Fun fact; Alien Weaponry were featured on the very first edition of our New Music Monday series. Looking back at that, nearly four years ago now, I’m so glad to see that my writing has improved at least a little! Still, I clearly enjoyed the album, and still listen to some of it today. I’m honestly shocked it’s taken the band this long to put out another studio release, but the hype around it is pretty mad. I’m yet to hear any of the singles too, I’m going in completely blind, so let’s check this out, shall we?
The album instantly goes hard with the thrashy ‘Crown’. The awesome, heavy riffs and Lewis’s powerful cleans and screams add so much over the top. For something so heavy, it still has a pretty catchy chorus too, which is always great! The Māori influence comes in in the second verse, reminding me why I love the band so much and just how unique they are to a European audience. And everything after the second chorus, the heavy, Gojira-like breakdown, is AMAZING. It’s a fantastic song and a really great choice to open the album on. It’s an immediate highlight and easily makes our playlist.
‘Mau Moko’ keeps the heaviness rolling but slows the pace down just a touch, it having an awesome stomp to it. Still, the double bass keeps it pretty frantic through the verses. The drumming is already a huge highlight of the album, and I can see it being the same through the whole thing. It’s another fantastic chorus, easy to sing along to even though I don’t speak the language. Add to that the chanting in various sections too and it’s a damn catchy song. The breakdown is another great one, breaking up the choruses perfectly. And that outro kinda gave me Trivium vibes with that scream, which was awesome! They’re two for two so far on this album of phenomenal songs!
Single ‘1000 Friends’ keeps the energy and heaviness turned up to 11. The band are so good at playing around with their riffs, again the drummer doing fantastically as he gets every last bit out of each with all of his beat changes. It’s has some more awesome metalcore riffs to it too, definitely continuing the Trivium feel over the thrash with this track. The powerful clean vocals are awesome throughout, and so very catchy. It was a fantastic choice for a single! And yet it still gets heavy as anything at times during the bridge. Yet again, it’s another excellent metal song! The band really are firing on all cylinders with this release.
‘Hanging By a Thread’, while still heavy, feels a little more subdued and a little darker. Still, it’s one of the best choruses on the album, and the lyrics throughout are amazing. It’s a good change of pace for the album at this point, still feeling like Alien Weaponry while being different enough to keep it fresh and interesting! And still, it goes hard in the bridge!
‘Tama-nui-te-rā’ picks up the heaviness again, and the Gojira-feel also returns with a vengeance. It’s also heavy with their heritage influence, which I love too. The same could be said for ‘Myself to Blame’, ‘Te Riri o Tāwhirimātea’ and ‘Ponaturi’. However, the former of those does have a bit more of a 2000s alt metal feel to it, which I found really cool and interesting! It certainly channels that proggy modern metal that they are becoming so known for in the bridge, though. It’s another huge highlight track, and yet another to make the playlist!
The Randy Blythe featuring ‘Taniwha’ is another awesome track and clear highlight. I found it interesting that Lewis’ vocals adopt more of Randy’s style of screams for the track, that was a nice touch. It made Blythe’s vocals fit even better when they come in for the bridge, doing his spoken word thing and building up to his iconic scream. Outside of his involvement and the slightly changed vocals, it’s a pretty standard Alien Weaponry song but still, it was awesome to hear him feature. Especially when it’s been a hot minute since we’ve had some new Lamb of God. It’s just another fun, great metal song!
‘Blackened Sky’ was another interesting one as it felt a lot more nu metal than anything else on here. It gives surprising Otep vibes with that huge, crunchy riff and fast vocals. Even the chorus melodies and riffing felt nu metal in the very best way possible. There were elements of Jinjer in it too, which was cool! As much as I love their Māori-inspired sound, this was awesome and I hope we get more of it moving forward! It’s another huge highlight of the album and maybe my favourite track on it!
The closing track is brief but a great way to cap off the album. It fits perfectly with the tone and style of the album, and feels epic enough to conclude it all in a fitting way. Honestly, it was longer it may be another top song for me, but I’ll settle for it being the final awesome send-off to a truly great album!
Overall: This was a really fantastic release! I’ve always been a fan of the band, but I feel like this is the first time I’ve sat and enjoyed a full album from them front to back. The band really feel like they’ve stepped up in the last year or two, and this album proves that they are ready to take things to the next level. A few of the songs here are up there with some of my favourites put out by the band, and as a whole it is solid throughout. They feel less like a cool concept now and more like a well oiled machine pumping out genuinely awesome albums. It’s well worth a listen if you’re a fan of the band or just metal in general, I’d certainly recommend!
The Score: 8.5/10