Dayseeker – Creature In The Black Night (Spinefarm Records) [Spike]
Let’s get the obvious critique out of the way: Dayseeker isn't shy about embracing the melodic. If you need your core music to be ugly all the time, turn the knob back to the last review. If you appreciate the calculated precision required to blend electronic atmosphere, soaring pop structure, and unexpected savagery, stay put. Creature In The Black Night is their tightest trick yet: a goth-tinged, horror-inspired exercise in weaponizing emotional trauma.
This isn't just an album; it’s a cinematic soundscape threaded with vampiric imagery and a dark, seductive energy. The production is glossy as a freshly lacquered coffin, but that only makes the brutal moments hit harder. Tracks like Pale Moonlight open with deceptive beauty, luring you in with clean, mournful vocals before the riffs drop in like a guillotine.
The structural tension is what drives this record. The band constantly juggles the sweet and the savage. Crawl Back To My Coffin uses a delicate piano and electronic backdrop to frame a narrative of betrayal and rebirth, then abruptly shifts its body weight into genuine, metallic aggression. Vocalist Rory Rodriguez is the secret weapon here. He moves seamlessly from aching, vulnerable melody to guttural, full-throated screams, ensuring that even the most commercially palatable hooks have a necessary vein of venom beneath them.
The album fully commits to its aesthetic, with tracks like the seductive Bloodlust and the mood-setting Nocturnal Remedy. Even when the tempo drops on songs like The Living Dead, the emotional weight remains crushing. This band understands that sadness doesn't have to be slow, and heaviness doesn't always need a breakdown.
While some metal purists might moan about the accessibility, there is no denying the skill or the emotional honesty poured into this album. Dayseeker hasn't gone soft. They just figured out how to make their anger sound dangerous and magnetic at the same time. This record is a sharp, confident statement from a band that knows exactly how to manipulate feeling. 8/10
Dirkschneider And The Old Gang - Babylon (Reigning Phoenix Music) [Matt Bladen]
Launched in 2020 as one off charity project, Dirkschnieder And The Old Gang, is a sort of supergroup featuring snarling veteran vocalist Udo Dirkschnieder collaborating with former members of Accept, U.D.O and Dirkschneider, they are bassist/vocalist Peter Baltes, guitarists Stefan Kaufmann and Mathias “Don” Dieth and drummer Sven Dirkschneider with Manuela “Ella” Bibert adding additional vocals.
This is their second album and further explores the what sort of heavy metal these veterans can create, using all of their expertise and trio of voices (Udo/Baltes/Manuela), with It Takes Two To Tango it's pretty much what you'd expect, classic Teutonic heavy metal, basically classic Udo which comes back a few times on Time To Listen, The Law Of A Madman, the bouncy Batter The Power and of course Metal Sons.
However it's not all German heavy metal firepower there's a few more influences that seep in. Dead Man's Head is full of organ drenched rocking, Babylon brings some Middle Eastern soundscapes on a elongated, if a little boring epic. While Strangers In Paradise and Blindfold are the ballads which thankfully see Manuela take the lead over the other two gritty shouters.
Babylon then is another set of throwback tunes from this gang of buddies cranking out heavy metal music. 7/10
Them - Psychedelic Enigma (Steamhammer/SPV) [Spike]
Them get more aggressive with Psychedelic Enigma but don't make any wholesale changes on album number five. They never really stray from the King Diamond beginnings (Troubled Minds), sprinting along with some thrashy conceptual metal that also take influence from Megadeth too on couple of songs.
The influence of legendary sound engineer Randy Burns brings his experience with Megadeth and Suicidal Tendencies, to give the record a rawness. It's an album with a storyline and theme, one that takes the shape of a psychological thriller but whether you get into the band for the theatrical elements or not, you can't deny the music.
A track like Reverie showcases this heavier side with it's darker approach and frantic double kicks, though Remember To Die is faster taking Them into their crossover thrash era, although with keyboards. So Psychedelic Enigma is the heaviest Them have sounded but it's also their most progressive record to with riffs jarring against riffs to tell this twisted tale. 7/10
Fatal Portrait– An Elusive Instinct For Lascivia: Redvx (Black Lion Records) [Spike]
Fatal Portrait delivers an absolute masterwork in controlled darkness. This is An Elusive Instinct For Lascivia - Redvx, a complete deconstruction and reconstruction of their 2001 debut. This is not a fresh coat of paint. it’s the original blueprint rendered in steel and shadow, preserving the old darkness while making it sharper, deeper, and far more demanding.
Forget cheap gimmicks. this is pure gothic theatre and black-edged doom.
The Spanish outfit has always had a knack for the dramatic, and this Redvx version leans into it with absolute commitment. The record begins with the dramatic instrumental Invocatio, a necessary piece of scene-setting that opens the curtains on the sonic drama. But the real show starts with Five Dimmensions Of Pleasure. This track is a masterclass in slow, measured escalation. It establishes a sense of dread that doesn't rely on speed or pure volume, but on the careful layering of atmosphere. The riffs are thick and suffocating, locking into an inexorable doom pace that suggests endless twilight.
The entire record works on the tension between the physical and the cerebral. Tracks like Drowned In Your Eyes and the monumental closer Angus Dei show the band operating with a surgical precision that enhances the emotional weight. The guitars are less about furious tremolo picking (though it's there) and more about carving out vast, melancholic space. When they decide to move, the speed is earned, bursting through the atmosphere like a wound opening up.
The vocal work is key here. It’s a caustic rasp that contrasts brilliantly with the sombre, almost operatic feel of the melody lines, a sound like a ruined priest screaming an unholy gospel inside an abandoned cathedral. Even the relatively brief track Where My Eagerness Dies feels essential. it acts less like an interlude and more like a necessary moment of chilling stillness before the nine-minute odyssey of Cantabria Under Siege drags you back into the philosophical mire.
This Redvx project proves that sometimes, the best way to move forward is to look back with a darker, more critical eye. By sharpening the production and deepening the dynamics, Fatal Portrait has delivered a work that is both an homage to their raw roots and a definitive statement on the enduring power of gothic black/doom. It is elegant, crushing, and demands multiple listens to fully appreciate the depths of its misery. This album feels like sinking into a cold, welcome grave. 8/10
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