces, for instance, may start out almost like an Outlaws song, but it quickly becomes a Metallica ballad with a grungy filter over it, mostly because of the vocals. I preferred The Rope, which starts out with riffage reminiscent of Motörhead but on which Zuccalá doesn't remotely try to sound like Lemmy. The riff remains, however, and it builds and even ends like a Motörhead song.

It's always interesting to try to figure out Soulkick's influences because guitarist Christian Vidal is also Therion's guitarist and has been for well over a decade now, but there isn't anything here of their sound. Instead, they draw from AOR, classic rock, NWOBHM and alt rock, and much of that is in the guitarwork. There's some Scorpions in Sign of the Times, especially during the solo, and Van Halen in Last Goodbye and Reasons. Make Believe ups the heaviness with a neat bass riff to start and there's an even heavier riff halfway through Carved in Stone.

Sometimes, of course, what I hear, isn't necessarily something that I could fairly call an influence. While those nods to Metallica and Motörhead are clearly deliberate, Last Goodbye shifts into high gear with a riff that reminds me of Jan Cyrka's Western Eyes, an instrumental that Tommy Vance used as backing music on the Friday Rock Show. Instead of Tommy's urgent voice running through another rock chart, though, this softens up a little for the sung parts and heavies back up for the instrumental sections, an approach that they employ on many of these songs. I don't expect that Soulkick tuned into the Friday Rock Show or heard Cyrka elsewhere, of course. It'll be coincidence.

Once again, there are no bad songs, merely those which connect better than others on a personal level. I happened to appreciate the attitude of Perfect Day, the sassiness infusing Reasons and the heavy riff in Carved in Stone, but you may focus on other details and be just as right as me. There are no definitive answers, just individual tastes. I might suggest that Voices in the Night and On the Road are the least interesting songs on offer, but I have to add that the former is almost textbook solid. I could see that being someone's favourite song of the eleven on offer. It just doesn't aim to do anything fancy because it doesn't need to.

My favourite song surprised me because it's the most alt rock song here, namely The Lighthouse. I heard that influence a lot on the debut and it's less evident here, but The Lighthouse is an alt rock song, even if it's clean and nuanced, especially in the vocals. Zuccalá betrays a slight accent there, but it just adds a subtle exotic flavour because he chooses to sing in English throughout, similarly to someone like Klaus Meine. Sure, we know English isn't their first language, but they're fluent enough to deliver and intonate effectively. Those accents add rather than subtract.

I have no idea how well Soulkick are doing down there in Buenos Aires or internationally, now that the internet has shrunk the world. Based on their first two albums, they should be doing very well indeed, thank you very much. I hope that's the case. Now, how about album three in 2025?

Ozric Tentacles - Lotus Unfolding (2023)

Country: UK
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
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This is the sixteenth studio album for the Ozrics and surprisingly the first that I've reviewed here, because I missed 2020's Space for the Earth, though I did cover Ed Wynne's solo album, Shimmer into Nature, a year earlier. The core of the band nowadays seems to be Wynne, who's been there since the very beginning in 1983, and his son, Silas Neptune, who wasn't even born then, but who joined the Ozrics in 2009. Also in the current line-up is Vinny Shillito, who has been their bassist a couple of times before going back to 1990 but who rejoined this year.

If you haven't heard the Ozrics before, this is as good a place as any to be introduced to what they do, which is an enticing and unique combination of sounds. They play instrumental rock, but with a keyboard presence as fundamental as the guitar, individual pieces of music often moving from one to the other. Sometimes they seem to play entirely synth-driven landscapes, only for the electronic clouds to part so that an electric guitar can emerge from them and suddenly they're a guitar band again with us focused on the soloing. Needless to say, this is usually seen as psychedelic rock.

The thing is that there's a lot more in this sound than just keyboards and guitars. There are points when the Ozrics play space rock, as on Deep Blue Shade and midway through Crumplepenny, when Hawkwind inevitably spring to mind. However, they're looser and less driven, because they take as much from world music and new age as they do from, say, the Grateful Dead and Tangerine Dream. There is a drummer in the band, who's Pat Garvey, debuting for the Ozrics here, but there's also a lot of drum programming, so Storm in a Teacup opens up the album sounding more like pop music than rock. Of course, it soon develops into something deeper and more complex.

You probably won't be surprised that these pieces of music tend towards length. Storm in a Teacup runs nine and a half minutes and it's not the longest track on offer, Crumplepenny almost reaching ten. The shortest, Deep Blue Shade and Burundi Spaceport, are still over five. However, it covers a lot of ground. From that pop intro, it becomes a lively psychedelic rock track, but there's prog and space rock in the mix and it also moves through jazz and funk before it wraps. Like any good Ozrics track, it's all about immersion. You can lose yourself in these pieces of music like you're in a jungle and you haven't seen the sky in a couple of hours, but you're OK with that.

Each of the six tracks here works that way, but they explore different jungles, if you'll allow me to stretch that simile. It's not a bad word to use for Storm in a Teacup and Deep Blue Shade anyway, because they're both bright and warm and rich. If we could turn them into visuals, jungle wouldn't be inapplicable. However, Lotus Unfolding, befitting its title, is far more open. It's slower and far more interested in wide open space than dense jungle. Saskia Maxwell's flute takes the lead and we feel like we can see forever, even though life is bursting into bloom all around us. It gets richer and denser as it goes but the keyboards never stop emulating flying creatures.

That may suggest that immersion into Ozrics tracks is immersion in nature and that's roughly fair, the greens all over the cover art entirely appropriate, but it's not always the case. Crumplepenny feels far more artificial because it plays with odd sounds and rhythms that feel man made. It's not remotely industrial in tone, but it does the same sort of thing that industrial does, especially early on, in a new age kind of way. Also, when the guitar solo shows up three minutes in, it sounds like a guitar solo rather than a bird or a treetop or a meandering stream. Again, of course, it evolves to something more organic, adding some space rock in the process.

Oddly, while the titles of Green Incantation and Burundi Spaceport might suggest which way they lean, that's not entirely true. The former has artificial aspects in addition to organic ones, while the key word in the latter is Burundi rather than Spaceport, as it dips neatly into African rhythms. It all highlights just how diverse the Ozrics can be within the framework that they defined so long ago. It also highlights how much there is on this album to discover, once you've allowed it to wash over you a couple of times without digging deeper.

As with so much of the Ozrics' output, this is immediately accessible but also neatly immersive. It's not the best album they've ever put out, but it's consistently strong even if there isn't a standout track. Maybe that's why it's consistently strong, because whatever these songs are doing, they end up working well together and we end up happy for three quarters of an hour. Of course, if you're a fan of the Ozrics already, you don't need this review. If you haven't heard them before, dive in and see what you think. If it's up your alley, then there's quite a back catalogue for you to explore.

Diabolic Night - Beneath the Crimson Prophecy (2023)

Country: Germany
Style: Black/Speed Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives

Diabolic Night have been around for a decade now and they released their debut in 2019, but they are new to me. They're Germans, based in North Rhine-Westphalia, and they play a combination of black and speed metal. I'd lean towards the latter as the primary component, because they sound old school when they play up the speed, more like a proto-black metal band. They often sound like early Whiplash with a veneer of black metal laid carefully over the top. However, many songs also feature sections where they tone down the speed and these have a tendency to feel far more like atmospheric black metal. Check out the beginning to Pandemonium for a great example.

Unusually for black/speed metal bands, Diabolic Night write longer tracks, all eight on offer here passing four minutes with a pair of more epic tracks that respectively approach seven and exceed eight. That allows them to set the stage on a track like Pandemonium, before launching into high gear to blister at us. It also allows them to take their time during the midsection for instrumental breaks. It's this structure that sells them to me, because it combines the blitzkrieg of black/speed metal with a more substantial proggy NWOBHM edge that I highly appreciate.

Each highlight for me does all of those three things, Pandemonium perhaps being my favourite of these tracks, with Voyage to Fortune close behind and pretty much everything else not far behind that one. Starlit Skies adds a couple of minutes, which doesn't remotely make the song too long; it simply blisters for longer in its core section and boasts a longer atmospheric outro. However, that song is followed by Vicious Assault, which ditches those extra subtleties and immediately finds top gear, reminding again of early Whiplash but with a Kreator-style chorus. It's the shortest track on offer at 4:12 and that makes a lot of sense.

Interestingly, they're primarily a one man band, that one man being Kevin Heier, owner of Mortal Rite Records, who performs as Heavy Steeler. He sings lead and plays all the guitars and bass, with occasional addition of synths. The only other musician in play is Christhunter, who may or may not be an actual member of the band as against a session hire. The generally reliable Metal Archives lists him as session only, but he served this role on both albums. It's telling that his approach is an old school speed metal one, rarely dipping into the traditional blastbeats of black metal.

I would guess that Heavy Steeler thinks of himself as a guitarist rather than a vocalist, because he shines brightest in that role, never feeling like he's overstretching himself, even at his fastest, but I rather like his vocals. They're raspy and deep but they're also mostly intelligible, so they're closer to thrash vocals than anything from black metal. He never shifts into growls or shrieks, though he does throw in a few death grunts here and there, underlining that there's a Celtic Frost influence here, along with Whiplash and early Bathory.

They collectively place the sound in the mid eighties but the slower sections are a little earlier. In songs like Starlit Skies and Arktares Has Fallen, they often reminded me of Paul Di'Anno-era Iron Maiden, of songs like Remember Tomorrow. That all works for me, because these are some of my favourite eras in metal, after the classic and prog rock of the seventies had been infused by punk energy and then started on the roads to extreme metal. I wasn't immediately sold on it, because Revelation is a long intro and Tales of Past & Mystery is my least favourite track proper, but it grew on me with repeat listens and The Sacred Scriptures and then Pandemonium were able to bring me firmly on board.

I don't believe Heavy Steeler plays with anyone else, but his tastes here make me wonder what he puts out on Mortal Rite. The only release I've reviewed here at Apocalypse Later is Lynx's Watcher of Skies, which I enjoyed, but as a hard and heavy band, they're at the lighter end of Mortal Rite's spectrum, which primarily revolves around speed, thrash and black metal, with those elements in combination more often than not. I should check out more.

Cirith Ungol - Dark Parade (2023)

Country: USA
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Twitter | Wikipedia

Cirith Ungol have only been back for a few years now, having reformed in 2015 and played the first gig in their new incarnation in 2016, with four previous members of the band in the line-up, Jarvis Leatherby joining on bass at that point. However, they released a strong and very heavy album in 2020, Forever Black, and followed up a year later with a solid EP, Half Past Human. COVID over, it's time for another album and Dark Parade continues in the vein for which they're well known. I hope to hear more but the cracks are starting to show: Jim Barraza, who plays guitar again here has apparently left the band and I hear that they're about to retire from live performances.

I liked Forever Black a lot and relish any new release with Tim Baker's unmistakably raucous voice. There are bands who try to sound commercial and bands that try to sound extreme. Baker is more extreme than most of the latter and he isn't even trying. It's just how he is. It's a huge voice and it tends to feel louder than it is, however loud you happen to be playing his music. He hasn't lost any of his power over the years and, if anything, he's just as good today at sixty-seven.

This album isn't as good as its openers, but for a while it's an absolute belter. Velocity (S.E.P.) is an impressive opener, up tempo for Cirith Ungol with a guitar solo to lead off. It's precisely the sort of song to open a live set because, if the audience doesn't respond to this, then they're probably not going to respond to anything. Relentless is more like what I expect from this band, slow and heavy but with melody and drive. There's Metal Church in this one and Metallica but there's also plenty Accept. And yes, I'm well aware that Cirith Ungol predate all of those bands, having been formed as far back as 1971.

Nothing else matches those two, but there are some wonderful moments. There's a nice flamenco guitar on Sacrifice, not only as an intro but also within the song itself. Baker is on fire on that song too, its slow and impeccably heavy pace tailored to his recognisable raucousness. Talking of vocals, there's a joyous contrast on Down Below between Baker and an unknown female voice. It isn't the usual beauty and the beast contrast between a clean soprano voice and a harsh male one because it's a very different contrast between elegant calmness and unconstrained roar. The title track has a contrast all of its own, as it's a heavy one indeed mixing old school riffage with Baker's extreme voice, like Cronos singing for Black Sabbath.

Even the lesser songs shine at points. I'm not much of a fan of Sailor on the Seas of Fate, which has a monotone heaviness to it, but I'm certainly a fan of its instrumental sections, not just the pair of bookends but a stretch of a couple of minutes during the midsection too. Those are great changes and I could listen to that sort of thing all day. There's a gem of a guitar solo on Looking Glass, even if it feels a littleshoehorned into that particular song, and there are excellent riffs littered around the later songs, like Distant Shadows, Down Below and the title track.

This ought to play very well to existing Cirith Ungol fans, because it does everything they want the band to do and it does it well. Sure, it's a little top heavy, the pair of standout tracks being the two that kick it off and only Sacrifice, wrapping up the first half, coming close to them. It's that pair I'd certainly suggest to people who have never heard of Cirith Ungol before and want something very heavy indeed but not technically extreme. If they can deal with Baker's voice, then the band would have new fans, guaranteed.

However, the second half is much more for the die hards. If you relish the full immersion into Cirith Ungol's particular brand of achingly slow ultra-heaviness, then you'll be in heaven. If you're a little more picky about variety, it may become a little tiring because the four tracks do much the same thing in much the same way and they're all taken to the limit, because, as I said earlier, Baker has a habit of feeling louder than he actually is and the band happily follow suit. This isn't music to be played quietly but you'll need good speakers to keep turning this up.

I'm on board with the heaviness of the second half, if not for stellar songs, so I'm going with a 7/10. It's a weaker album than Forever Black, though, so unless you're also on board, you'll want to dock a point off that. Whichever side you end up on, I'm happy that Cirith Ungol are back and recording new material. They put out nothing in the seventies and four albums during their initial productive spell from 1981 to 1991. Now they're reformed, they're already at two and I'm looking forward to a third, even if they may need to find a new guitarist to replace Jim Barraza. I hope they find one.

Robby Valentine - Embrace the Unknown (2023)

Country: The Netherlands
Style: Melodic Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 21 Oct 2023
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I came to this album knowing nothing except that Robby Valentine is Dutch and he records melodic rock, which I'm always keen to review because I get sent far more metal than rock and I like to keep a balance here. What I quickly found is that melodic rock is both an accurate label and one that doesn't remotely cover it to the degree needed.

He's all over the musical map, in a very deliberate manner that echoes the approach of Queen and it's very difficult not to hear their sound all over his. In fact, if you don't realise how much Queen is in what he does on on the opener, Break the Chain, then Life is a Lesson four tracks in takes care to staple a copy of A Night at the Opera onto your forehead so you can't avoid it. It doesn't shock me, reading up on his career after listening to this album, that he's recorded an array of Queen tribute releases. Any other comparisons I could conjure up, like Jason Bieler, share the same influence, so it really goes back to them.

What's important is that he does this very well indeed. In addition to writing the music and lyrics, he plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals, except a few overlays like the harmony vocals of Johan Willems on Never Fall in Line, a scream on Roll Up Your Sleeves that seems like a sample and a chorus deepening Break the Chain. This is emphatically all his work, not merely as a musician and a performer but as a creator too. He has a singular vision of what he wants to do, which I think likely starts with something small like a phrase, a melody or a rhythm, and builds it into something majestic.

Sometimes, as on Roll Up Your Sleeves, it's all three of those things at exactly the same time. The first thing we hear is a snippet of lyric a capella, but it's chanted in a very particular rhythm using a very particular melody and the instrumentation promptly picks up on that. The drums and guitar then echo it, drop into a solo bass doing the same thing, then the elements combine and we have a song out of nowhere, with Valentine adding details here, harmonies there and escalations to flesh out and polish the piece.

It's definitely a highlight because its hook is so catchy and it never drifts far away from it, but other songs are content to travel much further. The opener, for instance, changes often. Break the Chain starts symphonic, becomes arena rock, gets poppy and then progressive, and shifts on a dime from Journey to Queen to Styx. That chorus of voices adds action and samples underline that, initially a snippet of the Shelley poem The Mask of Anarchy and later brief and surprisingly grounded clips of speeches by conspiracy theory whackjob David Icke. There's a heck of a lot to digest in this one but it's all seamlessly delivered.

Don't Give Up on a Miracle seems overly simple by comparison but it's just a well formed pop song with a catchy hook bolstered by harmonies and orchestration. It's telling that the guitar solo isn't remotely close to the front of the mix, because, if Valentine is effectively playing every member of Queen, Brian May seems to be the one he identifies with the least. There are definitely moments in Break the Chain that sound like a May guitar, but Valentine's guitarwork here generally feels a little more contemporary in style and the most room he reserves for a guitar solo, which is on the closing title track, there's more Dave Gilmour there than May.

Of course, as a vocalist as well as a multi-instrumentalist, Valentine doesn't skimp on his Freddie Mercury. He's everywhere here, perhaps most prominently on Shadowland, but both John Deacon and Roger Taylor are often present too, perhaps both most obviously during Roll Up Your Sleeves. While the influence is so overt that I'm sure he's embraced it by now, this being at least his tenth album of original material, not counting tributes and other covers albums, it also makes for easily his most immediate songs. You can't get more immediate than Roll Up Your Sleeves and others like Don't Give Up on a Miracle, Life is a Lesson and Shadowland aren't far behind.

The catch to that is that his least Queen inspired pieces take more time to grasp. Show the Way is a decent track but it's also a subtle one that takes its time and so it ends up fading in comparison to most of the other tracks. Embrace the Unknown is a tasty closer and it's the longest song here, but it also takes a more subdued and elegant approach, so it doesn't leap out at us the way those with the killer hooks do. Clearly I need to check out more of what Robby Valentine's done over the past forty years or so, because he makes excellent music and he has a serious back catalogue.