Stone Healer - Conquistador (2021)^{Release ID: 29397}

The black metal that I often prefer is the more melodic/progressive kind, which includes clean singing and no focus on the satanic references the genre is notorious for. That's one of the metal genres I've been shooting for in the last few years (except for a break from that genre for nearly a year). Stone Healer might just be what I need to boost my motivation, with their album Conquistador!

It's very cool how they can connect extreme metal to more accessible pieces of post-metal and folk rock. The result? A solid progressive black metal album with cohesive variation. There may be some wounds here, but they're nicely healed.

"One Whisper" starts acoustic before adding in distortion. Then there's a melodic verse with background cowbell. After the accessible calm comes the shredding black metal storm with vocal intensity. An excellent blend of dynamic and extreme! Next up, "Whence Shall I" has some brutal black metal tones. The drumming and melody often brings things close post-metal at times, which deserves some great praise.

11-minute epic "Surrender" can stun you with its mix of metal aggression and rock melody. The distorted texture is sometimes put aside for an acoustic passage, like the one 4 minutes into the song. The somber melody breaks up the intense action. Then it smoothly evolves back into some more thick metal sections. The instrumentation reaches its ending climax with a bit of Vektor-like thrash. The jazzy guitar of 90s-era Atheist starts "Torrent of Flame" peacefully. Despite laying back, it only lasts for a short while before some strange catchy riffing and more of the progressive black metal sound.

"Until My Will Is Gone" also starts clean in the guitar and vocals, followed by more of the metal fury. Then we have short interlude "Twenty Two". And finally, the closing "Into the Spoke of Night", a fantastic intense finale for this offering. Hell breaks loose in the riffing, in a progressive balance with the band's more melodic side. Talk about a kick-A closing summary of their progressive black metal!

Conquistador shows the band's sharp progressive mix of black metal and elements of melodic rock. Most of the songs naturally evolve with different surprises, and they can be carved into the extreme progressive metal stone....

Favorites: "One Whisper", "Surrender", "Torrent of Flame", "Into the Spoke of Night"