April 2025 - Featured Release - The Guardians Edition

How's it going, fellas, it turns out that I'm currently the sole person on the roster for The Guardians featured releases. Unfortunately, as The Guardians is by far my least listened clan, I don't think I would be able to ensure the quality level of the recommendations that I would like to aim for, simply because I don't engage with the music often enough to have something firmly on mind on a monthly basis. I'll have to work something out with Andi (perhaps a quarterly schedule would be appropriate), but, in the meantime, I've selected the latest full-length from the British heavy metal pioneers Angel Witch, 2019's "Angel of Light".

To tell you the truth, I was never the biggest fan of the band's highly regarded eponymous LP. It is very much the case of the usual born-too-late syndrome, as I struggle immensely with that record's leftover hard-rock tendencies, as well as the incredibly cheesy group vocals that have always ruined my enjoyment of the otherwise great title track. Therefore, I was very pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon their latest album some years ago, which I found to contain a tasty slab of fun & energetic heavy metal with some infectiously catchy melodies, if a touch overproduced (that is sadly very much to be expected in this day and age). The opener, "Don't Turn Your Back" in particular, has become somewhat of a staple for me - it's one of the songs I absolutely love to sing-along to while on the road (& Kev Heybourne sounds better than ever!). All in all, I think the record is worth checking out, if only as a nice subversion of the typical trend of metal bands descending into mediocrity later into their career. Let me know what you think & happy listening!

https://metal.academy/releases/13992

Nice one Karl. "Don't Turn Your Back" is a brilliantly catchy heavy metal tune.

Here's my (new) review:

I first encountered Angel Witch over 45 years ago, supporting Motörhead on one of their '78 or '79 tours, if I remember rightly. In those early days they were a trio consisting of mainman Kevin Heybourne alongside bassist Kevin Riddles and drummer Dave Hogg, playing what would become one of the most recognizable sounds of the NWOBHM. After providing the best track on the legendary Metal for Muthas comp, they released their 1980 eponymous debut, one of my absolute favourite albums from the NWOBHM era. Unfortunately the rest of the 80s weren't kind to AW, constant personnel upheavals and a couple of lacklustre albums resulted in the band disappearing from view. Fast forward to 2012 and The 'Witch were back, releasing a new album, their first new material in quarter of a century, "As Above, So Below" which was somewhat of a return to form and a shot in the arm for any long-standing fan of the band, such as yours truly, desperate to see them succeed.

So, 2019 came around and AW finally turned in their best and heaviest album since that seminal debut. It was more focussed than "As Above, So Below" and with a production job that would have absolutely killed forty years ago. This was hi-octane heavy metal and any band of young bucks flying the flag of the traditional heavy metal sound would have been proud to have put out an album as exhilharating as this, never mind a band now well into their fifth decade. Kicking of with an anthemic fist-pumper in "Don't Turn Your Back", you can just feel the years roll away, both from the band and from the listener with a track that would have felt well at home in the band's set of almost forty years ago. The tracks on Angel of Light are generally longer than their previous material, clocking in at between five and seven minutes which allows them more space to grow than their earlier material, whilst still delivering with catchy melodies and an inate understanding of how to make traditional heavy metal sound just as heavy as some of its more extreme offspring. Angel of Light harks back to those early days of the NWOBHM for sure, yet it has a modern sound and sensibility that makes it more than just a band trading on lost glories or trying to recapture their wasted youth, lending it a relevance and vitality than many of the band's peers are incapable of summoning these many years on. There is a greater fullness to the sound of this four-piece than the original trio that recorded the debut could muster with tracks like "The Night Is Calling" or "Condemned" drawing on a marked Sabbath influence soundwise. This is also aided by a deepening of Kev's voice as the years have passed and distinctive though it still is, it is only on the more strained sections where it sounds as thin and reedy as it used to. He also shows a greater propensity for soloing than he did in the earlier days and delivers some nicely controlled and mature-sounding leads.

Overall I have to acclaim "Angel of Light" as a real success and easily the best Angel Witch have laid down since the debut, striking right to the heart of what makes traditional heavy metal so great and awakening a love in me for that sound that I had believed to be long crushed by the intensity of extreme metal. This can easily stand alongside releases from the much-lauded new bucks of traditional metal such as Smoulder or Traveler and outshines most of them in my book. The band's debut will always hold a special place for me as it was a big release within my earliest metal experiences, but the additional power this latest iteration summon when coupled with KH's knack for writing hook-filled heavy metal melodies and the more expansive songwriting finally makes this an album worthy of the band that knocked out that classic of the NWOBHM oh so very long ago.

4.5/5