Arch Enemy long ago stopped only to be Swedish band, although originally they started as one. Now, they are international band of creative and fantastic talented musicians still led by Michael Amott formerly known of Carcass, Carnage and couple of more bands. This is Arch Enemy’s album number 13, first one in three years. This opus contains 11 songs, one being Blaspheme cover. It starts pretty aggressive in their trademark harsh death thrash metal way with energetic Dream Stealer. What I love about this band are epic guitar melodies thrown in brutality courtesy of Amott and Joey Concepcion topped with fantastic voice of singer Alissa White-Gluz who started to vary between her brutal growling and clean melodic singing in last couple of albums. One of the most epic and melodic songs with beautiful clean vocals chorus is for sure Illuminate The Path, one of my favorites on this record. Title song is also one of my highlights on this record, because I love more those melodic epic songs with so called Swedish guitars and this one nailed it like no other on this record. Couple of more songs I must mention on this album are The Pendulum, Paper Tiger and Liars & Thieves. This is not one of their best works but it is a damn good album.
Autumn is almost upon us, and what better way than to greet it with some quality black metal. USBM scene is great, brimming with superb bands and projects all around. Blackbraid is one of them being a one man entity and this is the third full length opus containing 10 songs one being Lord Belial cover. Blackbraid describes its music like Native American black metal and in fact it is a quality mixture of pagan and melodic black metal with blastbeats, but also slower atmospheric parts and epic melodies reminding of their Scandinavian counterparts. This opus kind of functions like one atmospheric instrumental, then one song and so on. Vocals are screaming black metal voice, but you can understand some of what is being sung so this is another plus. If you love your black metal aggressive, melodic and epic, melancholic at the same time, go listen to this one, you will not regret it. My personal favorites: And He Became The Burning Stars, The Dying Breath Of A Sacred Stag. Excellent record.
I think that 6 years have passed since last Booze & Glory full length called Hurricane. It was such amazing album for me that I thought they will find it hard to make the same level album again or even better. Fortunately I was wrong. There were some line-up changes again like we are already used to from this band, singer Mark being only constant in the band although drummer Frank is also long time member of the band. For those who don’t know, these guys play melodic version of streetpunk/OI with anthemic choruses just made to sing along and lyrics to which you can identify with and they hit you right on the spot. There are 11 anthems on this album, my personal favorites being Family Isn’t Always Blood, Jimmy Fake, I’d Die For You and Legends. There is a kinda ballad at the end of the album, song called The One And Only, awesome song but different from the rest of material. This is another lesson in melodic streetpunk that this band delivered flawlessly.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 