Thousand Year War are hailing from USA and apparently there are only two entities in this band, namely Hiram Lohr-Guitars, Keys, Bass and Bryan Arant- Drums. This is band’s second EP and it contains five songs of pagan Viking metal. Some of the song parts reminded me of Bathory a lot, like ‘Kingdom Of Nastrond’. I love the mixture of screeching vocals with clean sung parts and you can understand what is being sung most of the time. Music? A mixture of melodic death/black metal with pagan Viking metal and guitar and keyboard melodies are very catchy and get into your ear like for example excellent title song. The music is warrior pride and aggressive, but at the same time has that melancholy in guitar riffs and sometimes sadness, at least I hear it like that. My personal favorites are the title song and ‘Hammer to the Heart of Christ’. Great pagan Viking metal indeed!
Eight Feet Fine were founded in January 2021 and are hailing from Rhineland area in Germany. This is their new EP containing five excellent songs. What can we expect here? There is nineties melodic punk rock reminding me a lot of Bouncing Souls but being so much more. They are fronted by singer Sascha who has such beautiful voice, just made for songs like these, reminding me a bit of Greg from Bouncing Souls mixed with color of voice Frank Turner has, who also influenced songwriting of these guys. Lyrics are personal but you can relate to most of the stuff being sung about. I love songs like ‘She’s Got Your Smile’ or the title track and am a bit saddened to have only this EP because I would love to see these guys perform live and also a whole full length album would be in order of course. So, if you are into melodic punk with indie and some tiny folk influences check these guys out. I love it!
Ape Metro are hailing from New York and this is their new single featuring two songs. This is one of those modern hardcore bands playing mixture of some hardcore punk roots but also thrash metal and delivering what we called ‘new school’ hardcore back in the nineties. ‘The Leech’ is great song with some fast parts and wicked catchy guitar work on solo guitar during hardcore punk fast part. ‘Scarab’ is more complex, slower metalcore song reminding me a lot of Integrity and such bands. Vocals are screaming, the whole atmosphere on this release is more darkened and apocalyptic, this is not your posi core stuff, but deliverance through suffering.
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