Avatar - Don't Go In The Forest (Black Waltz)
Avatar are destined to be huge, I mean stadium level huge, their darkly theatrical, experimental, multifaceted metal style has been gaining them fans since 2001 but it's only since 2012's Black Waltz that they have really locked into to their look and also to the music they want to play, adapting it every album after this to create a unique but familiar musical experience every time.
They released their last album Dance Devil Dance in 2023 and it got them the critical plaudits their fans have been heaping on them for years. Yes their fans are dedicated mirroring Johannes Eckerström's facepaint and vaudeville styling at gigs, a place where Avatar are very comfortable as they spend most of their time on the road.
Next year they will brought on as support for Metallica on their 2025/2026 tour and will be playing a huge show in Mexico City, so Avatar are a band who are finally reaching the grandiose potential they have been projecting for several years now. Avatar have a flair for the theatrical, the cinematic and the conceptual, as many of their records are based around a theme or a story or poem of their own making.
The band have stated that “It would have been impossible to make this album at any other time than now" and when Don't Go Into The Forest bursts to life with Tonight We Must Be Warriors which begins with a Tin Whistle similar to When Johnny Comes Marching Home, adopting a power metal sound before those harsh vocals return on the In The Airwaves as they shift into swashbuckling folk metal of Captain Goat and throbbing Ghost-like spookiness on the title track.
This is just the beginning though as Avatar prove to be fearless with album ten, with Death And Glitz bringing both, an undercurrent of funk below modern metal as they bludgeon on Abduction Song and then bring jazzy rhythms to the dramatic balladry of Howling At The Waves, the synthy prog of Dead And Gone And Back Again and more thrashy madness on Take This Heart And Burn It.
With new record Don't Go In The Forest vocalist Johannes Eckerström, guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, bassist Henrik Sandelin, and drummer John Alfredsson, wanted to evolve again, adding new strings to their bow, going down as yet undiscovered avenues and digging deeper into the darkest recesses of the human experience through musical styles that point them at those bigger stages to come. 9/10
Hell In The Club -Joker In The Pack (Frontiers Music)
Joker In The Pack is the seventh album from Hell In The Club, I was actually surprised to find this out of I'm honest as I thought they were quite a new band but they formed back in 2009! This experience goes some way to explain why this Italian/Swedish band are so slick with their brand of metallic hard rock drawn from the 80's heyday.
A style that has been more pronouced since their previous record and defines Hell In The Club as it's own entity away from the more metallic other bands of founder members Andrea Buratto (bass) and Andrea “Picco” Piccardi (guitars) and current drummer Marco Lazzarini.
Joker In The Pack continues with this hard rock style but with a new voice to carry it, as founding vocalist Davide Moras left the band on 2024 and Hell On The Club took the bold steps to get singer Tezzi Persson behind the mic after wowing the band at her audition and then the fans on stand alone single Carolina Reaper.
Having a female voice over the long established male on may be seen as a risk for long term fans but Tezzi has a powerful set of pipes and fits perfectly on the retro meets modern style of the band. Having already showed she can handle the older music with her own version of The Kid, for her first official album as singer Hell In The Club pack a flair for the dramatic and the gothic that will gain them new fans for sure.
A new era but pretty much the same old song and dance, 15 years into their career it's a change but not a seismic one. 7/10
Spawn - Light Rite (Ramble Records)
Light Rite is an album that has been in gestation for nine years, the debut album from Asian/Australian psychedelic doom band Spawn. This album has seen them shift line ups, tragically lose a member but channel this into spiritually transcendent music where stoner doom collides with celestial wandering and psychedelic expanses.
Acid Mothers Temple, Church Of Misery and Elder are all points of reference for what Spawn do and on the final act All Is Shiva they turn the Wheel Of Dharma with Dr Sarita McHarg's sitar and percussion perfectly pitched for those ethereal moments at the beginning before the doom comes rushing in under waves of keys from Angelique Forsyth and the explorative drumming of Rhiannon Smith.
It's a substantial track at 14 minutes but shows off everything Spawn are good at, mystical space doom with emotion behind it. Light Rite begins Lotus Rising kicks off with guitarists Lenz Ma and Madi O'Shea cranking out the riffs with the multiple vocals all working together, with Don't Let Them Dim Your Light they take a turn down the Syd Barrett Floyd path with some more sitar in the middle and a hearty bass throb from Andie Kate
With Ascension there's Theremin, stoner riffs and an outro by the songs writer Jewel Gold who is the member they lost but who's journey to the other side is a massive influence on the record as a whole. Enriched with Eastern atmospheres but driven by Western heaviness, Spawn deliver a bewitching debut album with Light Rite. 9/10
Primal Scourge - End Of Eden (Iron Fortress Records)
End Of Eden is the debut album from American death/doom act Primal Scourge. Released through Iron Fortress Records who have been putting out extreme metal bangers recently. This debut is the soundtrack to the apocalypse, the lamb has opened the seventh seal and the silence in heaven is followed by the deafening roar as paradise falls.
Now maybe I'm getting my religious metaphors mixed up here Primal Scourge are band with a soundtrack to the end times. Formed by Austin Asmus (guitar, bass, vocals) and Rio Mariucci (drums, vocals), the duo share a long history together so Primal Scourge is a collaboration between two veterans of their scene creating some bludgeoning death metal.
Abyssal Imprisonment begins with the record with power, double kicks are relentless even when the riffs move from tremolo picked thrashing to a mid-tempo crush, invoking the artillery march of Bolt Thrower and Benediction with Morbid Gestation and Necromantic Plague both doing something similar keeping the theme of the first track but Visceral Crown brings some synths/atmospheres at the beginning and then double down into doom.
Primal Scourge are a band who divide their time between steamrolling and crushing, End Of Eden is an old school offering that death metal fans will love. 8/10
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