01. Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter 04:09 02. Two Lives Worth of Reckoning 04:56 03. The Thrill 04:33 04. Deliverance is Mine 03:50 05. Night Comes Clean 05:11 06. King of the Threshold 04:57 07. Let This River Flow 05:20 08. Epitome 04:45 09. The Akuma Afterglow 04:29 10. Enter Dog of Pavlov 05:36

Swedish melodic death metal stalwarts Soilwork recorded their last album, 2007’s ‘Sworn to a Great Divide’, without founding lead guitarist Peter Wichers, but overcame his departure to turn out a surprisingly decent effort; the band didn’t try to copycat his distinctive technical guitar style (well, apart from maybe on “The Pittsburgh Syndrome“), but instead focused on their other strengths, like Bjorn Strid’s impressive vocal range. As a result, there were a lot more big, catchy choruses, and Sven Karlsson’s keyboards played a slightly more central role - fair enough, it may have been a slightly more “commercial” approach, but it was still recognisably Soilwork, and it was still pretty damn good. However, Wichers returned almost as quickly as he’d left, and is very much a driving factor on the band’s latest (eighth) album, ‘The Panic Broadcast’.

One might be tempted to expect the return of Wichers to simply see the band revert to the style they were pursuing before he left, to just carry on like ‘Sworn to a Great Divide’ hadn’t happened. To their credit, though, they’ve continued that sound to a great extent, but at the same time re-integrated the technical guitar wizardry of their founding lead guitarist. It’s a real progression, a step forward for the band, and a pleasing sign of a band willing to push forward and pursue evolution in their music. Which is all well and good, as long as the music is also up to scratch - and happily for all involved, ‘The Panic Broadcast’ is also a good collection of songs.
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01. Birth 6:11 02. You Better Be Dead 3:43 03. Quake 5:46 04. Redemption 4:42 05. Mute 3:42 06. Pyroclastic Storms 4:36 07. Deceived 4:12 08. Demonride 3:23 09. Hate 4:29 10. Tears 2:20

Here’s a question: what’s the first thing you think of when you hear the term ‘metal’?
a) A chemical element, compound, or alloy characterised by high electrical conductivity.
b) Some chaps with terrible hair-dos, wearing spandex pants stuffed with socks and strutting to squealy guitars.
c) RAAAAARGH, RAAAAARGH, RARARARARARRRGHH, CHF-CHF-CHF-CHF-CHF-DM-DM-DM-DM FWWWWOOOOOOAAAAARRRRGGGHHH.

If you picked C, then you might enjoy Sweden’s Igneous Human, and their debut album ‘Pyroclastic Storms’. The stereotypes that people have about metal – you know, those ‘it’s all just noise!’ and ‘you can’t even understand what they’re saying!’ ones – are pretty much spot-on when it comes to this band. But hey, that’s never stopped metalheads enjoying this style before. The problem with ‘Pyroclastic Storms’ is that… well, it’s just not as good as other similar offerings out there.
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01. Courage Today, Victory Tomorrow! 03:55 02. So it Begins 03:24 03. As Yggdrasil Trembles 04:52 04. Wir Kapitulieren Niemals 03:26 05. This Time We Fight 03:02 06. Master Of The Ancient Art 03:48 07. Cheif Einherjar 03:42 08. Return Fire 04:04 09. Far Beyond Hell 03:18 10. Dead to Me 02:47 11. Yahweh and the Chosen Ones 03:52 12. Cannibalistic Epidemic Continues 04:59 13. Evil Dead 02:32

‘Viking Metal’. There seems to be a lot of that going around, nowadays. Unleashed are generally looked at as having been one of the key Viking Metal bands since the early 90s, but I’d like to make a point even at this early stage - what the hell is Viking Metal?! Basically, it appears to be death metal, or melodic death metal, that just happens to be about Vikings. So…it’s bands who make a career out of a single lyrical theme. Shouldn’t that get old, after a while?

Now, I find Vikings and Norse mythology as interesting (yeah, alright, read that as “cool”) as the next man, providing he’s clutching an axe and in possession of a truly epic beard. It seems like there should be a “but” here, but honestly, there’s not… Despite the question I posed literally seconds ago, don’t care if the whole Viking thing is getting old for you - I still fucking love it. And as a result, in my book, ‘As Yggdrasil Trembles’ is by extension also really cool.

Thankfully, the music also backs me up on that one. Yeah, it is just death metal that happens to be about Vikings, but it’s really rather good death metal. That happens to be about Vikings. The album for the most part strikes a decent balance between technical execution and something called “song writing” which results in a group of songs that are very heavy, but not overly fast-paced or intricate; at times, you’d actually call it catchy. There’s a solid, sort of bluesy mid-tempo heartbeat to the album you can tap your foot and nod your head to, and even growl along to the vocals if you can make them out. Basically, Vikings haven’t sounded this cool since Amon Amarth.
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01. Valley of the Damned 04:17 02. Hang Him High 04:35 03. Solar Empire 05:15 04. Weed Out the Weak 03:50 05. No Tomorrow 04:16 06. Global Domination 05:14 07. Taste the Extreme Divine 03:36 08. Alive 04:21 09. The Quest 05:31 10. Tamed (Filled With Fear) 04:39 11. Sky’s Falling Down 04:31

Peter Tägtgren is something of a legend in his own right, thanks to his impressive list of production credits; he’s produced albums by Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Dimmu Borgir, Sabaton and Celtic Frost. In fact, he even managed to poach drummer Horgh from black metal legends Immortal (yes, those guys from the forest - Youtube “Call of the Wintermoon” if you don’t know what I mean) for his own band, Hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy have been around on the death metal scene for 20 years, now. They’ve released ten albums since 1992, and now grace us with the eleventh, “A Taste of Extreme Divinity”. Their pedigree has never been in doubt - for example, Children of Bodom axe-master Alexi Laiho teamed up with them on the tour for latest album - but theirs is not a name which has been on the lips of the metal community of late. The hope was that this latest effort would see them returned to the forefront of the oh-so-convoluted Swedish death metal scene.
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01. Passing 8:31 02. Phantom Pain 6:51 03. Dare You 6:45 04. Fate 4:38 05. He Will Kill Again 7:32 06. Not Even A Name 8:46 07. Tall Poppy Syndrome 8:28 08. White 11:32

Sometimes it’s better just not to mix things: chicken and ice cream; petrol and fire; The X Factor and recording contracts. This rule has been overlooked by Leprous. Don’t let the name fool you, they’re not a death metal band, or are they? While the Norwegian five-piece last seen as the backing band of Emperor mastermind Ihsahn are superbly technical, they cannot seem to settle on a particular sound, instead opting for a mish-mash of all things metal. The result is both stunning and disastrous.

The album opens with the theme of Dracula emerging from his coffin, before such gothic refrains fade into a quiet vocal section to his credit, frontman Einar Solberg has probably one of the most diverse voices in metal. Suddenly, his sombre crooning erupts into a frightening death metal screech, while the guitars and drums follow suit. A chorus of ‘No way of sharing the pain that I feel’ (awww) then soars above the riffery, before it all collapses back into the mellow part. Repeat this again, but add in a laid-back guitar solo, a George Fisher regurgitation and a Hansi Kursch scream, and that’s a wrap. And that’s just the first song, ‘Passing’.
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01. MindPlague 3:39 02. Rain 4:58 03. Beast In The Cage 3:33 04. Mechantical 2:30 05. Crehate 4:21 06. Rise Above 3:37 07. No Fucking Way 2:05

Ahh, Sweden. Have they ever let us down in terms of death metal? From the moment that the intro to ‘MindPlague’ sweeps in and impacts your lugholes, you know this EP is going to be a good listen. Hailing from Gothenburg (come on, where else?), Despite are a beardy five-piece melodic death metal band. You’ve heard it all before, you say? Hold on there, because there’s more than that going on here.

On first listen, they sound like In Flames - which there’s nothing wrong with. But it’s only when you listen to the intricacies woven throughout the sonic bombast that you can fully appreciate this record. The aforementioned opening track features a mellowed middle eight in which Alex Losb‰ck’s vocals come remarkably close to those of Ozzy Osbourne, while the guitar parts of ‘Rain’ could have been lifted out of the System Of A Down textbook. Not that there’s no originality here - it’s just impressive how such different sounds are all encapsulated within the traditional death metal refrains.

The energy displayed by the band is inspiring, to say the least. ‘Rise Above’ has one of those riffs any budding axeman will instantly want to learn how to play (and will probably end up on Guitar Hero one day if fortune smiles upon these Swedes), while closer ‘No Fucking Way’ has one of those violent-yet-uniting metal choruses: ‘I’ll make you fucking pay / I’ll spit on your grave’. Lovely jubbly.
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01. Deathlike Overture (intro) 01:26 02. Esoteric 04:44 03. Rise and Decay 06:10 04. Let the Old World Burn 04:10 05. Darkness Descending 07:09 06. Seclusion 03:46 07. Misery’s Supremacy 07:10 08. Under a Pitch Black Sky 04:52 09. Linger in Doubt 05:18 10. The Legacy of the Defeated 07:21 11. Within Reach (bonus) 03:36

Melodic death metal; Sweden’s gift to world of music. No, ABBA don’t count. So entwined in the gestation and evolution of said genre is the Scandinavian country that some call it the “Gothenburg style”. In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates, Carcass, Arch Enemy; all have marched under the banner of melodic death metal, and it is with this plentiful heritage in mind that I approach ’Esoteric’, the fourth album by Skyfire. They hail from a sparsely-populated municipality right at Sweden‘s southernmost tip called Höör, which I hope to never have to attempt to pronounce aloud. Although ‘Esoteric’ is their fourth album, the band’s approach has changed somewhat after a short hiatus, a five-year break between albums, and several lineup changes.

Despite the fact that they are generally pigeonholed as “melodic death metal”, and also that I have just spent a paragraph talking about just that, I feel the tag fails to credit the plethora of other influences present in Skyfire’s music. It’s immediately apparent that there are strong progressive and symphonic shades to this album; it features both an orchestra and a choir, which make everything seem very epic, and there is heavy use of acoustic piano. This makes a refreshing change from the majority of metal bands’ approach to keyboards, which is centred almost entirely around synth strings, the “orchestral-hit” setting, and the occasional wanky pitch-bend laden solo. Those staples are still in evidence on ‘Esoteric’, but the use of the piano really strengthens the melody, and allows it to go to places which might otherwise have been inaccessible.
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01. Devilizer 3:20 02. Rise Of The Undead 3:53 03. Never Say My Name 2:03 04. Blast 1:51 05. The Seal 2:11 06. Dark Heart 3:00 07. Impure 3:41 08. Summoning The Futura 1:06 09. Anger 2:14 10. We Are The Horde 3:11 11. When The Sun Drowns In Dark 4:33

Vader are back. It’s been three long years since we last heard any new material from the Polish masters of death, and during that period the band has undergone some changes. While everything as always revolves around guitarist/vocalist Piotr Wiwczarek, he’s brought in new faces on drums, rhythm guitar and bass, with Vader’s casualty list of previous members now well into double figures. Perhaps that’s why all we’ve heard from the band lately has been re-issues and compilations; last year alone saw a 25th-anniversary compilation album and the Lead Us!!! EP, which really whet the appetite for new material by revisiting the timeless Art Of War EP. Well, this month, at long last, Vader are sending some brand-new tunes our way.
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