Stormzone already released five mighty albums and now is the time for the new, sixth one and judging by what I listened, this is going to be their best album yet.
New album contains 13 tracks of melodic heroic power metal, not unlike the legendary first two Hammerfall records that I still love to this day. But, we are not talking about the Swedes here, we are talking about Stormzone. Hailing from Belfast, these guys simply did one of the best power metal records that I have listened to in a last couple of years. On this album the band lyrically oriented on myths and legends of their country, Ireland, so the lyrics are heavily based on folklore tales packed in excellent music and vocal arrangements. I personally loved “We Are Strong” and “The Heaven You Despise” the most on this record, but all of the tracks are indeed memorable with anthemic choruses and catchy vocal melodies and guitar hooks. I would love to bang my head and sing along their anthems with Stormzone at one of their gigs and hopefully one day will do so! Until then, I will listen to their albums to memorize the songs for the live show!
The beauty and variety made Finnish underground scene one of the best European scenes. Ode in Black are part of that scene. After releasing their first ep in 2014.they toured a lot before they embarked upon a mission to release their debut album
2018.saw the coming of “Seeds of Chaos” and it consists of eleven tracks of melodic gothic metal/dark rock not unlike the early releases of their countrymen To/Die/For. The guitar structures and riffs are sharp enough to be metal, but all is packed in very dancable gothic rythms, and I can imagine their songs being played in some dark, smokey gothic club and bunch of goths dancing to these tunes. I loved the interaction between male and female vocals in “The sea in which we drown”. The album as a whole is very upbeat and melodic, but what I love about all Finnish bands, whether black metal, gothic, metal or death metal is a sense of quiet despair and melancholy that revolves as silent mist through the songs on their albums. Ode in Black is no exception to that rule. They just took the dark humour and metal of Sentenced and gothic sensibility of To/Die/For and 69 Eyes and packed it in one excellent package! Top songs: “The lone wolf”, “Burn the candle from both ends”.
Genus Ordinis Dei come from Italy, the city of Crema. I must admit I have never heard of this band prior to this record, but I am really glad that I have heard them now, because this is excellent stuff.
They play some sort of modern melodic symphonic death metal with a touch of progressiveness in the song structures. If I must compare the music of this band to someone it would be like Edge of Sanity circa “Purgatory Afterglow” era met Ex Deo. I am talking symphonic parts with choruses, some nice keyboard haunting backgrounds evolving to main melody, catchy guitar hooks and memorable song melodies. Thats how I like my death metal to sound:epic, bombastic, grandiose and aggressive at the same time. Vocals are various and that makes them more enjoyable meaning there are growls, angry almost hardcore like shouting and melodic clean singing. Certainly one of the highlights of the album is for sure “Salem” with guest vocals provided by none other than Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil but this is not the best song on the album, because they are all equally awesome.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 