I’m confident that if you’re reading this you know who Immortal is but for the fresh minds that might stumble on this writing in the future a brief history may be in order. The black metal band known as Immortal hails from cold Norway and was summoned forth in the ancient times of the early 90’s. Originally formed by Abbath and Demonaz and later joined by Horgh this blizzard obsessed trio made several now legendary albums from Battles In The North, and Blizzard Beasts To At The Heart Of Winter and Sons Of Northern Darkness. However internal strife led to Abbath leaving for a solo career, followed by legal battles over the name and now, fast forward a bit, Demonaz is the sole official member of Immortal (the “there can be only” jokes should be epic) and is here to declare War Against All.
And this war wastes no time and gives no quarter, an absolute riff assault blizzard from the very first second you hit play. Bold to start right off with the title track, maybe but it doesn’t matter as half your face is frozen off before you know what’s happening. You get no mercy from the icy blasts however as Thunders Of Darkness mauls the rest of you over with vicious speed and ice wall solid drumming. Wargod sets a more galloping pace to start and carries more atmosphere on its approach, could have used a trim however as it feels just that one minute too long…
No Sun once again storm blasts you right out of the gate before settling into the song's proper battering pace, classic Immortal vibes here and Demonaz’s vocals are positively vile. Somehow pulling even more riffs from the frozen winds of Blashyrkh. Immortal delivers the best track so far, Return To Cold is, in my humble opinion, a perfect Immortal song. This will be a crowd favorite if Demonaz puts a touring band together.
The last three songs hold to this trend as Demonaz achieves pure frozen wizardry first with Nordlandihr, a 7:13 epic with a solo guitar opening that for some reason brings KISS to mind but in a good way. This song is a journey and feels that way from beginning to end and gets a rare pass from me on the whole “song length when not doom” thing. Immortal is a shorter, tighter and faster song that feels..urgent but still grand and atmospheric, it’s as good as Return To Cold.
Final track is Blashyrkh My Throne, a rolling epic that although is a good track, fails to to really end the album on a huge bang. It’s good, but with a time trim and a bit more…added epic, I guess, this would be a better track. There are tons of riffs in the cold, cold north and Demonaz now commands them all. The cover art is classic Immortal and the production is crisp and, one more, … cold. In the end I think this trip to fabled frozen Blashyrkh stands at a chilly … 7/10
Elegant Weapons - Horns For A Halo (Nuclear Blast) [Simon Black]
Now, Supergroups are nothing new. In fact, I generally get half a dozen releases of such an ilk across my desk a month, because experienced musicians stuck in limbo between the album cycles of larger bands in particular can be really frustrating when you just want to keep writing and playing. Then there’s a whole circuit of players who seem to do nothing other than flit between such projects at a formidable rate. There’s whole record labels set up to cater to these largely studio project releases (hello, Frontiers Records s.r.l) and sometimes they take on a life of their own and outperform the bands that spawned them (wotcha, Avantasia). Time will tell with Elegant Weapons, which is definitely mixing with both of those source elements.
Although niche labels like Frontiers tend to take one or two names and fill the other sixty per cent of the slots with session guys, this bunch have proper pedigree, which is probably why we’re talking Nuclear Blast here. Comprising of Richie Faulkner on the six strings (Judas Priest), Ronnie Romero on vocals (Rainbow, Vandenburg and about a third of Frontiers’ output), Dave Rimmer on the four strings (Uriah Heap) and Christopher Williams on the skins and tubs (Accept) you really do have a proper Supergroup in the component mix alone here.
Romero is a hugely experienced player who can pitch his style to almost any project, but at the end of the day he also has one of the most soulful and gutsy voices on the melodic metal/hard rock circuit and this time he really feels like he’s pulling out the stops, with an effortlessly souring and rich presence that weaves beautifully with the other players. Faulkner is for most of us used to being half of a twin guitar unit, but with Priest’s parts often weaved between the two players, he’s more than capable of handling all the demands on the axe himself, and actually weaves beautifully with Rimmer as they hand off riff lines and flourishes effortlessly, and without compromising the integrity of the rhythm section.
What all that waffle means is, this feels like a proper band with a common goal, not a prefabricated concept project and consequently it has my attention from the opening bars - and totally so. The song writing too can’t be faulted, with the songs sticking to traditional hard rock territory, but with enough of a metal twinge to keep the harder side of the respective fanbases happy. There’s also a belting version of UFO’s Lights Out, which tells you exactly where this project is coming from stylistically and lots of nods to classic rock and metal acts from the 70’s and early 80’s NWOBHM era, and to be honest I can’t fault that, being of that generation and this project proves that this style of music ain’t going anywhere.
It’s straight down the line, played with aplomb from four guys who really know they’re chops, and I can’t stop listening to it… 10/10
Elegant Weapons - Horns For A Halo (Nuclear Blast) [Simon Black]
Now, Supergroups are nothing new. In fact, I generally get half a dozen releases of such an ilk across my desk a month, because experienced musicians stuck in limbo between the album cycles of larger bands in particular can be really frustrating when you just want to keep writing and playing. Then there’s a whole circuit of players who seem to do nothing other than flit between such projects at a formidable rate. There’s whole record labels set up to cater to these largely studio project releases (hello, Frontiers Records s.r.l) and sometimes they take on a life of their own and outperform the bands that spawned them (wotcha, Avantasia). Time will tell with Elegant Weapons, which is definitely mixing with both of those source elements.
Although niche labels like Frontiers tend to take one or two names and fill the other sixty per cent of the slots with session guys, this bunch have proper pedigree, which is probably why we’re talking Nuclear Blast here. Comprising of Richie Faulkner on the six strings (Judas Priest), Ronnie Romero on vocals (Rainbow, Vandenburg and about a third of Frontiers’ output), Dave Rimmer on the four strings (Uriah Heap) and Christopher Williams on the skins and tubs (Accept) you really do have a proper Supergroup in the component mix alone here.
Romero is a hugely experienced player who can pitch his style to almost any project, but at the end of the day he also has one of the most soulful and gutsy voices on the melodic metal/hard rock circuit and this time he really feels like he’s pulling out the stops, with an effortlessly souring and rich presence that weaves beautifully with the other players. Faulkner is for most of us used to being half of a twin guitar unit, but with Priest’s parts often weaved between the two players, he’s more than capable of handling all the demands on the axe himself, and actually weaves beautifully with Rimmer as they hand off riff lines and flourishes effortlessly, and without compromising the integrity of the rhythm section.
What all that waffle means is, this feels like a proper band with a common goal, not a prefabricated concept project and consequently it has my attention from the opening bars - and totally so. The song writing too can’t be faulted, with the songs sticking to traditional hard rock territory, but with enough of a metal twinge to keep the harder side of the respective fanbases happy. There’s also a belting version of UFO’s Lights Out, which tells you exactly where this project is coming from stylistically and lots of nods to classic rock and metal acts from the 70’s and early 80’s NWOBHM era, and to be honest I can’t fault that, being of that generation and this project proves that this style of music ain’t going anywhere.
It’s straight down the line, played with aplomb from four guys who really know they’re chops, and I can’t stop listening to it… 10/10
Vomitory - All Heads Are Gonna Roll [Richard Oliver]
After a twelve year break, the Swedish masters of gore splattered and blood soaked death metal are back with a new album. Vomitory have been reformed since 2018 but it has taken until now for the time to be right to unleash their ninth album All Heads Are Gonna Roll. It has been a cause of debate amongst the band whether or not to release new material but once they got together they realised they had some good stuff up their sleeves and have taken their time to craft an album that is another rotting and festering jewel in their crown.
If you have heard Vomitory before then All Heads Are Gonna Roll won’t offer much in the way of surprise being the same bludgeoning death metal machine that the band have been since day one with nine songs of relentless and fast-paced death metal fury but the songs on All Heads Are Gonna Roll are a catchy bunch. Songs such as Ode To The Meat Saw and Dead Man Stalking draw in some influences from d-beat which sit nicely alongside blast-beat filled tunes of pure carnage such as The Deepest Tomb and Disciples Of The Damned. Vomitory’s death metal sound mixes the best elements of the Swedish and US styles and sounds old school as hell and of course utterly fantastic if you like death metal the old way.
A twelve year break between albums has the band sounding invigorated not only in their songwriting but their performances have a fire and intensity to them with special mention going to drummer Tobias Gustafsson who is an absolute machine. All Heads Are Gonna Roll doesn’t reinvent the wheel for Vomitory or for the death metal genre in general but it is a classic case of the band doing what works for them to their full strength and abilities. It is a glorious piece of old school death metal which will have any self respecting old school death metal maniac in a neck brace after listening. 8/10
After a twelve year break, the Swedish masters of gore splattered and blood soaked death metal are back with a new album. Vomitory have been reformed since 2018 but it has taken until now for the time to be right to unleash their ninth album All Heads Are Gonna Roll. It has been a cause of debate amongst the band whether or not to release new material but once they got together they realised they had some good stuff up their sleeves and have taken their time to craft an album that is another rotting and festering jewel in their crown.
If you have heard Vomitory before then All Heads Are Gonna Roll won’t offer much in the way of surprise being the same bludgeoning death metal machine that the band have been since day one with nine songs of relentless and fast-paced death metal fury but the songs on All Heads Are Gonna Roll are a catchy bunch. Songs such as Ode To The Meat Saw and Dead Man Stalking draw in some influences from d-beat which sit nicely alongside blast-beat filled tunes of pure carnage such as The Deepest Tomb and Disciples Of The Damned. Vomitory’s death metal sound mixes the best elements of the Swedish and US styles and sounds old school as hell and of course utterly fantastic if you like death metal the old way.
A twelve year break between albums has the band sounding invigorated not only in their songwriting but their performances have a fire and intensity to them with special mention going to drummer Tobias Gustafsson who is an absolute machine. All Heads Are Gonna Roll doesn’t reinvent the wheel for Vomitory or for the death metal genre in general but it is a classic case of the band doing what works for them to their full strength and abilities. It is a glorious piece of old school death metal which will have any self respecting old school death metal maniac in a neck brace after listening. 8/10
Ǥứŕū - Nova Lux (Sleeping Church) [Paul Scoble]
Hailing from France, Ǥứŕū are a new band featuring members of the French black metal underground. The band formed and released their first EP in 2020, 3 years later they are back with their debut album. The five piece is made up of Jerry on vocals, Anne-Laure on bass, Rudy on guitars, Simon on guitars and Quentin on drums. The style that Ǥứŕū play is a mix of black metal and doom, it’s (mainly) slow and very nasty with the occasional blast beat, is it doomy black metal? Is it blackened doom? Let’s find out.
The style is probably weighted on the black metal side, with a reasonable amount of blasting and dissonance, and a certain amount of pagan style riffing. The slower material does have a doomy quality, but also reminds me of slower black and pagan metal, there is a similarity to acts like Primordial, Horn, Naglfar, or Urfaust. The vocals also have a black metal feel, mostly harsh but with a very fervent clean vocal that feels very black metal to me. So, it’s mainly black metal with little tastes of doom to add some atmosphere and heaviness.
The album is split into four long songs, all just under ten minutes. The first song is In The Crimson Smoke, which starts with dissonant chords before a blast beat drops in on us and is covered by riffy black metal and harsh vocals. This then goes into a slow section with lots of dissonance and harsh vocals, this then slows down even further for a monumentally huge and heavy section with great impassioned clean vocals. The song then blasts us back to the nasty pagan riffy black metal savagery for a while before the slow and dissonant returns for one last slithering appearance. The song then goes to its end with fast blasting and fervent clean vocals.
Next song Pilgrim On The Path Of Tears is an interesting song, probably the slowest and doomyest track on the album. The song opens with dissonant guitar and whispered vocals, this then goes into a slow and very heavy riff that is like a herd of elephants stamping you to death. After the insanely heavy riffs the song goes into some very nasty tremolo picked riffs that stay slow with harsh vocals, the tempo is interesting as well; it has a bit of a swing to it, and even a feeling of relaxed calm which is an interesting counter point to the riffs that are over the tempo. The ultra slow returns just before the tempo changes for a mid paced stomp with some nasty harsh vocals, after which the song disintegrates, unable to hold itself together any more.
Third track Bathed In Sunlight, begins with tremolo picked riffs and clean, chanted and in places bellowed vocals, these huge and passionate vocals are carried over into a section with slow and dramatic dissonant riffs, this section expands by layering riffs, this then increases in intensity keeping the slow tempo the same. The really heavy riff and chanting returns to take the song to its end.
The albums final track is the title track Nova Lux. Which opens with tremolo picked black metal riffs and harsh vocals, the song then turns towards dramatic and rhythmic chanting over a very heavy riff, the music speeds up with some riffy pagan black metal that has the same fervent emotionally charged clean vocal, which runs throughout the song.
This very fervent vocal, sometimes chanted, is very effective and feels similar to some of Ihsahn’s vocals with Emperor, I’m thinking in particular of mid-period Emperor, maybe something like The Loss And Curse Of Reverence, it adds massively to the album, and makes it stand out in the Black Metal scene. As the song progresses we get more blast beats, more pagan riffing, some slow and very heavy riffs and a really good guitar solo, all featuring the excellent, passionate Vocals.
Nova Lux is a great piece of black/doom/pagan metal. The album is full of savagery, dissonance, extreme heaviness and some very effective and impassioned vocals. You can tell that these people have lots of experience between them, as this album has clearly been made by skilled musicians. The passion the album contains is great, it’s in every note, drum beat or vocal line, it draws you in to the album and is very affecting. A superbly heavy and savage album, highly recommended. 8/10
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