The Asteroid Bullet Belt

The North will never forget this one.  Day two of one of the busiest weekends of the year so far, and let me tell you, it was something else. Thessaloniki doesn’t often get metal festivals, only shows that have what could be perceived as having too many acts for a single evening, but Up the Hammers – Call of the North was anything but that. Six bands, and a thoroughly reasonable starting time of 17:00, what else could one possibly ask for? I haven’t been to a proper festival since the first iteration of the Release Festival back in 2019, and although I have always been of the opinion that I’d rather attend a show with 3 bands than a full-fledged festival, passing up the opportunity to see some of the bands who appeared here was inconceivable to me. What are the odds I’d be able to see Eternal Champion, Liege Lord, and Solitude Aeturnus on the same bill in my life? Sure, the lineup is nowhere near as stacked as the one that appeared over the course of 4 days down in Athens, but this...

A blast from the distant past of 2023. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on May 4th 2024)   I’ve always been a “music first” type of guy when it came to metal music, but it’s a fact that the genre is in no small part defined by its aesthetics, especially when it comes to the musicians’ appearance and the album art. Air Raid is no exception to this rule, and they’re probably among the most committed I’ve seen in the NWOTHM scene, with the band members being dressed in uncomfortably tight leather outfits and the artwork of today’s subject, Fatal Encounter being steeped in late 70s-early 80s chrome sci-fi nostalgia. Unsurprisingly, this sets some expectations as to what awaits the moment you press play, something that the group is more than happy to deliver on. Air Raid’s bread and butter on their fourth full-length is something that has defined the modern Swedish heavy metal scene, that being straightforward and speedy tunes with an emphasis on catchy voc...

Ascending to the pantheon. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on February 7th 2024)  When it comes to heavy/power metal, I am always looking for something that manifests what is commonly referred to as “big dick energy”. It needs to have a certain something that I find on the harder-edged works of bands like Manilla Road and Visigoth, to name a few. I don’t actively hunt for stuff like that, seeing as it’s not my go-to genre, but when a release like that falls on my lap I end up getting hooked on it for days on end. Such is the case with Steel Arctus’ sophomore release, Master of War , whose comic book aesthetic made for quite the enticing first impression, and unsurprisingly encapsulated the music therein. The trio presents us with 8 stomping heavy metal anthems, replete with thundering double bass, crunchy riffing, and gruff vocals that aren’t afraid to soar every once in a while. It’s distilled classic heavy metal essence, and it’s unwavering in its cons...

Boy, these coils sure are tight. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on January 25th 2024.)  While the waves of revivalism have been running strong throughout the metal underground for more than a decade now, bands in the traditional metal niche have always been a bit more committed. There’s something admirable about their stubborn adherence to the 80s sounds on just about every level, to the point where sometimes you forget they formed after the 80s. Among those bands, and a personal favourite of mine is Ironsword, who despite being around since the mid-90s only hit their stride after the turn of the century. Despite being five full-lengths deep into their career, they aren’t particularly keen on releasing EPs of any kind, so seeing In the Coils of Set piqued my curiosity quite a bit. While I did originally dismiss it as pointless due to it containing a song that appeared on their (at the time of writing) latest release, it turns out that there’s more than...

Darkthrone time travels to Tumblr circa 2014. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on November 14th, 2022)  The band that everyone loves to love and loves to hate is has returned, and they give just as little of a fuck for the world’s opinion as they did the last 30 years. Darkthrone is back ladies and gents, with their newest project Astral Fortress having come out last month. It’s been slightly over a year since their last release, Eternal Hails…… , which was one of the best things the duo had done in the 21st century, so I was curious to see what the future had for us in store after that. Lo and behold, we got new music completely out of the blue, with a very goofy and tongue-in-cheek cover that seems endearing when it comes from these guys. But what about the music itself, does it stack up to their previous works, yes or no? As one would expect from a band as divisive as Darkthrone, the answer lies somewhere in between. While there are songs here that wo...

I was promised sea monsters on the cover. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on March 29th 2022)  There’s something really nice about bands evolving. It doesn’t have to be a radical shift in tone from one project to the next necessarily, but seeing an artist mature and grow in different directions, progressively expanding or changing their sound is always a treat. It’s for this reason that I’ve enjoyed following Ironflame over the past few years. Their transition from classic era Maiden worship towards high-energy, fist-pumping tunes has been quite the treat to observe, and Where Madness Dwells is yet another step in that direction, a successful one at that. Following 2020’s Blood Red Victory , the band has decided to further up the ante in terms of intensity, with more than a few songs here veering off into power/thrash territory. It’s something that was hinted at with some of the more upbeat moments of the previous record, but this newfound aspect of Ir...

March of the Heavy Metal crusaders. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on March 29th 2022)  Truth be told, it took me a while to understand that there was more to power metal than the stuff that’s on the surface, which is genuinely some of the worst the genre has to offer. From 2019 onward though, I’ve come across genuinely good bands, which have provided me with a great deal of fun. Ironflame is one of them, whom I found thanks to the topic of this review, Blood Red Victory . It’s the album that made me go “Hey, maybe power metal is not that bad after all”, and motivated me to look into the genre more. For the band’s third full-length, Andrew D’Cagna provides us with a collection of quality power metal tunes, leading to an anthemic 40 (50 if you count the bonus tracks) minutes. From absolute scorchers like “Gates of Evermore”, which inaugurates the album, to more dramatic mid-tempo cuts like “Night Queen”, the album’s filled with songwriting that doesn’t...

Journeying through the Cosmos. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on February 13th 2022)  Trad metal has been a genre that has slowly grown on me over the past few years. Outside of Iron Maiden, it was never much of a genre that caught my interest, due to its supposed “lack of extremity”. 2021 though was a year which saw me indulge in the style way more than I usually do, and resulted in me getting hooked on a good number of bands, both new and old. Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye out for any releases in the style. One recent release that caught my attention was Eliminator’s Ancient Light , and let me tell you, it wasn’t without reason. This album is an antithesis to everything Iron Maiden has been doing for the past 15 years. There are no overblown, dragged out epics here, or plodding tempos that fail to get the blood pumping (why was Senjutsu well received again?), but there is one very important thing: passion, something our aforementioned legends...

Albums I like a lot: Part V (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on August 27th 2021)   They say every journey starts with a single step, and music, or more precisely metal in this case is no different. I remember listening to Iron Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark” when I was 11 like it was yesterday, for it was that song that sparked my love for metal as a whole. From that point forward the British titans were almost all I listened to for the next two years, before I took a detour into other genres *cough* nu-metal *cough* . Following that though I got back into the good stuff, and the band got back into rotation as if they never left. Picking a favourite album from these guys is the equivalent of having to pick a favourite child (it’s actually rather easy to do the latter but we don’t talk about that), but after a great deal of thinking I settled on their fifth album, the amazing Powerslave . This is probably the first Maiden album where the band came 100% into t...

Why all the ellipses? (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on July 12th, 2021)   Darkthrone should require no introduction at this point. The band’s storied catalogue spans 3 decades full of works that have consistently gone against the grain in terms of what was expected from them. From death metal, to the legendary “Unholy Trinity”, to crust punk, they’ve always done whatever they wanted without any care for trends and what was popular. The 2010’s saw the band indulge in music that inspired them, showing us their passion for heavy metal of old, with albums like The Underground Resistance and Arctic Thunder . Eternal Hails...... (I am not putting the ellipses again) is a continuation of the band’s exploration of old school sounds, this time those of doom metal. Like with most of the duo’s releases over the past decade, there are plenty of moments that bring to mind legends that were a great influence on the band, such as Celtic Frost and Black Sabbath, th...

Rolling with the boys. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on June 7th, 2021)   Traditional heavy metal wasn’t always a genre I was invested in, barring stalwarts like Iron Maiden. Over the past few years though I’ve slowly been dipping my toes into the “New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal” (referred to as NWOTHM), with bands like Haunt and Traveller sparking my interest in the genre, causing me to actually seek out more releases, both past and present. Among those present releases is Tower Hill’s Fighting Spirits demo, a short but sweet serving of speedy trad metal. The three tracks here are very much cast from the mold of modern trad metal, full of galloping riffs, catchy choruses and melodic solos. Moments like the opening of “The Claw Is The Law” and the dramatic vocals of “Antigone” are perfect distillations of the style’s core tenets. Andrew Trainor has an excellent grasp of what makes a good heavy metal track and it shows on every aspect of this rec...