Manntra – Titans Review

By Twelve

It’s appalling to me that nearly six years have passed since I last reviewed Manntra. The passage of time is a horrifying thing, but there it is, in print: Manntra – Oyka! Review By Twelve on July 29, 2019. On the other hand, the passage of time is what inspires a good chunk of folk metal in the first place, and Oyka! was a fun folk metal album. Between then and now, Manntra released another three full-lengths that weren’t reviewed here (some other stuff happened too), which puts me a bit out of date for their recent activities. Nevertheless, I was excited to see the Croatians reappear in our Promo Pit for Titans, their eighth full-length (and first with Napalm Records), as I did enjoy Oyka! and am never opposed to the emergence of cheer. So how have the last six years been for Manntra, and how does Titans hold up to their rapidly growing discography?

Three missed releases or no, Manntra’s sound is instantly recognizable: a heavy, energetic metal base, a light dusting from folky instruments, and the unmistakable vocals of Marko Matijević Sekul. It’s a sound I can best describe as “pretty much” folk metal—it’s got the right lyrical themes; the acoustic guitars from Dorian Pavlović, the mandolin from Zlatko Štefančić, and pipes from Sekul; and it’s all kinds of energetic. However, there is one foot resting in the door of traditional, even industrial heavy metal. Sekul plays synths, while Andrea Kert and Zoltan Lečei refuse to be left out on drums and bass, respectively. But it’s Sekul’s voice that most significantly defines Manntra’s sound (vocalists, am I right?); his rasps, shouts, and chants toe the line between heavy and folk metal in a fascinating way—he has a charisma to his approach that’s hard to define, harder to replicate, and contributes heavily to Titans’s identity.

If the above sounded appealing to you, there is plenty more where it came from—Titans is heavy, fun, and folky. Manntra excel at big choruses that get caught in the brain, such as the superbly folky “Riders in the Dawn,” the intense, almost panicked “Higher,” and the symphonic-metal-esque “Teuta.” Across Titans, Štefančić’s mandolin is used to excellent effect, especially in “Unholy Water (Voda)” and the Miracle of Sound cover “Skal.” At times, Manntra step away from the folk influence, such as on the title track and “My Sandman,” which opens with poppy synths and makes much more effort to be heavy than catchy. Since Titans, not unlike previous Manntra work, is a fairly vocals-dominated album, this kind of variance goes a long way towards keeping things interesting across its full runtime.

The main drawback I can find with Titans is that Manntra seem to operate significantly better, for my ears at least, as a folk metal band than as a heavy metal one. Everything about them, from the lyrics to the instruments to the performances, aligns so well with folk. “Skal” is an absolute delight because Manntra can lean so far into the joyous anthem to drinking culture, while “Nav” is utterly elevated by the use of pipes. By contrast, “My Sandman” doesn’t work nearly as well; it is neither catchy nor particularly moving. Similarly, the two “Forgotten” tracks are solid, good works of heavy metal, but feel out of place at the close of an album that does lean folkier. I know I just listed the variety as a strength above—it is, but this particular approach leaves Titans feeling a touch uneven.

Titans is a fun album, and shows that Manntra really haven’t missed a step. Its highs are awesome, and it’s given me a lot of repeat listening material since I started spinning it. If it’s inconsistent in whether it is “good” or “very good,” it is very consistent in being an enjoyable listen and a good time… which I think is what Manntra was going for. I do recommend giving Titans a spin or two if you’re at all folk-inclined. As for me, I’ll be keeping a much more careful eye out for the next one, and so hopefully do this again soon.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: manntra.bandcamp.com | manntra.hr | facebook.com/ManntraOfficial
Releases Worldwide: March 14th, 2025

#2025 #30 #CroatianMetal #FolkMetal #Manntra #Mar25 #MiracleOfSound #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #Titans

Warfield – With the Old Breed Review

By Steel Druhm

German thrashers Warfield created a bit of buzz for themselves with their 2018 debut Wrecking Command, borrowing extensively from famous forefathers like Sodom and Kreator and infusing the speed with traces of black metal fury. It was a spirited and venomous slab of reckless haste with enough modern-day appeal to escape the sucking vortex of niche re-thrash. After 4-plus years, we get With the Old Breed and Warfield are older, wiser, and a bit less rough and raw. They still sound like a motley mash-up of Sodom and Kreator with a toe in the blackened bog, but they’ve refined and slightly polished their sound. Will this take away some of their angry vitality and uncouth charm?

Before you think With the Old Breed is lacking in rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth intensity, meet opener “Melting Mass.” It’s an ugly, greasy, Sodom-esque thrasher with corpse scum under its fingernails, and Johannes Clemens’ delivery sits at the crossroads of Tom Angelripper and Kreator’s Mille. He sounds plenty pissed off and savage and the riffs by Matthias Clemens are appropriately nasty and jagged. At points, it sounds like Johannes is yelling about cake and amputation, and Lord knows we’ve all been there. It’s a no-nonsense thrash bomb, and it elevates the blood temperature as it should. “Soul Conqueror” reminds me a lot of Grip Inc. with Mille taking over vocals, and “Tie the Rope” leans into the blackened thrash influence extra hard for a rancid piece of speed excess with bits of Witchery in its DNA. It will make you want to bite your neighbors and savor the community flavor. The band’s overall commitment to excess and overdrive keeps the songs in that speed sweet spot, and the guitar work is high-level and gripping.

Later on, “Fragmentation” has a central riff that sounds a whole lot like the one from the classic Sisters of Mercy tune “Vision Thing,” and I can’t unhear it, but the crazed vocals and gang shouts keep things moving regardless. Warfield go for the big, epic tune on “GASP,” blending traditional thrash tropes with black metal, doom, and mild symphonic elements, and for the most part, it alchemy works, but there are segments that drag noticeably, and at 7 minutes, it ends feeling too long for its own good. A few songs hit as fairly generic too, like “Inhibition Atrophy” and “Dogs for Defense.” They aren’t bad, just sort of run-of-the-mill thrash fare. The 42-plus minute length is reasonable, but the placement of “GASP” in the penultimate spot makes it hard to properly appreciate it as thrash fatigue is already beginning to set in. What you end up with is a respectable thrash album with some raging highs, while the lows are manageable.

For a 3-piece, Warfield throw a lot of loud shrapnel around. Matthias Clemens’ fretboard gymnastics pervade every inch of the runtime, assaulting you from all sides with riffs, solos, and MOAR riffs. He’s like a fusion reactor of string abuse. He keeps the runaway train on the tracks, and a lot of his riffs stick to the brainpan like tar. Johannes Clemens is a fine thrash vocalist and can vary his delivery enough to avoid sounding one-note or tedious. He moves from a classic thrash bark to a blackened rasp on a dime, and at times he sounds like he’s having a complete psychotic break. Dominik Marx is an inhuman freak machine on the kit, filling all the dead space with thunder and war. He’s all over his toms and snares at all times, and you can’t miss what he’s doing in the back line because he’s morbidly a beast!

Warfield are the spiritual successor to what the Big Three of Germanic thrash created in the 80s, and they have a sound that’s different enough to stand out from the thrash pack. If the writing were more consistent, this would be a thrash lover’s fever dream. It’s got all the right parts and just needs a slight tune-up. The good stuff is very turbulent and volatile, and that’s half the battle. The other half is brutal wiolence. Well worth an abrasive loudblast.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Fucking Stream
Label: Napalm
Websites: warfieldthrash.com | warfieldthrash.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/warfield.thrash
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #BlackMetal #GermanMetal #Kreator #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #ThrashMetal #Warfield #WithTheOldBreed

Warbringer – Wrath and Ruin Review

By Steel Druhm

Warbringer are one of the few re-thrash acts of the aughts to have genuine staying power, starting life in 2008 and still going some 17 years on. As with any modern thrash act, however, their output has been somewhat inconsistent. Albums like IV: Empires Collapse and 2020s Weapons of Tomorrow were enjoyable slabs of speed; other albums had issues that held them back to one degree or another. In truth, though I highly rated Weapons of Tomorrow when it dropped, I don’t go back to it all that much, and it didn’t even end up on my Top Ten(ish) for 2020. Overrating may have happened, but it’s a fun thrash platter nonetheless. I hoped for more of the same on 7th album, Wrath and Ruin. With the same lineup in place, the band keeps things fast and loud but take a number of chances, stretching their wings to tackle a few epic and more proggy styles along the way. Whether that’s what you want in a thrash album is a matter of personal taste, so let me tell you about mine.

Things open with one of these newfangled epic cuts, “The Sword and the Cross,” and it’s an interesting blend of their classic thrash sound and something approaching trve metal with blackened elements tossed in the cauldron for added might and mayhem. It’s aggressive and angry with some high flying guitar pyrotecnics giving it an elevated sense of scope and grandeur. John Kevill chews on the scenery throughout, delivering a commanding vocal performance full of macho machismo, and though the song runs a touch long at 6 minutes, it’s a mostly successful experiment. “Through a Glass, Darkly” takes the epic experiment even further, going for straight-up Primordial worship and somehow makes it work for them. This one sounds like a lost track from To the Nameless Dead, and that’s a compliment I didn’t expect to be offering up here. The standout moment, however, comes on the adventurous “Cage of Air,” where Warbringer attempts to wedge Opethian vibes into their thrash template. Over the song’s nearly 7 minutes, the band marries thrash and black elements and plays with varying moods and textures in a way you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a bunch of unwashed thrash fiends. It’s quite a revelation that it comes out as interesting as it does.

Oddly enough, it’s the straight-up thrashers that let the band down this time. Both “A Better World” and “Neuromancer” feel underwhelming and cut-and-paste. They aren’t terrible tracks, but they don’t really engage my attention in a meaningful way. “The Jackhammer” is a bit better with fun little vinettes and some satisfying riffs, but it too is less that essential. Of the thrash selections, “Strike from the Sky” is the clear standout, offering an adrenaline-soaked rip ride full of nasty riffs and screaming vocals. Things wind out with “The Last of My Kind,” which tries to marry their thrash foundation with the newly ambitious writing, and it works up to a point before being bogged down by too much added padding and losing the plot. The overall package delivered on Wrath and Ruin is an inconsistent and erratic one. It sounds like a band trying to redefine themselves and break through into a new sound, and they’re only partially successful at getting there. At 40 minutes, the album isn’t too long, but the presence of multiple 6-plus minute tracks with varying degrees of bloat makes the whole feel fatter than it is.

Guitarists Adam Carroll and Chase Becker push themselves to meet the expanded scope of the material, and they do a solid job. They deliver some compelling moments on cuts like Through a Glass, Darkly” and “Cage of Air” and show themselves to be quite versatile. However, their thrash riffs and harmonies feel a bit underbaked this time out. John Kevill also does his best to push his vocals into new places to meet the moment of the bigger, broader material. Though he’s a somewhat limited vocalist, he does enough to sell the bigger set pieces, even approximating Primordial’s A.A. Nemtheanga at times. Warbringer always had talent and ability, but the writing here is too inconsistent and going in too many directions to fully gel and click.

Perhaps this is Warbringer’s transition into a new style of sorts, and if so, it’s not entirely unsuccessful. There are some interesting moments here and a few solid tracks to sink your teeth into. It just doesn’t come together as a cohesive whole for me, and I don’t see this as an album I’ll be returning to much in the future when I need a dose of speed and “Fuck You” attitude. You can’t win all the wars you bring, though.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Fucking Stream
Label: Napalm
Websites: warbringermusic.com | warbringer.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/warbringermusic
Releases Worldwide: March 14th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AmericanMetal #DeathAngel #Forbidden #Mar25 #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal #Warbringer #WrathAndRuin

Cradle of Filth – The Screaming of the Valkyries Review

By Dr. A.N. Grier

It’s funny that I’ve finally come around to reviewing a Cradle of Filth record, considering I’ve probably been listening to Dani Filth and company longer than anyone on staff. But that’s because I’m olde and have been spinning this shit since the days when the only two bands anyone seemed to talk about were Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. Also, no one else would review them. So, there’s that. What’s interesting about the band, especially considering that so many people bash them, is that they aren’t bad. While most people reminisce about classics like Dusk and Her Embrace and Cruelty and the Beast, the latter half of the band’s career includes stellar albums like Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder and Hammer of the Witches. So, for all the shit talking, CoF hasn’t slowed down since their naughty birth in 1991. With a new guitarist and female siren on the roster, The Screaming of the Valkyries is here to keep the sexy alive.

One of the reasons why I think CoF has continued to deliver solid records over the years is because of Dani’s gothic outlet, Devilment. There was a time in the early 2000s when CoF’s style started to get far too gothy for my taste (looking at you, Nymphetamine). However, since the inception of Devilment, CoF has refocused on the heavier aspects used for the last thirty years. Sure, the goth is still there (and always will be), but the heaviness of their output continues to surprise me. The Screaming of the Valkyries is no different as it combines chunky riffs with gorgeous leads, haunting orchestrations with punchy choruses, and Dani’s unmistakable shrieks. But, being their 14th full-length release, where does The Screaming of the Valkyries stand with the rest of their catalog?

The Screaming of the Valkyries kicks off nicely with the tasty opener, “To Live Deliciously.” After setting the scene with some orchestration and church chants, it explodes into a punishing riff and a catchy vocal arrangement. Mixing aggression with melody, this song is one of the album highlights, delivering gothy hooks and headbangable action from beginning to end. The other album’s bookend is also intriguing but in a different way. While the opener sports CoF’s classic, mid-career, sing-along songwriting style, “When Misery Was a Stranger” is a blast-in-the-past piece that conjures up memories of Dusk and Her Embrace. It’s got that symphonic sound when the genre was in its prime while incorporating their newer, thrashier side. It also includes gorgeous female vocals that add incredible depth to the melodic chorus and drum work that rattles its foundation.

Other tracks of interest include “White Hellebore” and “Malignant Perfection.” The first acts as the album’s beauty-and-the-beast number, while “Malignant Perfection” incorporates everything CoF stands for, including being home to one of the best choruses on the album. For how much beauty there is in “White Hellebore,” it can still get the ole noggin’ moving with its classic, heavy metal gallop and ever-shifting riff changes. As with most CoF albums, this track exposes ballady vibes as the male and female vox take turns contributing to the melodic chorus. “Malignant Perfection” is a creeping, haunting piece that uses heavy doses of keys, bass, and drums to set the mood. It’s a building piece whose sole purpose is making its way to the massive chorus and its powerful female support. It also provides the lyrical line “mass erection,” which I strongly support.

Some issues surrounding this new release are the lengthy “You Are My Nautilus” and “Ex Sanguine Draculae.” This is odd because CoF are not novices to long songs that fall and rise like the Carpathian mountains. Hell, Cryptoriana (The Seductiveness of Decay) is nothing but lengthy, winding tracks. But, “You Are My Nautilus,” in particular, shapeshifts so much that I’m lost halfway through it. It’s a meandering number with no real direction that is easily dismissed in favor of “Malignant Perfection.” Minus these songs, the production is clean and clear, letting the typically forgotten bass guitar shine at times. The drums kick some major ass and the dueling guitar work brings some old-school character to the record. Zoe Marie Federoff is also a great addition to the band, balancing nicely with Dani without being awkwardly operatic. I can’t put The Screaming of the Valkyries on top of any of the albums mentioned earlier, but it’s a solid outing that fans will enjoy.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: Stream | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: cradleoffilth.bandcamp.com | cradleoffilth.com | facebook.com/cradleoffillth
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #CradleOfFilth #DimmuBorgir #EnglishMetal #GothicMetal #Mar25 #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #SymphonicMetal #TheScreamingOfTheValkyries

Destruction – Birth of Malice Review

By Steel Druhm

Teutonic thrash pioneers Destruction made a titanic impression when they dropped their Sentence of Death EP on an unsuspecting world way back in 1984. It sounded so much nastier and meaner than anything else, and it resonated with evil menace.1 What followed were three all-time thrash masterpieces (Infernal Overkill, Eternal Devastation, Release from Agony). After that, things got ropey, there was the inevitable breakup, reunion, and run of second-career releases, some better than others. It’s a truism that thrash hasn’t aged all that well as a genre, and Destruction suffered as much as anyone as they tried to keep the fast times rolling uphill. On the plus side, 2022s Diabolical was a welcome return to form bolstered by the high-flying, shreddy guitar work of Damir Eskić and Martín Furia. The same stacked lineup is back for Birth of Malice, so hopes are high for another satisfying platter of Germanic thrash wiolence. Will album number 15 be a winner, winner schnitzel dinner?

I’m pleased to report that the things that made Diabolical work are still present and functioning. Opening cut “Destruction” is the kind of autobiographical tune we’ve heard from metal bands before (mostly Manowar), loaded with references to past albums and songs, with chants of “We’re Destruction!” as the chorus. It sounds super cheesy, but it comes across way better and heavier than you’d expect. The riffs are sharp and reminiscent of old Destruction (and also Brainstorm at points), and the shreddy solos are good fun. A collection of very good thrashers follows. “Cyber Warfare” is an aggressive speedster with goodly amounts of piss and sauerkraut vinegar, and founding vocalist Schmier sounds like his old berserk muppet self. The wild guitar work from Eskić and Furia puts a slick chrome coating over the rapid-fire pacing for a satisfying rip ride. “No Kings, No Masters” is a high point with enough of the old school 80s Destruction sound coursing through its veins to get me excited. It’s fast enough to stimulate the caveman neurons and sufficiently raging and furious to make you want to help someone through a wall.

Other above-average moments include “God of Gore” which screams early days Destruction. This one could have appeared on Eternal Devasation or Release from Agony, so that’s an instant win for me. “Greed” also hits the nostalgia button hard with the distinctive old school Destruction quirks shining through in the riffs and structure. While there are no filler or throw-away cuts, the front half is a bit stronger than the back, and a few cuts like “Dealer of Death” and “Evil Never Sleeps” are a touch too full of classic heavy metal influences. Not that I don’t love traditional metal, but I don’t want it disrupting the aggression and anger in my thrash. At 50 minutes, Birth of Malice actually feels shorter than it is, which is the sign of a good thrash album.2

Destruction always stood apart from other thrashers due to Schmier’s odd vocals and their quirky, offbeat riffing style. Schmier still sounds like a drunk and wounded quail, and Eskić and Furia give you a potent mixture of the band’s classic style and modern ultra-shreddy showmanship. There’s enough of their 80s sound left, and the new-fangled flashy guitar bits don’t generally disrupt the thrashing and bashing. Eskić and Furia are highly skilled players and though they could overdo things with their wanton fretboard molestation, they generally keep things sufficiently in check. Randy Black (ex-Primal Fear, ex-Annhilator) is a skilled drummer and he keeps pace with the manic leads and flashy solos just fine. This lineup is the most talented Destruction ever had, and they’re making me believe they can remain relevant in the modern metal era.

Quality thrash in 2025 is an endangered species, and few of the olde dawgs can still deliver the goods in a convincing way. Destruction will never again see the heights of their heyday, but Birth of Malice has enough meat and venom to satisfy the need for rowdy speed. I hope they can hold this lineup together because it’s got some real sizzle. The world needs more sizzle thrash these days. If you haven’t spun those seminal Destruction albums, get to it, poser face! Then give this a try.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Fucking Stream
Label: Napalm
Websites: destruction.de | destruction.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/destruction
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

#2025 #35 #BirthOfMalice #Destruction #Diabolical #GermanMetal #Mar25 #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #ThrashMetal

Grima – Nightside Review

By Carcharodon

Siberia’s Grima and I are old friends. Even though I only managed to snaffle reviewing rights on their last outing, 2022’s Frostbitten, each of their three releases since I started my indeterminate sentence here at AMG Industries has made my year-end Lists. From the raw, folksy, accordion-driven black metal charms of Will of the Primordial (2019), through the more grandiose (if ever so slightly tropey) atmoblack of Rotten Garden (2021) to pick-of-the-pack Frostbitten, Grima has my number. Keeping runtimes tight (apart from their 2015 debut, always in that 43-48 minute sweetspot), accordions high and temperatures close to absolute zero, brothers Vilhelm and Morbius (also of Second to Sun1) just know how to construct great albums. Since we last saw them, however, Grima has moved away from the great black metal label Naturmacht Productions, to join Napalm Records. While no doubt very good for the band, and deserved recognition of their labors, this left me doing infuriating battle with Napalm’s stream-only version of latest outing, Nightside. Have the repeated pauses and refusals to play2 dented my enjoyment?

At this point, it feels like Grima’s songwriting is quite deliberate. That may feel like an odd thing to say. Isn’t songwriting always deliberate? Well, yes. And no. Perhaps “reflective” would be a better descriptor. What I mean is that it seems like the brothers take time to digest their last work before tweaking the dials to lock in what worked while refining other parts. We saw the ‘atmoblack’ dial being cranked for Rotten Garden, while it was nudged back down again and the ‘speed’ knob twizzled for Frostbitten. For Nightside, the dial marked “accordion/bayan” has had a damn good thrashing (courtesy of Sergey Pastukh, once again) and, if there were an adjustment labelled “urgency,” that has also hit 11. Nightside feels vibrant, alive and dripping atmosphere (“The Nightside”), with guest drummer Vlad in propulsive gear (“Beyond the Dark Horizon”), while Vilhelm and Morbius’ dual guitar attack channels every crystalline, hoarfrost encrusted tremolo we could want (“Where We Are Lost”).

Taking everything that was great about Frostbitten, Grima has circled back to sweep up some of the more traditional influences on Will of the Primordial, combining them with liquid smooth pacing that shifts perfectly track to track. It seems unnecessary at this point to note that Vilhelm’s harsh vox are among the best black metal rasps available today, marshalling the iciest of tundra winds to shred your eardrums. On “Impending Death Premonition” and “Curse of the Void,” he is joined by guests Savely Nevzorov and Ilya Panyuko, who contribute deep, clean backing vocals that elevate the sound further. Echoing this vocal feel, in the slower moments of Nightside, there’s something teetering on the edge of a symphonic doom sound (the opening to “Flight of the Silver Storm” and mid-sections of “Skull Gatherers”). While, in the faster passages (including the accordion … riff? … that rears up during instrumental “Intro (Cult)”), there is a sort of rabid intensity that hits peak Grima (front half of “The Nightside” and back half of next track “Where we are Lost,” forming a great arc).

Mixed and mastered, as before, by Second to Sun guitarist Vladimir Lehtinen, Grima sound just as good on Nightside as they did on Frostbitten (subject to the caveats around only having a stream, yada yada, etc.). The guitars are quite forward in the mix but their crystalline tone means they don’t dominate, while the accordion is given a lot of space to do its wonderful thing. Vilhelm’s vocals are well-balanced and cut through like the proverbial icy wind, giving the whole an extra bite. Grima’s songwriting continues to progress, and Nightside feels like the most nuanced and best-paced outing to date. If I have one criticism of this record, it’s that I’d like it to just go a little harder in a few places. The one-two of mid-album cuts “The Nightside” and “Where we are Lost” is some of, if not the, best material Grima has ever written, and that is because they go hard.

So, did the stream ruin Nightside for me? Well, no, but it tried its bloody hardest. And I do think that, if I’d been able to enjoy this record’s obvious flow without it constantly stopping, refusing to play, and so on, the score could have been even higher than it is. While that may see Steel celebrating, and I hope the new deal serves Grima well, I don’t know why it’s so hard for labels—if they insist on sharing stream-only promo—to make those streams, I don’t know how to put this, um, work? Since it tends to be higher profile bands that are impacted by this, the labels are only harming their most valuable assets.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream only
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: grima.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/grimablackmetal
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #Feb25 #FolkMetal #Grima #NapalmRecords #Nightside #Review #Reviews #RussianMetal #SecondToSun

Avantasia – Here Be Dragons Review

By Steel Druhm

2025 finds Tobias Sammet still toiling away as his generation’s version of Jim Steinman, creating metalized fanfic versions of Bat Out Hell with his Avantasia passion project. As we land on 10th album Here Be Dragons, we welcome aboard another star-studded gaggle of guests to help Toby flesh out his visions of overindulgent yacht rock. I’ve been an avid fan of Avantasia since 2008s The Scarecrow and when the man finds his muse, he can craft ginormous songs that stick like a tar-encrusted facehugger. Albums like The Scarecrow, The Wicked Symphony, and Ghostlights were full of oversized bombastic tunes you could imagine Meat Loaf owning circa 1979, and it was nearly impossible to resist what Tobias was selling. I was a little less enamored with 2022s A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society but the good vibes kept the ship afloat. On Here Be Dragons, Mr. Sammet invited fewer guests to the party, and as an affront to the entire metalverse, Lord Jørn is not among them.1 The songs are short and fairly direct, with only one epic excursion on the agenda. Could this be a more restrained and serious version of Avantasia? Has our boy Tobias given up chasing unicorn dreams and candy-coated rainbows to focus on the bottom line?

Not entirely, but the album does have an “Avantasia on a budget” feeling about it, like you booked into Economy Class by mistake and you’re only entitled to attend a few of the masquerade cotillions. Opener “Creepshow” is a typically overblown, pop-infused Sammet product similar to the material off Edguy’s Rocket Ride. It feels forced though and a touch too lightweight and corny. From there, you’re dropped directly into the album’s big set piece title track where Tobias and Geoff Tate trade vocals over a nearly 9-minute ride that’s more like the Avantasia I love. It’s a good song offering both singers the chance to strut their stuff (Tate sounds especially good), but it’s not quite top-shelf Avantasia. Michal Kiske shows up for the very Helloween-y “The Moorlands at Twilight” and does the song proud. There’s a decent amount of classic Euro-power energy oozing from the peat moss and the chorus has some staying power.

Other quality moments include “The Witch,” where Tommy Karevik of Kamelot shows off his dramatic pipes on one of the most infectious tracks. I’m also partial to “Phantasmagoria” which features Ronny Atkins of Pretty Maids on a tough, gritty rocker that perfectly suits his rough-edged voice. Unfortunately, the second half of Here Be Dragons is less memorable. Over the last 25 minutes, only “Unleash the Kraken” gets me engaged with its mixtures of power metal and pseudo-thrash. The album winds out with three songs that do little to stoke my interest despite the presence of the mighty Roy Kahn (Conception, ex-Kamelot) and Adrienne Cowan (Seven Spires), both of whom are underutilized. Although the 50-minute runtime is concise by Avantasia stands, the glaring lack of ace material on the back half makes things both long in the tooth and toothless. It feels like Tobias lost his fastball this time and only showed up with half an album’s worth of gourmet cheese sauce and illegal fireworks. Worse still, the good stuff is mostly just…good. No track qualifies as a top moment in their extensive catalog and it’s a second-fiddle release at its core.

While the writing is a letdown, Tobias sounds good vocally. At various times over his career, he fell into the habit of forcing himself into higher registers his voice couldn’t quite handle. He doesn’t do that here and keeps his vocals controlled and enjoyable. His mötley crüe of guest stars do an adequate job, though some don’t get the good fortune to appear on especially memorable songs. Geoff Tate and Ronnie Atkins win the day for me, with Tommy Karevik close behind. The absence of Jørn Lande is disappointing, to say the least. His gravitas and machismo are sorely missed and it’s not the same without him on the H.M.S. Overkill. The backing music is pleasant and mostly safe with a few hot guitar moments (mostly on “Unleash the Kraken”), but the blaring orchestrations and symphonics don’t always add value to the material and can become irritating.

Though his patented success via excess formula comes up short this time, even when Tobias Sammet whiffs you’ll still get entertaining moments. Here Be Dragons is my least favorite Avantasia album thus far, but it isn’t awful, and it wasn’t painful to replay a bunch of times. Your mileage may vary. Here’s to better days and smoother sailing for this pirate-beshirted yacht club.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Fuckin’ Stream
Label: Napalm
Websites: avantasia.com | facebook.com/avantasia | instagram.com/tobiassammetofficial
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AParanormalEveningWithTheMoonflowerSociety #Avantasia #Edguy #Feb25 #GermanMetal #Ghostlights #HeavyMetal #HereBeDragons #MeatLoaf #NapalmRecords #PowerMetal #Review #Reviews #TheWickedSymphony

The Night Flight Orchestra – Give Us The Moon Review

By Mystikus Hugebeard

As the youngest writer currently staffed at and embarrassing the great AMG lineage, I glean real pleasure at the irony of me reviewing The Night Flight Orchestra (NFO). I mean, NFO is basically “Hey the 80’s called, they want their music back” whereas I’m smack in the later part of “only 90’s kids remember this,” blessedly not part of the “skibidi” generation by a couple of years. Pimply little scamp though I might be, I fucking love NFO, which just goes to show that all ages are vulnerable to the raw magnetism of that slick, sexy 80’s sound. Pumping synths, dancing guitars, bodacious vocals, and big n’ burly mustaches; that’s what I’ve been comin’ to NFO for since 2017’s Amber Galactic, and I’m happy to say that in Give Us The Moon, NFO gives more of exactly what I want, and what all of you damn well should want.

Anyone who’s heard NFO before already knows what to expect on Give Us The Moon, but allow me to break it down for any newbies who, having never heard NFO, have probably never felt joy a day in their life: NFO plays extremely fun rock n’ roll pulled straight from the 80’s, characterized by infectious energy, memorable choruses, and the killer vocals by Bjorn “Speed” Strid.” An arbitrary but fun trend I’ve noticed in determining the quality of an NFO album lies in how hard a respective album’s third song goes. In the past we’ve had iconic jams like Amber Galactic’s “Gemini,” Sometimes The World Ain’t Enough’s “Paralyzed,” and Aeromantic’s “Divinyls.” Give Us The Moon earns its place alongside these albums with the instant classic “Like The Beating of a Heart” (since I don’t count the scene-setting intro song). The synth intro bursts into a deliriously funky synth/guitar line, leading into a verse where the drums maintain a momentum that keeps your head nodding like clockwork. Then the chorus explodes with an unforgettable melody, the kind where you can’t help but try and sing along despite not knowing a damn word. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it leaves me with a stupid grin; it’s NFO, baby!

The entirety of Give Us The Moon basically feels like a smorgasbord of the many hats (or aviators, I guess) NFO wears with extreme style. You’ve got tracks that ooze with romantic camp (“Paloma,” “Runaways,” “Way to Spend the Night”), straightforward rock n’ rollers (“Stratus,” “Melbourne, May I?”), or songs that dial up the funk to reach critical funk (“A Paris Point of View,” “Miraculous”). The album’s first single, “Shooting Velvet,” is a particularly kickass tune with a lethally catchy chorus and a tasty guitar solo I wish was about four times as long. “Paloma” is an instant winner as well, with a dramatic escalation of big guitar chords and synths sounding like the climactic catharsis of that scene in the romance movie where they finally smooch. The consistently high quality of Give Us The Moon’s tracklist makes it exceptionally easy to just throw on without a second thought and before you know it an hour has passed.

Speaking of an hour passing, if I were to complain about anything in Give Us The Moon, it’s that it does feel just a little long. Even though there’s never really a point in Give Us The Moon where I feel compelled to skip, I do struggle to retain some tracks like “Miraculous” or “Cosmic Tides” even after several listens. Furthermore, I’m a little torn on Give Us The Moon’s closer, “Stewardess, Empress, Hot Mess (and the Captain of Pain). In addition to it’s ultra tubular title, it’s a dynamic and adventurous track that unquestionably ends the album on a high note. But I find it lacks the staying power and hyper-catchy hooks that enamored me to practically any of NFO’s previous closing songs. But as basically anyone who’s reviewed NFO before me has expounded upon, NFO at their worst is still pretty damn good.

Give Us The Moon is everything I want from an NFO record, and was a blast of excitement after I was a little underwhelmed with Aeromantic II. Once Give Us The Moon is over, the only thing I’m thinking is a resounding “fuck yeah, dude.” It’s the product of a band who has nailed their sound and songwriting down to an extremely sexy science and is bound to contain a couple of favorite tunes for any NFO fan out there. And if this is your first NFO album, I’m glad to be the one to deliver joy unto you for the first time.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: n/a | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: official | facebook | bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: January 31st, 2025

#2025 #35 #Aeromantic #AeromanticII #AlbumOrientedRock #AmberGalactic #GiveUsTheMoon #HardRock #Jan25 #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #SometimesTheWorldAinTEnough #SwedishMetal #TheNightFlightOrchestra

Jinjer – Du​é​l Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Despite the coverage in these halls referencing 2016’s King of Everything as “…so inessential, so boring, and so forgettable…,” Jinjer has persisted through almost ten years, from then, of rising notoriety. With hundreds of thousands of listeners on streaming services, and a touring schedule loaded with international dates and festival appearances, it’s safe to say that the Ukrainian nu-prog-groove outfit has earned some sort of place at the metal table. Of course, their alternative rock bend and penchant for half-time at a stuttering, deathcore crawl ensure that that place is not at the table of any traditional heavy metal sound. A seat hardly matters, though, when the crowd stands ready to jumpdafuckup with a drop and down-tuned chug. Can Jinjer’s fifth full-length Du​é​l even hope to conquer the naysayers?

Yo, yo, yo, that’s a no, no, no—Jinjer hangs around, groove to the bone, unapologetic in dedication to their drop A riffcraft and tough guy build-ups. At the center of Du​é​l—in case you’re not one of the ninety-million views of Jinjer’s breakout “Pisces” live performance—sits vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk’s one-woman alt croon to howling demon performance, both full in nasally rock control and bellowing in shredded throat prowess. Whether slathered with a Staley-tinged (Alice in Chains), Kittie-indebted sneer (“Tumbleweed,” “Someone’s Daughter”) or cranked with a scraggly, Otep-ian fervor (“Green Serpent,” “Dark Bile”), Shmayluk dominates the draw of memorability that Jinjer, and Du​é​l, have to offer.

The reliance on Shmayluk’s charisma, however, has never felt quite as strong on other Jinjer outings as it does on Du​é​l. While sliding scale riffs and heavy kit syncopation, particularly in well-placed chiming cymbal chatter, skew progressive in a brooding, fugal fashion (just about every melodic layer feels Baroque in inspiration), it’s the well-worn path of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus that spells the battlefield on which Du​é​l places its every piece. On older releases, Shmayluk and Jinjer have been a little more experimental in approach, both letting their native tongue provide an additional melancholy and allowing left-field influences (like reggae). But in an unwavering contrapuntal aggro-shuffle, Eugene Abdukhanov ensures that his bass prancing core propels each track forward. This Meshuggah-cadence, Tool-tricky possession shows in beautiful tapping runs scattered across slow-burn bridges and fading light outros. And while his fancy finger talents inspire routine closed-eye head bobs, they also too fall into service of a framing djentrified guitar drag or deathcore-leaning breakdown.

In an album as uniform as Du​é​l, the details in production and pacing make or break the effectiveness of the hypnotic groove for which it aims. On the one hand, drummer Vladislav Ulasevich’s rhythmic choices—his dry and dampened snare, quick clanging cymbal accents—all live in service to frame Jinjer’s low-end stomp and swagger. However, in that same low-impact, woody plonk, no other sounds exist to compliment its unsatisfying tat-tat-tat, with only certain tracks that live in relentlessly driving mosh grooves or thrash-speed breaks (“Rogue,” “Fast Draw,” “Du​é​l”) finding sufficient speed and brightness to feel like a fulfilling sonic mold. All too often, Jinjer leans on a droning, mid-paced lurch that has to work overtime to overcome auditory inertia. And though Shmayluk spends a higher percentage of Du​é​l in a cleaner mode than past works, which is a mode that suits her and Jinjer well, the incessant urge for every song to force a hammy aggression—a classic death metal “BLEGH” even finding its way into “Hedonist”—into every other verse or bridge to comply to the Jinjer formula wears on the lesser tracks that slog about.

Familiarity can be frustrating. And for a band like Jinjer, the frequent trips down big riff lanes that sound a lot like their other work widens the gap between rippers and skippers. Du​é​l sounds like Jinjer, which is an accomplishment in a genre amalgamation that boasts many more ill-advised backward hats than it does influential, legacy acts. However, good bands don’t necessarily always need to make good albums. Jinjer is a good band, and their own dramatic and skillful identity shines through in full force on a number of tracks that Du​é​l hosts. But with eleven tracks that run in a narrow pool of lengths, a curated scope of execution, and at varying levels of quality within each iteration, it’s hard to call Du​é​l a good album.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream1
Label: Napalm Records | Bandcamp
Websites: jinjer-metal.com | jinjer-jinjer.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: February 7th, 2025

Show 1 footnote

1. Please, Napalm, stop doing this. It’s really unbecoming of you.

#25 #2025 #AlternativeRock #Duel #Feb25 #GrooveMetal #Jinjer #Kittie #Meshuggah #Metalcore #NapalmRecords #NuMetal #Otep #ProgressiveGrooveMetal #Review #Reviews #Tool #UkrainianMetal