Memoriam - Rise to Power (2023)^{Release ID: 42571}

Following up on the let down that was To the End should be easy enough, right?  Well, as it turns out yes and no.  I can state that Rise to Power does see a lot of the bite and vigour that I enjoyed so much on the 2019 release, Requiem for Mankind return with a welcome passion.  Equally, those rather underwhelming drums get a much more vibrant sound to them this time around, even though they don't ever really test the technical stakes at any point, this is a solid and assured performance from Spikey.  Pleasingly, Willetts is in his usual fine form on the vocals and Scott Fairfax continues to create those big riffs aplenty.

Still though, the album is inconsistent.  Sometimes this is on a track by track basis, at others on an individual track when something starts of promising but quickly fades into meandering territory.  Total War is an early example of this, never quite living up to the promised rhythm of the start, instead becoming more of a patchy and stabby affair as the track goes on.  Similarly, Annihilations Dawn never quite gets to the battering aggression that it promises in the first instance.  They can still write solid enough death metal tunes though and when they get it right it works great - Never Forget, Never Again (6 Million Dead) and All Is Lost prove this well enough.  Yet at the same time there is still an underlying sense of the band running out of steam in places.  Not quite ever getting flat, but certainly unable to explode with anything outstanding in terms of their material.

It most certainly is Memoriam and for the die-hard fans there is not much to argue with here.  They sound less Bolt Thrower this time around also, even though aspects of that band most definitely are still there they seem to be slowly getting overwhelmed by more melodic musings and just a hint of extended accessibility.  I doubt Memoriam will now ever fulfil that promise of some four years ago for me, however at this stage I am still comfortable enough with them having a fair old crack at it at least.