Though not a huge week in terms of the size of releases, there is still so much amazing stuff to be sinking our teeth into. So, let’s do just that!
Skam: From the Depths
The midlands trio have been a stalwart of the NWOCR scene since it’s inseption, over 13-years old at this point and now on album five. Somehow, this may be their best work to date, too. ‘Rising Fever’ is the perfect scene-setter; showing off the band’s grungy, swampy rock sound yet still having plenty of great hooks. Then you have tracks like the doomy ‘Fate of the Souls’, ‘Travesty’ and the painfully relatable ‘The Grind’ which are all huge personal highlights. However, every track on the album is pretty fantastic; there isn’t a bad one on it! It somehow feels both old-school NWOCR while feeling completely modern and new and interesting. I was already a pretty big fan of the band, but this somehow made me an even bigger one. I’d recommend it to anyone, whether you’re into their hard rock style or not. And it’s insane to me that we’re getting so late in the year and are still having such incredible albums being released. This easily gets a 9/10!
Beans on Toast: Wild Goose Chasers
I’m clearly out of the loop, because I had no idea this was gonna be a piano-based album. I’m certainly not complaining though, as this year’s annual release from the Essex singer-songwriter is incredible! It’s half an hour of beautiful, emotion-filled piano-rock ballads, with his signature pop-folk twist. I fell in love with the album from the very first verse and chorus of ‘Faith in the Moon’ and I couldn’t not adore every single second until the last note of ‘Fairy Tale Ending’. Beans is such a fantastic storyteller and songwriter, providing us some incredible, heartfelt lyrics throughout over some really great boogy-woogy piano. Tracks like ‘Boring Dystopia’, ‘Variety’ and ‘The Glorious Fool’ are all huge personal highlights, but there really isn’t a bad track on the album! I enjoyed his last album or two, but this honestly feels like almost a return to form for him, at least from a writing standpoint. It’s crazy that an album so simple is this good, but it gets an easy 9.5/10 from me!
Ice Exiled: Reset the Sky
The debut album of the Finnish prog-power metal band is an absolutely amazing introduction to the band. The clean, folky intro of opener ‘Open Fire’ confused me a little, but we then got some huge screams, technically excellent riffing and some massive, catchy vocal melodies. Then you have awesome tracks like ‘Civilisation Zero’, the epic, folky ‘Bloodfeud’, the almost Melodeath-at-times ‘Reapers Feast’ and ‘Anthropocentrum’ that are all absolutely fantastic. It’s insane that all these different styles blend together so effortlessly, but it’s a true testament to just how talented this band are. They’re honestly up there with Dream Theatre/Periphery in that regard, yet I like it even more as they play more my style of metal! And, given the combination of genres, I’d say eight tracks and 42-minutes is pretty reserved; it went by in a flash and I’d have happily had more!
I’d never heard of this band before I got them emailed to me but damn, they have a new huge fan in me! The talent and songwriting is off the charts, and I especially love the clean, almost flamenco-like guitars, the bass throughout is sick, and the screams are so excellent that I NEED them more often in whatever the band release next. Much like the previous entry into this list, I’d recommend this album to any readers, and if you’re a fan of any of the genre’s I’ve mentioned previously, you’ll surely love it as much as I do. I can’t not, this can get no less than a 10/10!
Fire Action: Until the Heat Dies
Another debut Finnish offering, this sounded like a more AOR Painkiller, and I’m all of the way here for it! Adding synth to the heavier side of NWOBHM is always done to varied results, but the result here is certainly positive. It’s a lot of fun to listen to, and I imagine it’d be even more incredible to hear live! ‘No Drone Zone’ and the more Queensryche-esque ‘Dark Ages’ are personal highlights, but if you’re into this sort of style like I am, you’ll enjoy it all! My only slight issue is that there’s been a lot of great 70s and 80s revival-metal like this this year, and I’m not quite sure this does enough to differentiate itself from the pack. Still, it’s a damn fun listen, and well worth it for fans of the style. It’s also a really fantastic debut release. It’s an easy 7.5/10!
Voodoo Circle: Hail to the King
Oh look, more AOR! Alex Beyrodt once again channels his love of Whitesnake and Deep Purple, yet heavies it up a little, into a seventh album. It took a little growing, but honestly, I really enjoyed this album! The opener didn’t hook me in much, but ‘Let it Rock’ into ‘On the Edge’ won me over fully and I was sold completely by the end of the latter. Then you have tracks like ‘Castles Made of Glas’ and ‘Strangers in the Night’ that are also clear album highlights. Every album is pretty great though, especially if you like this darker AOR style. My only issue with the album is that it’s over an hour long, a little too long for 12 tracks that all sound pretty similar. However, that’s kinda how AOR has always gone, so it wasn’t unexpected. Still, I’d recommend this album to anyone with even a passing interest in 80s rock music, as it’s all written and performed incredibly well! 8/10
Grave with a View: Raw Illumination
This straight-up slab of, you guessed it, Finnish, black metal is certainly not for the faint of heart. It’s yet another debut release, but this one is certainly more niche. Even in my more-into-black-metal state these days, this was a lot for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly talented stuff, and as far as straight-up black metal goes, it’s very well done. Heck, the production is even pretty damn good, which is usually not the case with the genre. ‘Wrest’ was probably my favourite track on the album that, while clearly good, I simply couldn’t get into. Live though, I imagine this would SLAP. This is certainly one for all the real heavy fans reading this, but I sadly can’t give this any more than a 5/10. It is personal preference too, after all!
King Mûmakil: Self-Titled
The debut album of a rising metal band close to us, I’ve been friends with them for years so couldn’t not check this out! And damn, I’m glad I did, it’s awesome! It’s doomy, stoner goodness from start to finish, and I loved it. The riffing is amazing, like the perfect blend of Mastodon and QOTSA, while the drums are solid behind. And the vocals fit so perfectly over the top of the instrumentation, too! It has a real old-school, early 2000s feel and sound to it that I really love. That’s in large part to the amazing Tom Platts and Daniel James for recording, mixing and mastering it too, so shoutout to them! Tracks like ‘Civil War’, ‘Locust of Man’ and the closing track are all big personal highlights. However, if you’re a fan of fuzzy, heavy metal music, this is very much the album for you, and you’ll love it all! It’s an incredibly solid debut album, and gets an easy 8/10 from me!
WARPSTOMPER: Self-Titled
Describing themselves as stoner-thrash, this London quartet not only get props for having maybe the coolest artwork of the year, but also for releasing a fucking incredible album! It takes all the good parts of early Mastodon and turns them up to 11, arguably (and controversially) doing it better. The riffing is phat and incredible, the drumming compliments it perfectly and the harsh-ish vocals are amazing, fitting in with the rest fantastically. It’s so hard to even pick highlight tracks as they’re all awesome and it flows together so masterfully; it begs to be listened to as a whole album, cover-to-cover. And, at only seven tracks and under 40-minutes, it’s incredibly easy to do that and goes by in a flash. I can’t recommend this enough for fans of the stoner side of music, and this is easily one of my favourite releases in the genre recently. It gets a solid 8.5/10 from us!
Wolvencrown: Celestial Lands
This is more my sort of black metal. Atmospheric stuff is my jam, and the folky and proggy elements added to the heaviness make for a really interesting listen. I feel like even if you aren’t a fan of the genre, you’ve at least gotta appreciate the art that something like ‘A Spell Nature Cast’ or ‘Ths Path of Life’, right? Like sure, it’s long. It’s an hour spread between six full tracks and two interludes, but that’s part of what makes the album great. It’s epic in every sense of the word, and the band squeeze everything possible out of every idea. It of course isn’t going to be for everyone, but it’s worth a try if you like stuff heavy! 6.5/10
P.S. That artwork is fucking gorgeous!
Denigrate: To the Goddess Unknown
This album is all over the place, and I’m in two minds as to whether I ‘get it’or not. It’s a truly mixed bag too, as sometimes I greatly prefer the slower, blackened-death heavy stuff, while other times I do like the Jeffery ‘Nothing’ Hatrix-style clean vocals. There are times where I don’t like one on a track but like the other, and vice versa. And the almost jump-cutting between the styles throughout makes it rather hard to form a solid opinion on the album as a whole. I think my favourite track, and the one that combined both the best, was ‘The Apparition of One’, but the opener was also pretty good, as was ‘Sesame and Lilies’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying this is a bad album. It was growing on me slowly the more I listened as I wrote this out, too. But it’s certainly quirky and made it a little harder to get into overall. I think it gets a cautious 7/10, but it could easily go up or down at any moment!