Brothers of Metal - Emblas Saga (2020)^{Release ID: 15321}

Yep, this is a power metal record with all of the over the top mythological lyricism that one might expect. This album has a nice variety of styles and ideas, highlighted by its duality of male and female vocalists. The male performs in in a half sung, half scream delivery that is interesting, if a little grading at times, reminiscent of a band like Overkill or Kreator. The female vocals are clean and expansive and make up the best portions of this album on their own. When the two voices sing together, it sounds very decent, such as on "Kaunaz Dagaz", the title track and "Ride of the Valkyries".

The music on this album is very strong power metal, if a little redundant. But I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. It's produced very well and I'm a big fan of the melodic songwriting throughout. Such standouts include the tunes mentioned earlier, as well as "Hel", "Powersnake" and "Njord". The guitar work is fluent as well as the bass having a greater presence than has come to be expected from this style of music in the modern day. The percussion sounds great, even if it doesn't feel very memorable.

This is solid enough power metal to start off the year 2020. I'm not sure how long it will stick around, but it's a very solid album to tide you over until we get our first great metal album of the year.