Xephyr's Forum Replies

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

So this was an interesting turn of events. Within Temptation immediately decided that they didn't care for the Gothic side of things and pivoted into a more fully symphonic and theatrical sound for Mother Earth. The Metal aspects of their sound honestly take a tremendous backseat for a good portion of the album, with most of the songs being slower, plodding orchestral pieces with de Adel's vocals being more front and center than they were in Enter. I think for people who want a classic, softer Symphonic Metal experience this is the album for them, but I found myself really missing the Gothic atmosphere they had on Enter. It gave their songwriting that slight edge that it needed since I found Mother Earth to be pretty bland on the whole. 

It starts out well enough with "Mother Earth" and "Ice Queen" being good starting tracks, even though some of the orchestral mixing in "Ice Queen" is perplexingly loud as the guitar and drums get suffocated into the background. "Caged" and "Deceiver of Fools" are fine as well, but the back half of this album after "Intro" feels utterly pointless, drawn out, and de Adel's vocals really don't hold up on "Dark Wings". It's like she's trying to go for this sultry but theatrical performance and her voice just doesn't have that kind of power behind it. 

Mother Earth honestly reminds me of Therion's Vovin, where they decided to say screw it and go fully symphonic with just enough Metal in the background to keep it under the same genre. As someone who isn't a fan of Vovin, I feel like I'm bored by this album in the same ways. Sure the symphonic elements are nice and some of the ballads are beautiful, but nothing else is really added to the experience by removing the other aspects of what made the band interesting in the first place. To me this feels like a step back from Enter, but a strange stepping stone into The Silent Force where they're able to gain their footing back a little bit. Sure, The Silent Force is definitely less experimental than this album, but I think it fits Within Temptation's style better than whatever this is. 

Plus, "In Perfect Harmony" hilariously sounds like it belongs in a wide, panning shot of The Hobbit; not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it's a thing. Also the album cover is giving me some serious David Bowie from Labyrinth vibes for some reason. Also not sure how I feel about that.

I'll give it a listen sometime this week, only fair that I round out Within Temptation's discography while I have it on the brain. Review probably isn't going to happen though, I can't churn out reviews on a whim, but who knows, maybe I'll have a lot to say about it.

I struggled with this one too, enough that I really don't think I'm going to give it any more chances even though I'm not going to give it a low score. The atmosphere and riffs are disgustingly good, but man, those vocals combined with the extended song structures just didn't do it for me. I have issues with the more "possessed" style of Black Metal vocals and this one really, really highlighted that for me. I love the dark, ritualistic atmosphere, but having it forcibly thrust down my throat for an hour straight by the vocalist just gets straight up annoying to me, especially in "Vintage Black Magic" and "The Devil Intimate".  

Tried my best to get past my bias on this one, since the rest of the album is admittedly amazing, but this one isn't for me. I'll have to come back to this in a month or so to see if it still rubs me the wrong way. 

3.5/5

I've listened to quite a bit of Within Temptation thanks to stumbling upon them quite a few years ago thanks to my love of Nightwish at the time, but I never decided to go back and check out any of their albums prior to The Silent Force. In terms of female-fronted Symphonic Metal bands they've always seemed to have taken a backseat to their peers, especially since they weren't as operatic or theatrical as early Nightwish or as extreme and dense as Epica, opting for simple but effective songs that use symphonic elements as a backdrop rather than pushing them into the forefront. This is especially apparent with their debut release which is much more in line with Gothic and Doom Metal compared to any of their more modern albums with its moody piano, strings, and somber vocal performance from Sharon den Adel. Since Within Tempation have gone completely off the deep end with 2019 release Resist, Enter was honestly a breath of fresh air that gave me a nice perspective into a mediocre but interesting group that doesn't necessarily deserve to be brushed aside when talking about 2000's Symphonic Metal. 

Overall I enjoyed this album. Even though it's a bit draggy and plodding, I definitely prefer the Gothic Within Temptation compared to pretty much anything else they've done, save for a couple standout songs on The Silent Force. The harsh vocals are admittedly a bit much; guitarist Robert Westerholt doesn't exactly have the most compelling technique in the world, but they work well enough within the brooding atmosphere of the album and provided a nice contrast to Adel's vocals. Her vocals are a bit shaky throughout though, partially due to poor writing on certain occasions, but also due to it being a bit too sing-songy for how Gothic this album sounds. Even though nothing really stands out about this album, I still think it's a solid piece of symphonic-heavy Gothic Metal with a nice atmosphere and some decent replayability. It also really helped to paint the full picture about the evolution of Within Tempation's sound leading up to The Silent Force and eventually into the downfalls of Hydra and Resist. 

And hey, I think "Blooded" is a fine instrumental transition between "Grace" and "Candles". 

3.5/5

May

ERRA - "Gungrave" - ERRA (2021)

May

Chevelle - "Mars Simula" - Niratias (2021)

May

ERRA - "Lunar Halo" - Erra (2021) (5:52)

Liquid Tension Experiment - "Hypersonic" - Liquid Tension Experiment 3 (2021) (8:25)

Dvne - "Towers" - Etemen Ænka (2021) (9:05)

Genghis Tron - "Dream Weapon" - Dream Weapon (2021) (5:13)

May

Satyricon - "Dark Medieval Times" - Dark Medieval Times (1994)

Mare Cognitum - "Luminous Accretion" - Solar Paroxysm (2021)

Manegarm - "Skymningsresa" - Vredens Tid (2005)

This one was decent, nothing really much for me to say except it was a perfectly fine, run of the mill Thrash record. There's a few great riffs and some decently used storytelling elements but nothing that makes me want to go back for more than the few times I spent with it.

May

Traveler - "Starbreaker" - Traveler (2019) (5:41)

Týr - "Empire of the North" - Hel (2019) (5:11)

Steel Prophet - "Lucifer / The Devil Inside" - The God Machine (2019) (3:37)

Kamelot - "The Black Halo" - The Black Halo (2005) (3:43)

Firewind - "Land of Eternity" - Forged By Fire (2005) (5:50)

DragonForce - "Seasons" - The Power Within (2012) (5:05)

Buckle up, it's gonna be a long one here. Since Inhuman Rampage is somewhat of a "classic" now, considering how notorious "Through the Fire and Flames" is, I might as well do some kind of review for it. I'd rather write some unfiltered thoughts here before trimming it down for a real review.

Considering the rest of the Academy leans towards the negative side here, I'll open with this: Dragonforce aren't a terrible band. Incredible take, I know, but Reaching Into Infinity, Maximum Overload, and Extreme Power Metal aren't bad albums by any stretch. I may be reaching on Extreme Power Metal, but I like how they finally and fully embraced their cheesiness in a love it or hate it kind of way. "Defenders" and "Symphony of the Night" off of Maximum Overload are good Power Metal songs that actually don't sound too much like "Through the Fire and Flames", believe it or not. “Seasons” is pretty good too! However, I concede that it's really easy to dislike DragonForce, so they've probably gotten a lot more hate than they deserve considering how many other over-the-top but boring Power Metal acts are out there making music.

The funny thing for me is that discussing DragonForce as an overall band or concept is way more interesting than their actual music. Most people only know DragonForce because of "Through the Fire and Flames", which by itself is a pretty good song. It's technically impressive, high-octane, and instantly recognizable even when compared to other Power Metal bands. However, DragonForce kind of had criticism coming to them when they decided that they were going to base their entire career around just playing that one song in different forms over, and over, and over for an entire album. Obviously Inhuman Rampage was released before the gigantic "Through the Fire and Flames" boom, so they chose this path before they knew that song was going to be their claim to fame. So, when people heard "Through the Fire and Flames" and wanted more DragonForce, they were greeted with 7 other tracks (plus a ballad) that sounded eerily similar to it. Alright, but most Bolt Thrower songs sound kind of the same, so only saying that doesn't necessarily make the album a dud, right?

Well, there's similar, and then there's DragonForce similar. As I was listening to the album I figured out a rough analogy to how I feel about everything that goes on in Inhuman Rampage. DragonForce has 5 or 6 interchangeable building blocks, or generic pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that all fit together but can be rearranged into whatever order to create the nonspecific structure of a song. Nothing necessarily fits perfectly, but it fits well enough. It feels like DragonForce has a guitar solo piece, a furious picking of the same note and calling it a "riff" piece, a random electronic transition or break piece, a power chord chorus piece, an outro that sounds suspiciously like the TTFAF outro piece, plus a few others that I can't be bothered to name. These same pieces are used in each and every song and are completely interchangeable. I guarantee that you can throw the guitar solo of "Revolution Deathsquad" into "Operation Ground and Pound" and it'd sound perfectly fine. You can replace the verse of "Storming the Burning Fields" with a verse of "Body Breakdown" and it'd probably work. I think the reason this works is because DragonForce's song structure is so incredibly segmented that I felt like I was listening to a Dream Theater song during certain parts with how random certain transitions, or lack thereof, are. There are so many parts where everything just stops for half a beat as if there was a blip in the system and the whole band goes "Ok another guitar solo? Yeah? Ok 3, 2, 1, GO". Everything just feels so pieced together in the most extreme way I've heard out of pretty much any album.

Even though these guys are talented players, they really needed to expand the amount of things they can play back then. Their drummer only knows one groove of galloping double bass and one or two fills, all three guitarists can only redo the solo structure of TTFAF for the entire album, the bassist is basically nonexistent until that one part in "Body Breakdown", and the vocalist is only serviceable in my opinion. There are also zero, absolutely no riffs in this album, which is why I think it's such a slog. The only "riff" DragonForce plays is either furious 16th note picking on the same note or drawn out power chords, meaning there's nothing memorable or interesting. There's also quite a few bad decisions made with the harsh vocals and with most of the electronic elements. The harsh vocals sound absolutely awful and are pushed back so far in the mix that I'm wondering why they even decided to include them at all. The electronic elements are incredibly cheesy and random, not necessarily going along with anything and only sounding at home in "Cry For Eternity" thanks to the schlocky (but good) chorus that pulls it all together.

The only thing left is the solos and man do DragonForce really, really try to create some impressive sounding solos. So much, in fact, that almost half of the album is solos. I counted. The album is around 55 minutes long, and there’s about 21 minutes of solo sections, give or take. That’s a LOT by any metric, and they don’t really do anything interesting with all that time.

Again, I don’t think that DragonForce is a bad band, and they’ve gotten a lot more hate than they deserve. But I need to rate this in line with everything else, so the score didn’t turn out so great. I listen to a lot of dull Power Metal that I feel like I never have to listen to again, and Inhuman Rampage on the whole falls into that category. Still though, DragonForce is an interesting topic in general considering how they got thrust into the spotlight in the way that they did.

2/5

Les Chants de Nihil - Le Tyran Et L'esthète (2021)

This feels criminally underrated on RYM and doesn't seem to have too many people talking about it, thanks to Sonny for highlighting it because I definitely would have skipped over it. This is easily one of the more interesting Black Metal albums of 2021 so far and holds up against records like Solar Paroxysm, Forhist, and Burn In Many Mirrors despite some weak sections here and there. 

I normally don't listen to too many of our playlists but I'm slowly coming around to checking them out every now and again, and yeah this was an extremely good one. Sadly I had to listen to it on shuffle so it lost a bit of its charm but looking at the listing here I can see that Daniel did a fantastic job structuring it. 

I wouldn't get your hopes up for Accept or Todd La Torre Vinny, "Zombie Apocalypse" is good and is a decent showcase of how modern Accept sounds, but I personally found the rest of the album to be an awkward slog. There's still a few killer tracks in there though. Same with Todd La Torre, "Hellbound and Down" is an obvious highlight along with 2 or 3 other tracks but then it gets a bit monotonous. 

The only thing I'll say on my end is that I was really surprised by "Symptom of the Universe", couldn't believe I was listening to Sabbath when it came on, and apparently I rated Sabatoge a 3.5 when I went on my short Sabbath kick? That just doesn't seem right, gonna have to go back and fix that sometime this month. 

Steel Bearing Hand - Slay In Hell

Paging Daniel and Vinny.

Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

I'm getting dangerously close to finally completing the 1st Decade Black Metal list and this was definitely a cool one. The way it incorporates a folk/fantasy atmosphere into an aggressively grindy Black Metal album is neat, even though it's definitely flawed in a lot of ways.

I've got 5 more old Black Metal albums to review and it's getting tough, I feel like I'm really starting to repeat myself. I might go back and redo my In The Nightside Eclipse review since that album deserves more than one paragraph, but I'm not sure. 

Forhist - Forhist

I think Forhist was already mentioned somewhere in The North but I've been consistently going back to this one and I'm impressed every time. This is a solo offshoot of Blut Aus Nord with frontman Vindsval and it sounds fantastic, I love the subtle dynamic choices on it throughout. The blast beat snare growing and lessening in volume is something I don't think I've heard out of Atmospheric Black Metal and this makes me want to hear more of it in the future. The atmosphere is great too, with all of the classic sounding electronics blending in wonderfully. This release might grow even more on me through the year, even though the final two songs might be a bit of a letdown, I'll have to see. 

Very surprising for sure Daniel, you'll be happy to know Evergrey have been doing the same sort of thing since 2014's Hymns for the Broken, they're an extremely consistent band if nothing else. So you've got a lot more material to go through at the risk of it getting too samey. I'm torn on whether you'll like The Atlantic more than this one or not, you might find it a bit too cheesy since it has a bit more electronic melody elements to it. I like the riffs and choruses of that one more than this one at the end of the day though. 

As if this song isn't miraculous enough, Zaher Zorgati (Myrath) provides the Arabic lyrics and chanting that would mesmerize you into oblivion. 

I didn't know this, pretty cool considering I like Myrath quite a bit. It's funny because the first time I listened to the album and "Code of Life" came on I legitimately thought to myself "Oh hey Epica are trying to be Myrath for a song", turns out I wasn't too far off. 

I've really been enjoying Little Turtle's War this year, consistently been going back to it for the past month or so. Has a great theme and some great songwriting. 

And I didn't know that Saor had a separate project, looks like I have some stuff to catch up on. 

Escape of the Phoenix was actually an album I reviewed early on in the year, since I did the same for The Atlantic two years ago. 

Xephyr's Escape of the Phoenix Review

Evergrey have definitely found the niche that they want to play at this point in their career, and while it's not as particularly exciting as their older, more progressive material, it's far from bad. There are a few good songs in here, and a few forgettable ones. I think the lack of a cohesive theme compared to The Atlantic is what made me much less enthusiastic about it and even though I listened to this one quite a bit in order to write a review, I don't feel the need to go back to it apart from occasionally turning on "Leaden Saints" or "Eternal Nocturnal". 

The best thing this album did though? It gave me a James LaBrie feature that didn't make me wince in agony since modern Dream Theater is a bit of a tough sell for me personally. I count that as a win.

3.5/5

Could Blue Stahli's 2021 album be added please, thank you.

Could Enforced's 2021 album be added please, thank you.

Moving over a backlog of ratings, here's some stuff to add:

The Scalar Process – Horde

Devil’s Reef – Horde

Moving over a backlog of ratings, here's some stuff to add: 

Acid Mammoth 2021 album

Dopelord 2021 album

Moving over a backlog of ratings, here's some stuff to add:

Ulthima

Einherjer 

Intig

Old Nick 2021 album

Moongates Guardian 2021 album

Sur Austru