Xephyr's Forum Replies

Yesterday was a surprise Death Metal day for me; checked out two more visceral looking 2021 releases. 

Drawn and Quartered - Congregation Pestilence

A bit too brutal for me, but still has impressively heavy and winding riffing that probably sounds all too familiar to seasoned Death Metal listeners. Fans of the more chaotic and suffocating style of older school Death Metal will probably enjoy this way more than I did. 

2.5/5

Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality

This one, though, is more my speed for when I decide to stick my toe into The Horde. Disgustingly festering chugs behind satisfyingly complex and more technical riffing with a suffocating, but not exactly downright brutal atmosphere like Drawn and Quartered. I dug Cerebral Rot's debut for the first half, but then it got pretty dull towards the end. Excretion of Mortality kept me hooked throughout and their frequent dives into Death Doom kept everything way more fresh than before. I doubt I'll go back to this too often but it definitely scratched the itch I was looking for this week.

3.5/5

Pain of Salvation: I first heard Pain of Salvation probably 10 years ago when I randomly stumbled upon Be and was blown away because I hadn't heard anything like it before. It was theatrical, heavy, strange, and progressive in a different way than something like Dream Theater. I left them behind as I listened to more stuff though, since the theatrics and their overall style wore thin; I never really had a strong urge to go back to any of their records even if I enjoyed them in the moment. 

The Perfect Element I rekindled my respect for this band though, especially after their lukewarm 2020 release Panther. Pain of Salvation normally makes my eyes roll a bit due to some of the singing and songwriting choices, but this one feels like they got it all just right. Everything fits nicely together and while it's still eccentric and all over the place, it has a nice sense of progression that I didn't get from their other albums. I still like In the Passing Light of Day just as much due to it having great individual songs, but The Perfect Element is more of a full package that really exemplifies who Pain of Salvation are and their strengths as a band. 

4/5

Voivod: I've read some opinions that say Angel Rat is a grower and I'm inclined to agree, but I don't see it growing any more on me past the third listen. You can never really know what Voivod is going to do from album to album, but I certainly wasn't expecting this. It's slightly thrashy, slightly punky, slightly rocky, slightly proggy...it's a lot of things but at the same time it's a pretty simple and straightforward album. Most of the songs are pretty high quality once you get past your initial expectations of a Voivod record, but I don't know if this album is the massive, underrated sleeper hit that people are starting to claim it is. 

3/5

My struggle with Gamma Ray continues. As I said about 2 weeks ago for my new self-titled Helloween review, I'm not exactly a Helloween fan even though I rate some of their albums fairly highly. By extension, I really can't say that I was ever a fan of Gamma Ray considering they're just an augmentation of Helloween at their core. I've always considered Gamma Ray to be the stale and boring version of classic, Speed Metal influenced Power Metal and apart from a few gems in Power Plant I think it's still the case. The album starts out with the ripping "Anywhere in the Galaxy" which instantly made me rethink my bias and got me pretty excited for what was to come, but the album peters out extremely quickly for me. "Razorblade Sigh" is okay at best, "Send Me a Sign" is a little too cheesy, upbeat, and straightforward even for me, and it only gets stranger from there. I can only describe "Strangers in the Night" as Hansen's half-baked audition tape to Rhapsody and after two tracks that I have no complaints about there's a strange Pet Shop Boys cover inclusion that's more confusing than anything. "Heavy Metal Universe" is the classic, eye-rolling Heavy Metal "stadium anthem" song that I've heard a million times by a million bands and it never seems to get any better no matter who takes it on. The back portion with "Wings of Destiny" and "Hands of Fate" is admittedly solid, but the opening half of "Armageddon" rubs me the wrong way with its dragging vocal melodies and weirdly generic riffing that you can hardly hear behind the drums. The transition at 4:45 is fantastic and the second half of the song is probably my favorite portion of the album, so it puts me in a weird spot. 

I still can't say that I really like Gamma Ray. There are so many other Power Metal bands that I'd recommend to new and old listeners alike, and I don't think that Power Plant is their strongest material to begin with. Struggling with this album gave me the motivation to go and check out Somewhere Out in Space and wow, what an improvement! For whatever reason, contrary to Daniel's opinion, Somewhere Out in Space is way more consistent, energetic, and exciting than this album by a longshot. Even though Power Plant didn't really do it for me, at least I can say that there's a Gamma Ray album I definitively like now.

3/5

Teramaze - I Wonder

Sometimes I just want to turn my brain off and listen to stuff that I think sounds good. After checking out Teramaze's 2021 album Sorella minore I went back a year prior to I Wonder and while it's definitely not as complex or "progressive" as its successor, it's incredibly addicting and fun to listen to. I've had "Ocean Floor", "A Deep State of Awake", and "Sleeping Man" stuck in my head for going on 2 weeks now. 

This is some mean, aggressive as hell stuff right here. I'll be spending some more time with this in the coming weeks since I feel like I'll warm up to it even more than I already have after 2 or so listens today. Most of the album is a sludgy onslaught of riffs and basslines that can get a bit monotonous here and there but the album isn't stretched out to a length where it matters too much. The more industrial and scratchy electronic elements are used sparsely which I think works out considering Red Harvest's approach seems to boil down to being as Metal as possible, as Daniel alluded to. I didn't necessarily care for the sludge inspired vocals at first, but I'm starting to appreciate them more as I give the album more spins, it adds a nice new dimension to the industrial-style riffing. To me Red Harvest are more grounded in Death Metal than other Sphere albums I've heard so far, and I have to say that I dig it, kind of to my surprise. I'm normally put off from a lot of Sphere releases just due to the abrasiveness, but Red Harvest might have found my preferred middle ground between grindy, metallic riffs and slightly more clear and downtuned Death Metal riffs. Very cool album, will return to it and it has a fair chance of getting bumped up to a 4. 

3.5/5

Some good quality, cavernous Death Metal that dips into slower Death Doom when it needs to and falls a bit flat thanks to its slightly muted production during certain riffs. I think this is one of those dime-a-dozen Death Metal albums that I check out each year just to be thorough, but Charnel Passages has way more potential than most of them. The twisting riffs have some fantastic movement and transitions to them, the vocals are generic but good, and the background choirs and atmospheric bits give it some fantastic depth and don't feel wasted or thrown in on a whim. "Piety Carved From Flesh" is especially great, transitioning from one of the most aggressive and complex pieces of riffing to easily my favorite chug riff of the month after the guitar solo. However, that same chug riff really highlights how flat and muted the production is on this album, I feel like that moment could have hit so much harder if the lead guitar had some more depth and volume to it compared to the double bass and rhythm guitar riffing. 

A good but slightly run-of-the-mill Death Metal record for me, even though I'm with Sonny in that I'm a fan of the overall style of this compared to the more gory types of Death Metal. 

3.5/5

I gave this one a listen towards the middle of the month and even though I made it all the way through twice, I have zero motivation to go back to it. I can't deny that it's an intriguing and unique listen given all the stuff Dir En Grey stuffs into it, but Uroboros hits a certain chord in my biased brain that just makes the whole thing straight up annoying to me. I have the same issue with System of a Down; I don't find anything they're doing captivating or worthy of a deeper dive because the jagged song structure and constant grating dissonance of random elements just puts me off of listening to this kind of stuff so much. One of these days I'll be able to fully articulate why I can't stand stuff that sounds like this, but that's all I've got for this month, just some good old personal bias. 

2.5/5

Really enjoyed this one, some nice, aggressive Thrash with enough variation to keep me interested. I really enjoy the mid-tempo riffing much to Daniel's dismay since it provides a great offset to the ripping riffs that most will seek out Agent Orange for. I'll agree that "Remember the Fallen" falls a bit short thanks to its more generic riffs and structure, but the switch-up in "Tired and Red" and the opening chug in "Magic Dragon" makes these tracks much more interesting to me rather than if they were purely focused on the aggressive parts. I don't know enough about the history and state of Thrash Metal at this time to really give a full review, but I can say that while Agent Orange might be one of my favorite older and more heavy Thrash albums, I still prefer the more melodic and riff focused Megadeth and Artillery offerings over something like this. It's not going to keep me from giving it a good score, definitely an amazing Thrash record, but I'm starting to find out my preferred style in the world of Thrash. 

4/5

I'm willing to try it but it's going to take some digging, at least for me. I never really delved into any local metal scenes because I didn't grow up close to a city and I don't really have a big connection to the city close-ish to me now. Not sure if I could make it a monthly thing for each and every clan, I sometimes struggle with playlist inclusions some months to begin with. 

Even though I love Power Metal, I've always, always struggled with Gamma Ray. I meant to comment on your popcorn grabbing opinion about Land of the Free to, surprisingly, agree with you. I don't hate them, I'm just so indifferent to them that it's hard to say too many positive things about them compared to other classic Power Metal bands. I wouldn't mind checking out another one of their albums under the microscope for a monthly feature, though. 

Asking Alexandria - Metalcore

Attack Attack - Metalcore

Enter Shikari - Metalcore, more towards a full Trancecore label

Fear and Loathing - Metalcore, closest to a full Trancecore label

I was able to check this one out on an hour and a half drive over the weekend, The Infinite is definitely the wildcard Clan by design, huh? Pretty much every track on here is completely different from one another save for a few of the sludgier tracks like "Orosirian" and "Crawl Back In". I have a lot of catching up to do with Fates Warning, and that Jute Gyte track was a massive surprise that didn't really work out for car speaker listening.

Helloween - Helloween (2021)

So, the new Helloween reunion album is actually pretty damn good. Never would have called that one. It's way more symphonic than some people might like but I'm digging it so far, and Helloween is far from my favorite Power Metal act historically. 

Heh no sadly, however I'm sure I could given how much Opeth I've listened to. My Blackwater Park review on here is basically a full essay is what I was saying; I outlined the whole thing beforehand, had a friend proofread it, came out to be like 2,200 words or something. Worth it. 

It'd be really tough to do a genre you don't really care for, at least for the way I structure reviewing albums. I thought about going the weird route and doing the Atmospheric Sludge Metal list for The Infinite, but a quick browse through the list made me really dread thinking about having to write so many reviews for a genre that I'm not very passionate about outside of Cult of Luna and Inter Arma. Having 20 reviews saying "Yeah but this isn't as good as A Dawn To Fear" isn't exactly great content hahaha

Even though I could rough it and go for the 1st Decade Progressive Metal list like I did for Black Metal, I think I've decided to go for the 2nd Decade instead. Even though I'm more familiar with more of these albums and already have a review for Control Denied and a college thesis for Blackwater Park,  there are too many heavy hitters that I'd love to write about to say no.

I think I'd learn more about Prog Metal on the whole if I did the 1st Decade one, but how can I pass up having a reason to finally write reviews for From Mars to Sirius, Biomech, Metropolis Part 2, Evergrey's arguably best album, Bath, Catch Thirtythree, Light of Day, Day of Darkness, plus like 5 others that I'm excited about? 

Well time to dig up this thread again, just got through The North's 1st Decade of Black Metal challenge. Glad I chose this one to do out of all the others I could have, definitely a massive and interesting history lesson since Black Metal progressed an incredible amount within the span of 3 or 4 years in the early 90's. 

The only other order of business might be to update my Emperor review, since Nightside Eclipse deserves more than one paragraph, even though that one paragraph is enough to get my point across. Hopefully the next challenge I choose won't take as long as this first one, haven't even begun to decide which one it's going to be. 

I've really been enjoying Mandylion over the past week and a half or so, enough to sadly rescind some of my praise about Enter last month. While I still like Enter, The Gathering are undoubtedly higher quality in general thanks to a more mesmerizing vocal performance that fits the lush but spacey atmosphere and a more varied approach when it comes to songwriting and instrumentals. I'm with Daniel in that the back half of the album is where Mandylion really shines with its patient buildups and eerie atmosphere. This one is kind of just one that I really like and have a hard time breaking down exactly why, so I'll just leave it at that. It makes me want to go back to Wildhoney and see how how it stacks up, since I remember it being more similar to this than something like Type O Negative was. 

4/5

Since there's already a Panopticon thread here, I've been digging into ...And Again Into the Light all this week and really enjoying it, but there's one thing that I'm just not getting about the album even after multiple listens. It feels like the folk element completely leaves during the back half of "Rope Burn Exit" and for the entirety of "A Snowless Winter" plus "Moth Eaten Soul" and awkwardly comes back in full force in "As Golden Laughter Echoes" only to be replaced by Post-Metal for the final two songs. Maybe because I enjoy the atmosphere and style of the opening track into "Dead Loons" so much that having the album progress away from that feels out of place, even though the progression makes sense? Pretty torn on it, still one of the best albums of the year but I feel like I'm missing something. 

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FROGS??? (267 releases by the way)

July

Unleash the Archers - "Apex" - Apex (2017)

Bloodbound - "Eyes Come Alive" - Creatures of the Dark Realm (2021)

Judicator - "Autumn of Souls" - Let There Be Nothing (2020)

Iron Savior - "Roaring Thunder" - Kill Or Get Killed (2019)

King Diamond - "Abigail" - Abigail (1987)

Helloween - "March Of Time" - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2 (1988)

July

Cult of Luna - "What I Leave Behind" - The Raging River (2021)

VOLA - "Stone Leader Falling Down" - Witness (2021)

Caligula's Horse - "Marigold" - Bloom (2015)

Lucid Planet - "On The Way" - Lucid Planet II (2020)

July

Sojourner - "Perennial" - Perennial (2021)

Djevel - "maanen skal være mine øine, den skinnende stierne mine ben, og her skal jeg vandre til evig tid" - Tanker Som Rir Natten (2021)

Esoctrilihum - "Xuiotg" - Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath (2021)

Oh man that's a blast from the past, Two Steps From Hell got pretty popular back in 2010 or something, I forget what movie they were in or what they covered but I definitely listened to quite a bit of their stuff back then. While I enjoy the Symphonic part of Symphonic Metal as much as the next guy I think that a whole album of Two Steps From Hell was always a bit repetitive since most of their pieces are broken down into shorter songs rather than traditional Classical music that has a much more drawn out length and normally multiple movements to it. I'm willing to give it another shot though, it's been YEARS by now. 

The end of the month came early. I brought my A-game for this one:

Xephyr's Lucid Planet II Review

Sojourner - Perennial (EP)

I've tried to keep liking Sojourner throughout the years even though their newest album Premonitions was definitely on the bland side, but this short 2 song EP sees them returning to their original style of epic, calming, natural, and folky Atmospheric Black Metal. Absolutely nothing new, it's just cool to see Sojourner do what they do best, even if it's only for 12 minutes. It makes me hopeful for a better 4th album from them, but I'm not sure how they're going to advance their sound past what they started with. I'm personally fine with more rehashes as long as they're compelling, so bring it on I suppose.

Thanks Vinny, as I listen to more and more Power Metal my opinion of this particular release only seems to get more and more favorable. I can agree about the harsh vocals though, I've probably given them too much of a pass in the past because I completely understand where you're coming from, especially since that voice is supposed to be the main antagonist of the story, which makes it even more silly sometimes. 

I'd be careful about claiming a "new favorite band" and maybe stick to a "new favorite album" because Apex is definitely a major outlier in their discography in my opinion. These guys started out pretty rough with a bit more Death Metal influence, hence the harsh vocals here and there, but got progressively better each album before peaking with Apex. Their newest album Abyss really doesn't live up as a continuation of Apex, which is a damn shame because it's a direct continuation of the story. It was an almost impossible task to outdo Apex but after spending quite a bit of time on my Abyss review I'm pretty skeptical about the future of the band from here on out. 

I'll have to see if I want to update anything about my Apex review, it's a few years old at this point. 

Thanks Daniel, I'm looking forward to going back to this one with fresh ears. I have a feeling that it's going impress me even more than it did before, even though it still made #18 on my 2020 list. I have a few ideas of how to spin my review in a different way than yours but it's gonna be tough, it was a good read. I went back and forth when I chose this one as to what you'd think of it, but it looks like I chose correctly. Gonna have to post up a review by the end of the month. 

I'm really excited to go back to this one later in the month, I'm pretty familiar with this one but I don't think I've given it ample time after I "got" it the first time. I remember this one being a slow burner, I think I had it at a 3.5 the first few times I checked it out, but then came to my senses and it's sitting at a 4.5 right now. Interesting to see if I still think of it so highly, especially after listening to Mestarin Kynsi so much last year. No surprise and glad you enjoyed this one so much Daniel.

Mütiilation - Vampires of Black Imperial Blood

I'm nearing the end of checking out all 25 albums of the 1st Decade of Black Metal list and I can't help but wonder why this one is so highly regarded. Totally overrated for me, it doesn't have the kind of lo-fi production that I enjoy and it's overall just not very interesting, even though it has some more than decent old school Black Metal atmosphere. I'm not really getting any sense of this being more "extreme" than other early famous Black Metal albums, so this review is going to get interesting whenever I get around to it. 

My one question though is this album's apparent link to Depressive Black Metal? I know absolutely nothing about that subgenre but this album doesn't really sound anywhere close to what little I've listened to, so would this "link" even be worth exploring or mentioning in a review? I honestly have zero clue. 

Seems extremely punk influenced and the way the instrumentation sounds and is structured puts it in line with the Progressive Rock, "Jazz Fusion", Instrumental acts like Plini, Polyphia, and to a lesser extent Scale the Summit and Intervals to my ears. Even though I don't want to open up another genre discussion (Daniel and you all know how much I love those), a lot of these proggy instrumental acts would probably be on thin ice as well, especially since some of them have evolved out of MA already, citing Polyphia, leaving this track without much ground to stand on. 

Can say this other example is a big no from me. 

Horse The Band track: No. 

Sky Eats Airplane track: Yes. 

Fucking Werewolf track: No. 

Bathory - Nordland I & II

I've really been enjoying going back and finishing off Bathory's discography this past week. I spent a lot of time with Hammerheart in order to write a review and ended up really warming up to it, since I was pretty critical of it at first. Quorthon did an incredible job of taking Hammerheart's base and creating an epic pair of Scandinavian inspired albums that really puts the rest of the Viking Metal scene to shame. While Viking Metal seems to be slowly dying out, or maybe it just wasn't too popping to begin with, I don't think that anything can really compare to the original in this case. The incredibly raw but huge and epic production style is perfect for the subgenre and Quorthon's vocals and passion really drive the whole thing home. I consider these two albums to be part of one project, so I can't necessarily choose one over the other, but I think Nordland I might have a few more strong tracks than II on the whole. 

These were really good Daniel, I haven't checked out older Guardians releases for quite some time. Transcendence was the obvious winner for me here, definitely going to be relistening to it more this week. It has that obvious 80's, early Heavy Metal influence but does a ton with it. 

Lost Horizon was a bit tougher, the first listen didn't leave me with high hopes, but I gave it some time and room the breathe and I ended up liking it way more the second time around. The cheese factor is super high and the incredibly high register singing normally isn't my thing in a lot of cases, but the dude showcases some serious pipes throughout the album in really cool ways. "Highlander" caught me incredibly off guard because that song has been memed to death in certain corners of the internet, even though I've only seen it once or twice. Really awesome song and even though I have some overall issues with the album as a whole I'll definitely be checking it out more, not quite done with it yet. 

I'll play both sides here because, probably like Vinny, I checked out Wardruna's Kvitravn this year and really enjoyed it. Wardruna puts themselves in a weird position because their music sounds like the slower, folkier sections of many, many North releases, whether it's Folk Metal or certain types of Atmospheric Black Metal. I thought about bringing up the topic earlier in the year but decided against it, so it looks like Vinny did it for me. 

However at the end of the day I sort of agree with Daniel in that this would create a massive grey area that would be really hard to properly place other albums into. I think Wardruna are a MASSIVE outlier that probably deserves to be listed in The North but sadly can't be due to the implications. 

I loved Visitations From Enceladus but it's a pretty polarizing record through and through, especially since "Moonbelt Immolator" showcases all of the bands tricks on the first half of the album. Interested to see some more discussion, this was one that I really should have and still should review but it felt like too massive of a project to have a succinct opinion on at the time. 

Work has been going pretty crazy so I've got quite a backlog to go through, haven't forgotten about these yet, hopefully getting to them sometime this week!

After Achatius had a near year-long run for me in 2019 since it came out in mid-February, going back to it leaves me feeling the same way as I did back then. I really enjoy this album just because of how unique it is in a variety of different ways, from the incredibly extended songwriting, the chaotic and somewhat messy performances, and its modern take on a more lo-fi Black Metal production. I still haven't come across anything that has the same sort of energy that Achatius brings to the table, so it remains near the top of my highly regarded Black Metal albums. 

I figured that there would be some discourse here and there because this album absolutely isn't for everyone, as I can see where Daniel is coming from given how messy the album can sound in places. There's so many different guitar harmonies and dueling melodies that if you listen very closely there are some obvious blemishes, but I don't think that errors in the performance ever affected me that much just because this release has always sort of embraced the chaos for me. You never really know what's coming next, there aren't many "main riffs" to speak of, almost no choruses, so the fact that Funereal Presence was able to create a gripping concept album out of all these different elements will always be impressive to me. The messiness and the slight production issues become a feature rather than a fault, at least to me in the end. 

The only interesting take I found in this discussion was Daniel's claim in "failing to understand modern conventional Black Metal" because I definitely wouldn't consider Achatius to be that. I chose this album knowing that someone was bound to fall on the negative side of the argument given how expansive and somewhat weird it can be, so I don't think that's any fault of your own. I'd consider "traditional modern Black Metal" to be something like Mgla, which garners incredibly good reviews and scores from most of the community, and Achatius is worlds away from any Mgla release in my opinion. 

I really, really enjoyed this. I've found that I like the Gothic style of sound on the whole, but the way that certain bands choose to use it doesn't always hit me quite right. Dolorian is exactly how I've always wanted a slightly more Gothic inspired metal album to sound; it has a fantastic atmosphere that doesn't need to be absurdly heavy to leave an impact. Like Ben said it's a pretty nuanced album, with most of it sounding pretty similar in the end, but I never got tired of the repetition. I'll have to check out Voidwards because I'm definitely going to be coming back to this one. 

4.5/5

I still don't know too much about the more Brutal side of Death Metal so I wanted to give this short one more chances and time than I normally do. I think it's incredibly solid, unbelievably heavy, and I can see how Suffocation is considered one of the pinnacles of the heavier styles of Death Metal. It helps that they don't necessarily fall into the pitfalls of the more modern Tech-Death groups, since they're able to create some really jagged and complex sections within Despise the Sun without it feeling like they're shoving technical playing in your face for no reason. 

Like Saxy said I don't think I'll necessarily have a reason to go back to this one too much given what I tend to want to listen to on a day-to-day basis, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due on this one. Some of the best, brutal-leaning Death Metal I've heard crammed into a 15-minute package. I have to admit that I'm more of a fan of the modern takes on the brutal but technical style, something like Tomb Mold's Planetary Clairvoyance always comes to mind whenever I try to think of what kind of Death Metal really gets me going, but this was satisfyingly grimy for sure. 

4/5

Hammer of the North isn't on Spotify, unless it is in other countries. 

Replace it with Jorn - "Stormcrow" - The Duke I guess. Is there going to be a better way to deal with "duplicate" songs moving forward Daniel? In my opinion it's going to be mildly annoying when we get to month 16+ of this and getting push-back because some good/popular song was chosen on October of 2019 or something. 

June

Herzel - "Le Dernier Rempart" + "Berceau de Cendre" - Le Dernier Rempart

Grand Magus - "The Shadow Knows" - Iron Will

Númenor - "Make the Stand" + "Arkenstone" - Draconian Age

Warrior Path - "The Mad King" - The Mad King

Cirith Ungol - "The Frost Monstreme" - Forever Black

~28 Minutes

June

Turbulence - "Crowbar Case" - Frontal

Gojira - "Sphinx" - Fortitude

The Ocean - "Orosirian" - Precambian

Waste of Space Orchestra - "Seeker's Reflection" - Syntheosis

~ 27 Minutes

June

Obsequiae - "Asleep in the Bracken" - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings

Spectral Wound - "Mausoleal Drift" - A Diabolic Thirst

Paysage D'Hiver - "Wuetig" - Geister

~22 MInutes

To probably no one's surprise, I really enjoyed this one. Can't believe I haven't heard of Grand Magus before this, going to check out some of their other, earlier releases before typing up something about Hammer of the North to have a bit more perspective. Early opinion of this one is really high right now, though. 

Nice one on the Herzel inclusion Daniel, I don't think I could find it on Spotify at the time and really wanted to include it, fantastic song and album.

So the new Gojira album Fortitude just dropped and it's blessed us with this monstrosity. 

For some reason I didn't like this album by Númenor the first time I listened to it. I don't know what I was thinking. This awesome mix of Power Metal and tinges of Black Metal is insanely unique and may make some of the less Power Metal inclined members of The Guardians have some second thoughts this time around. The obvious single is the opening track featuring Hansi Kürsch from Blind Guardian:

But the rest of the album is short, snappy, and incredibly catchy even without one of the best vocalists in the business. 

I really enjoyed this one, been going back to it quite a few times this month and that'll probably continue. I've found that I have a very thin vein of Tech-Death that I really like, and Martyr hits that spot pretty well. Even though I respect what Gorguts did for the genre after finally going back and listening to them to figure out why they were so influential, their style of Tech-Death is a bit too dense and overwhelming for me to constantly want to go back to it. Martyr is able to condense some of the more drawn out and complex Tech-Death normalcies into an extremely addicting experience that wasn't ever overwhelming for me. Lotta good stuff in here. 

Plus I'm a big fan of the more Progressive era of Death as Daniel alluded to, so this whole thing was right up my alley. The vocals are extremely Death-like through and through and while I didn't absolutely love this as much as some of my other highly rated Tech-Daeth albums, this one is definitely joining the well above average roster. 

4/5