No Nonsense Metal Reviews

  POWERWOLF: CALL OF THE WILD    German Power Metal preachers Powerwolf are very quickly becoming a household name within the Metal music community. With the release of their excellent eighth album, Call Of The Wild, their notoriety and fame is dest ined to grow exponentially. With an huge cult following, Powerwolf have changed the modern Power Metal game and are rapidly proving themselves as the alpha at the head of the modern Heavy Metal pack.    Bounding like a furious beast, opening blow " Faster Than The Flame " is a formidable Power Metal assault armed with crunchy riffs, relentless drumming, blistering solos, layered with atmospheric organs and led by frontman Attila Dorn's commanding operatic vocals.    Pummelling your ears like cannon fire, " Beast Of Gévaudan " is a marauding monster of a track, with huge hooks and an infectious chorus, collosal synth soundscapes, crunchy riffs and a piercing solo. Eerie chants, tolling bells and creepy keys ...

  DARKTHRONE: ETERNAL HAILS.....    As one of the most influential pioneers of what we now know as the "second wave of Black Metal" (one of the most feared and revered subgenres of Metal music), Darkthrone have earned the undisputable right to create music in whatever sound and style they may choose.     Throughout their career Darkthrone have dabled in many different forms of musical extremity, ranging from their Death Metal debut, through their trve kvlt Black Metal heyday, to forays into Black n' Roll, before drawing on the roots of their influences and branching out into more traditional Heavy Metal approaches with their previous full-length opus, the superb Old Star. So it makes perfect sense that with their latest phenomenal outing, the wonderfully bleak cosmic ride that is Eternal Hails..., Darkthrone are yet again opting for a different tactic. The new approach, the description of which boldly adorns the back cover of the albums physical copy, enscr...

CANCER: DEATH SHALL RISE  (2021 Peaceville 30th Anniversary Re-Release)     Cancer's legendary second album, Death Shall Rise is celebrating its 30th anniversary in brutal style with a long overdue re-release. Physical copies of the album have been rather difficult to get hold of over the years which is partly to blame for this slab of gory gold remaining a firmly underground classic. Cancer's lack of activity and the absence of any notable releases during the late 1990's and 2000's has also hindered this masterpiece from reaching the far wider acclaim that it deserves. Giving Death Shall Rise a fair chance 30 years on will hopefully draw attention to the album, not only to show how fantastic it is, but also just how brilliant and crucial it was to the rising and rotting scene that we now know as Old-School Death Metal.      It would be wrong to say that Death Shall Rise was ahead of it's time. In truth, this album is actually an embodiment of what was...

  CIRITH UNGOL: HALF PAST HUMAN    After their triumphant awakening from near three decades of slumber with the release of 2020's spectacular full-length album Forever Black, lords of underground Heavy Metal Cirith Ungol deliver to the hungry hoards another taste of epic Metal with a follow up EP, Half Past Human. Consisting of 4 old Cirith Ungol gems mined from the vaults and re-recorded with modern methods and means, Half Past Human is a tasty morsel that will satisfy the appetites for all things heavy during this interval between full-length releases.     Being that Half Past Human is comprised of older material, it is to be expected that the overall sound and sense is firmly rooted in the Cirith Ungol style of their earlier Frost And Fire era, which is measurably less Doom leaning and noticeably far more traditionally Heavy Metal in nature. In terms of production the EP is flawless, with a crisp and clear sound courtesy of bassist Jarvis Leatherby and A...