Swedish masters of melodic death metal Amon Amarth are back with their new opus. This new full length contains nine songs. Some of the songs have usual Viking melodic death metal themes with great epic melodies and catchy hooks crossbred with brutality of primordial mid tempo death metal which somehow became courtesy trademark of this great band. Get In The Ring is a classic epic Amon Amarth opener with lyrics a bit different from their themes. The title song has too many groove moments and kind of not so powerful chorus, so it did not impress me so much. Heidrun is one of my personal favorites on this album, somehow reminding me of Thyrfing, in riffs and songwriting. Johan Hegg´s voice is powerful and brutal, but I love how I understand almost everything he is singing and that is a trademark of excellent death metal singer. Oden Owns You All reminds by title of Einherjer but music is vintage Amon Amarth with such sweet melodic guitar work, making it one of the best on this opus. Find A Way Or Make One is hard hitter with uplifting warrior lyrics and anthemic chorus, some say that Amon rehash all their albums over and over again, but I beg the differ. Or if they do it, they do it perfectly. Dawn Of Norsemen did not sit for me right, maybe because it lacks something, just to be a great song, this way it is only a decent one. Now we come on best part of this opus, Saxons And Vikings, featuring excellent guest performance by Saxon´s Biff Byford, thus creating a perfect mixture of these two warrior folk. I listened to this one over and over again. Skagul Rides With Me is an epic decent anthem of warrior pride and never surrendering defiance. The Serpent´s Trail is the longest song on this opus and finishes this record with rolling and epic guitar work, great lyrics and songwriting. Good album.
A Dance in Yellow is a one man band or project if you want, hailing from Germany. This opus is the second full length and it contains intro and outro plus nine more stories told as songs. The music of A Dance in Yellow is basically melodic death black metal with lost of prog metal influences here and there and impressive musicianship, especially guitar work and vocals which range from death metal growling to black metal extreme singing and screeching, also some almost gothic singing I can hear in some song parts. Lyrical side of things is somehwere in Robert W.Chambers and H.P.Lovecraft influenced atmosphere of horror and listening to this one almost made me physically feel the cosmic horror and ancient ones lurking upon mankind. Atmosphere is vital with endeavors like this opus and here A Dance in Yellow manage to create a horror like prey upon unsuspecting individual listening to this opus. So, close your eyes, open your darkened hearts and souls, look to the sky, see the stars aligned and enter the world of bleak darkness and pain, but also enlightenment. Personal favorites: Fire and Steel, Born of the Ancients, Torn Apart.
Wrath Of The Nebula are hailing from France and being relatively new band in the scene, formed in 2018, but its members are in no way new, having played in so many bands and projects of extreme music scene in France and abroad. Anyway, this is the debut full length opus of this entity, and it contains intro plus eleven songs. Wrath Of The Nebula play fantastic mixture of melodic death metal with lots of sympho parts involving keyboards and atmospheric parts, but also thrash and fast parts with aggression giving more way and expression to melody with awesome vocals bordering from growling, screams to superb harsh melodic and clean vocals fitting perfectly to the songs. Musicianship is phenomenal and the whole vibe of the record takes me to some other frightening yet eye opening dimension. Theme of the lyrics is more existential, space and continuum oriented, from ancient cultures to aliens and space. Songs like DNA Of The Gods(watch the video), When Galaxies Collide or Fractal Dimensions are my personal favorites but listen because with every listening you will find something more and interesting and that is the true beauty and relevance of this opus.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 