#fellowship — Public Fediverse posts

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#faith
#women
#bible
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#faith
#women
#bible
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#faith
#women
#bible
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#faith
#women
#bible
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#bible
#faith
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#bible
#faith
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#bible
#faith
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

#bible
#faith
#church
#fellowship

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

This spring, fancy a picnic on the lawn? The Women of Bedfordview Methodist Church will be presenting a picnic and tea garden on the grounds of our recently revamped property at 4 De Wet street. Happening on Saturday 26 September at 10:00, it promises to be a beautiful way to spend your mid-morning. Tickets are only R100, and you can book yours by emailing [email protected]

#Church #Fellowship

FRIAS Fellows often tell us how much their thinking and research projects benefit from presenting their work to curious and inspiring scholars from other academic and cultural backgrounds. Explaining their ideas to new audiences encourages them to approach their research differently and develop fresh perspectives.

FRIAS offers the time, space and supportive environment to reflect on these encounters and carry new ideas forward.

The FRIAS Fellowship Programmes 2027/28 once again give researchers the opportunity to advance their own research project at @unifreiburg while joining the international and interdisciplinary FRIAS community.

🏅Fellowships will be awarded to individuals with challenging and innovative research projects of top academic quality through a highly competitive, strictly merit-based selection process.

📅 Fellowship Period: between 1 September 2027 and 31 August 2028
📅 Application deadline: 18 September 2026, 13:00 CET
👉 More info: https://uni-freiburg.de/frias/funding/frias-fellowship-programmes/

#CallForApplications #CfA #Fellowship #ResearchFellowship #EarlyCareerResearchers #PostDoc #ResearchFunding #ResearchGrant
#InterdisciplinaryResearch #IAS #InstituteforAdvancedStudy

Photo Of The Day 15th August 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/08/15/photo-of-the-day-15th-august-2026/

#CfA for our 2027 Augustin Hirschvogel #Fellowship. We invite #historians, #geographers, #cartographers, #arthistorians and scholars in related fields w/ focus on Eastern or #SoutheastEurope to apply. Research stay of up to 4 weeks.
🗓️ Deadline: September 30, 2026
➡️ https://leibniz-ios.de/en/knowledge-transfer/news/newsdetail/augustin-hirschvogel-fellowship-at-the-ios-2027

What could you achieve with up to ten months fully dedicated to your research project? What if you could pursue it in an inspiring academic environment, surrounded by an international community and supported by a dedicated team?

The FRIAS Fellowship Programmes are designed to give researchers time, space and support to advance their projects, exchange ideas across disciplines and develop new perspectives.

Located at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities, FRIAS invites researchers from around the world and across disciplines to apply for a fellowship. Our programmes contain:

🔹 Early Career Fellowships
for researchers who obtained their PhD within the past eight years

🔹 Senior Fellowships
for researchers with a PhD and at least eight years of postdoctoral experience

🔹 Sustainable Governance Senior Fellowships
for Social Sciences and Humanities researchers based in Africa

🗓️ Application deadline: 18 September 2026, 13:00 CET
Start of the programme: flexible between 1 September 2027 and 31 August 2028.

🔁 Please share this CfA with researchers in your network who might be interested.
🔗More information and detailed eligibility criteria: https://uni-freiburg.de/frias/funding/frias-fellowship-programmes/

#Fellowship #ResearchFunding
#FundingOpportunity #AcademicJobs
#Postdoc #AcademicOpportunities#FRIAS #Humanities #SocialSciences #GlobalResearch #Academicjobs #EarlyCareerResearchers
#SeniorResearchers #CfA #CallforApplications

Gerhard—Lutheran scholastic theologian—identifies a contradiction worth sitting with. You wish to be a son of God, yet refuse to own God’s other sons as your brothers. He resolves the question of worthiness neatly: if the person deserves love, love them for that. If they don’t, love them because God—who does deserve everything—commands it. Even loving an enemy demonstrates friendship with God. The logic is airtight. The application is, apparently, optional.

#christian #lutheran #fellowship

📢 #CfA Ludwig und Margarethe Quidde #Fellowship

📍ab dem 01. Januar 2027 oder zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt | #Stipendien zur #Förderung von #Forschungsaufenthalten in #Italien | am #DHIRom

📅 Bewerbungsschluss: 14. August 2026

🔗 https://application.dhi-roma.it/Jobs/Detail/1140843b-8d00-4e0f-a69f-aa24097d11ca

Embracer Group split again spinning off their biggest IP, along with plans for IP partnerships https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/05/embracer-group-split-again-spinning-off-their-biggest-ip-along-with-plans-for-ip-partnerships/

#Fellowship #Embracer #Gaming #PCGaming

Embracer Group split again spinning off their biggest IP, along with plans for IP partnerships #Fellowship #Embracer #Gaming #PCGaming

Embracer Group split again spi...

Manchester Monday 18th May 2026.

https://mancavgeek.co.uk/2026/05/18/manchester-monday-18th-may-2026/

Shining Light of Love (Christian Music) = New Christian song 🎵 to inspire believers! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #SpiritualGrowth #Transformation #Worship #Faith #Hope #Purpose #Love #Praise #Community #Service #YouthGroup #Inspiration #Devotion #Fellowship #Prayer #Guidance #Jesus #Church #Renewal #Salvation #Grace #Redemption #Soul #Strength #Trust - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTT5_bORvmY

Guide My Soul (Christian Music) = Just dropped a spirit-filled song 🙌 for Jesus! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #Faith #Hope #Love #Light #Savior #Journey #Prayer #Community #Worship #Grace #Redemption #Salvation #Gospel #Praise #Fellowship #Spiritual #Devotion #Inspiration #Faithfulness #Trust #Scripture #Purpose #Sacrifice #Renewal #Service - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Rise in Grace (Christian Music) = Worship the Lord 🎼 with this new Christian release! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #Faith #Grace #Strength #YoungChristians #Church #Love #Community #Prayer #Worship #Hope #Bible #Spiritual #Inspiration #Fellowship #Blessing #Joyful #Purpose #Christianity #Peace #Devotion #Trust #Salvation #Growth #Belonging #Encouragement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzEzOa8weDA

Stuck in the Filter: October 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

They say it’s going to be a harsh winter this year. They always say that, and it’s almost never true, at least not from where I’ve set up camp. However, no matter the weather I am a harsh taskmaster, doling out grueling hours, no pay or benefits, and probably the worst coffee on the planet to my dutiful minions. It takes a special kind of person, motivated by pure unadulterated greed to ravenously scour the filter for dusty, almost-forgotten gems like they do.

But we are thankful for them for being exactly that! And we also benefit, in the form of quality(ish) chunks of glimmery, shimmery metal. BEHOLD!

Kenstrosity’s Riffy Representation

Xaoc // Repulsive Summoning [October 31, 2025 – Edgewood Arsenal Records]

Xaoc’s history is one of the more confusing I’ve encountered in my time writing for this blog. After breaking up in 2008, a new lineup spawned in 2022 to record and release Proxime Mortis from the ashes of songs written pre-breakup, supported by Edgewood Arsenal. At some point this year, two more members spawned in anticipation of this new slab Repulsive Summoning. But the band’s labeled as Split Up already on Metallum? I don’t understand what’s going on there, but at least I can say that Repulsive Summoning is a turbo banger! These riffs are bonkers, full of verve and swagger, brimming with groove and muscularity. A happy mix of Vomitory and Dormant Ordeal, this Virginian outfit know how to throw down. Highlights like “Ave Solva Coagula,” “Antima Samskara,” “The Great Perfected Ones,” and the entire “Degenerate Era” three-part suite reduce my body into a fine slurry by the grinding, vicious power of their riffs alone. But the rabid growls, ballistic percussion, and meaty guitar tones contain more than enough fuel to propel those riffs across this tight and thunderous 35-minute runtime. It’s a simple record, built to beat me down and leave me broken and bloodied, but it’s also an effortlessly memorable affair that leaves me wanting more despite the mounting medical bills. Don’t sleep on Xaoc!

Andy-War-Hall’s Succulent Surplus

Canvas of Silence // As the World Tree Fell [October 31st, 2025 – Rockshots Records]

Finnish symphonic metallers Canvas of Silence describe themselves as “prog-influenced chorus metal,” and that description goes far in outlining their debut As the World Tree Fell. Their core sound resembles a progged-out Nightwish moonlighting as a melodeath band, committing ludicrous bombast on symphonic-heavy cuts like “The Great Unknown” and “Wayfarer” amidst a sharp Gothenburg riff attack in “Watching the World Tree Fall” and “Drown.” Canvas of Silence mete out a balanced approach of light and dark sounds between Theocracyesque prog-power (“One With the Wind,” “Humanimal”) and Madder Mortem-like gothic twists (“Drown,” “Anthem for Ashes”), all reined in by the commanding vocal presence of singer Loimu Satakieli.1 Sitting somewhere between Anette Olzon (ex-Nightwish, The Dark Element) and Agnete Kierkevaag (Madder Mortem), her impassioned and heavily-layered singing turns As the World Tree Fell into a smörgåsbord of lush, catchy and anthemic tunes of an uplifting, sing-along nature. Optimism permeates As the World Tree Fell, felt at a fever pitch on the enormous choral bridge of “Humanimal” and the folky power metal jaunt of “One With the Wind.” Even on lyrically dark/mournful passages like “Wayfarer” and “Garden of the Fallen,” Canvas of Silence deliver soaring, hopeful crescendos that at times reach Fellowship levels of good cheer. Canvas of Silence can craft sincerely beautiful moments, and though As the World Tree Fell’s production can be sterile and overly loud2 I am nothing but excited to see what these Finns can cook up next.

Spicie Forrest’s Punky Proferrings

Violent Testimony // Aggravate [October 17th, 2025 – Horror Pain Gore Death Productions]

Do you wish there was more grind in your life? Well, Cheyenne, Wyoming’s Violent Testimony just assumed you would. Combining the punky flair of Napalm Death with the lead foot ethos of early Pig Destroyer and Cattle Decapitation, debut LP Aggravate is 26 minutes of delicious grindy goodness. From the opening salvo of “God Complex Massacre” to the final detonations of “Hit N’ Run,” Violent Testimony shows absolutely no restraint. D.N.’s Gatling drums mow down everything in their path while T.W.’s serpentine bass clears the chaff and flattens any obstruction. Shrapnel propelled by N.Y.’s brutish, breakneck riffing can be seen burying itself in concrete walls, still quivering (“Rider in the Night,” “Psychotic Episode”). Caustic growls and vitriolic screams tear from T.W.’s throat at mach fuck (“Flashbang Celebration,” “Obligatory Manifestation of Infinite Grind”). With only two tracks exceeding the two-minute mark, Violent Testimony screams their piece with as much sound and fury as possible before moving on and picking their next bone with the system. This keeps Aggravate a lean, densely-packed offering. If you need to get pissed off right now and even the fastest death metal is too slow, Violent Testimony is all too happy to decimate the opposition with you.

Uaar // Galger og Brann [October 17th, 2025 – Fysisk Format Records]

Hailing from Oslo, Norway, crust outfit Uaar celebrates their tenth birthday by releasing their debut LP. Galger og Brann, which means “Gallows and Fire” in Norwegian, expands on the foundations laid by established acts like Skitsystem and Tragedy. With one foot firmly planted in black metal and the other in hardcore, Uaar unleashes a cacophony of rage unfettered. D-beats abound, courtesy of Truls Friesl Berg, creating a frantic, enraged atmosphere. Dag Schaug Carlsen’s blackened rasps are so cold they burn, matching the evil pall hanging over tracks like “Galeås” and “Den siste.” Post-flecked, Ancsty tendencies (“Alt Skal Brenne,” “Overalt”) peek through the feral hardcore riffage (“Håpet forsvinner”) of guitarists Erik Berg Friesl and Jon Schaug Carlsen, while bassist Stian S. Evensen provides the muscle to convince you these guys aren’t screwing around. Uaar is well-versed in their base genres, alternating between and mixing black metal and hardcore effortlessly. The occasional blues-tinged heavy metal lead—as in “Overalt” and “Dolken”—keep Galger og Brann from being a one-note affair. With a dearth of standout blackened hardcore releases this year, Uaar’s Galger og Brann is a welcome—if late—addition to the list.

Scorching Tomb // Ossuary [October 24th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

I’ll be honest, I’ve never considered Montreal, Canada, to be prime death metal territory. Luckily, Scorching Tomb doesn’t care what I think. Debut LP Ossuary is an aural violation born of Tren-induced hardcore aggression and filthy old school death metal. With a guitar tone (Philippe Lelbanc) like sandpaper and a bass like swallowing gravel (Miguel Lepage), Scorching Tomb plays in the same cesspools as Bloodgutter and Rotpit. We normally associate melted faces with guitar solos, but that honor belongs to whatever corrosive noises issue forth from vocalist Vincent Patrick Lajeunesse’s guts. Drummer Émile Savard loves a blast beat, often detonating them in short bursts to support an already bone-breaking assault (“Feel the Blade”). “Stalagmite3 Impalement” and “Sanctum of Bones (Ossuary)” are particularly savage, with tetanus-inflicting riffs and bloodthirsty screams threatening to drag you into the crypt to be used for meal prep. On “Skullcrush,” Sanguisugabogg’s Devin Swank perfectly matches Scorching Tomb’s vile depravity, cementing them as a promising new act in the scene. Ossuary is raging, muscle-bound, caveman death metal drowned in a vat of viscera and sewage, and it tastes incredible.

ClarkKent’s Gratifying Goodies

Sutratma // Adrift [October 3rd, 2025 – Self-Release]

While I didn’t purposely seek out more doom during my self-imposed month of picking only doom promos, Sutratma’s fifth full-length, Adrift, ranks as one of the better doom albums I listened to in November. This California four-piece has been writing funeral doom for 15 years, and it shows in their ability to craft effective melancholic slow-burns that strike a balance between melody and crushingly heavy. Adrift impresses straight out the gate with the piano-drenched “Wind and Sea.” This song nicely melds the sorrowful softness of the piano with punishing guitar riffs and impressive growls. Just like stalwarts My Dying Bride, Sutratma mixes growls with cleans, and Daniel Larios’s cleans effectively hit you right in the feels while the growls take on a more despairing note. There’s plenty of variety from song to song, with organs stealing the show on “Guiding Star” and a lovely melody on “The Great Bereaver” that builds up to a moving finale. Just like with Oromet, there’s a serenity to the music that is calming, and the skilled songwriting and musicianship lends a poignancy to it all. With the frenzy of list season upon us, it’s nice to have something like this to remind us that it’s okay to just slow down—even when an angry ape is berating you for more content.

Starer // Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness [October 10th, 2025 – Fiadh Productions]

Josh Hines, the one man behind black metal project, Starer, has been very busy. Since forming Starer in 2020, he has released four EPs and now, with the release of Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness, four LPs. I first became acquainted with this band on 2023’s Wind, Breeze, or Breath and was taken in by Hines’s aggressively atmospheric take on black metal. Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness hits the ground running on “I Cry Your Mother’s Blood” with some aggressively catchy melodies. The aggression continues on “Il-Kantilena” with its icy riffs and pumping blast beats. Meanwhile, “The Field of Reeds” combines the black n’ roll of Fell Omen with the fuzzy reverb of atmoblack for a rollicking good time. Hines screams into the void as subdued symphonics add layers of melody, providing a surprising amount of depth to each song. Because of the frenetic pace, the 50-minute runtime flies right by, even as songs like “Song of the Harper” do their best to vary the tempo. For black metal, the production is lush and gorgeous, giving air to all instruments. The epic, ten-minute finale is the culmination of Hines’s ability to put together complex and compelling music that both excites by its aggression and dazzles with its atmospherics. Black metal fans should not miss this one.

Grin Reaper’s Haunted Harvest

Black Cross Hotel // Songs for Switches [October 31st, 2025 – Someoddpilot Records]

Three years after dropping their favorably reviewed debut Hex, keys-drenched and industrialized outfit Black Cross Hotel returns bearing Songs for Switches. 80s-inspired synths, mid-paced chugs, and dance-ready grooves pack neatly into forty-one minutes of grubby fun, sure to interest fans of Ministry and Killing Joke, or anyone with a predilection for leather. Where Hex boasted a wider assortment of tempos, Songs for Switches narrows its focus to mid-paced songs with a keener emphasis on keyboard melodies. Averting a direction that could have been limiting, Black Cross Hotel smartly sidesteps this by shaving down song lengths and arranging the tracks for optimal pacing. Individual moments across the album evoke Me and That Man (“Eyes from Nowhere”), Soulfly (“Blood Dance”), and Joy Division (“Typo”), casting an eclectic array of sounds into Mount Gloom to forge ten dangerously fun tracks. Though I liked the album at first listen, it took multiple spins for Songs for Switches’ distilled aesthetic to fully unfurl, and once it did, my appreciation redoubled. With a sinister atmosphere designed as much for pain as pleasure, Black Cross Hotel has readied your room for a night you won’t forget.

Miasmata // Subterrania [October 31st, 2025 – Naturmacht Productions]

Still hawking their distinctive blend of meloblack and heavy metal, Miasmata dropped sophomore platter Subterrania on what was one of the most congested release days of 2025.4 In addition to the recurring influences of Windir (“Die at the Right Time”) and Iron Maiden (the intro to “Subterrania” smacks of The X Factor), Subterrania adds a dollop of thrash into the mix. Opener “Those Who Cross the Flame” struts out with a punky riff that wouldn’t be out of place on an Anthrax record, while “Full of the Devil” tastes as much like Testament or Havok as Diamond Head. The beauty of Miasmata, both on debut Unlight: Songs of Earth and Atrophy and Subterrania, is one-man mastermind Mike Wilson’s aptitude to synthesize a mighty host of influences into a unique sonic palette all his own. As Sharky noted in Unlight’s review, Miasmata has a knack for remarkable restraint. Subterrania clocks under forty minutes, layering slithery riffs upon one another in a way that propels the music in constant motion, shifting and unfolding so organically that the album slips by before you realize it’s over (an especially impressive feat considering the self-titled closer’s near fourteen-minute runtime). If you missed Miasmata’s latest on release day, go rectify that. Don’t let Subterrania get lost to the underground.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Autumnal Anomoly

夢遊病者 // РЛБ300119225 [October 28th, 2025 – Self Release]

As if plucked into lucidity from amidst a hazy, proggy machination, РЛБ30011922 steps into its narrative—an exploration of a beloved figure in its creator’s life, including sound clips describing the trials through which she persisted—with an entrancing stumble. Through an understated math rock lens, tight kit rhythms with a tension-building hi-hat clashes strut against a loud and leading bass voice across 37 minutes of fluid guitar textures. Whether it’s the chunky fusion reminiscent of Hackett-era Gordian Knot, the playful rhythmic post-rock that evokes a band like toe, or the fuzzed-out punctuation that tell a prog tale as ’70s King Crimson would, 夢遊病者, also known as Sleepwalker, makes their love of sound as clear as their love of РЛБ30011922’s inspiration. In a setting this free and detailed, not a single moment of this one-long-song opus passes by without taking a moment to focus on a given performer’s escalation in the drama of the movement. Wielding short guitar solos as segues into popping double-kick trots, spoken word exposition as pedal switch-up opportunities, all leading to a crescendo of bent and bluesy expression, 夢遊病者 succeeds in more than just holding an audience captive with their jammy and heartfelt statement. РЛБ30011922, like the shorter form releases that have graced these halls before, will have you coming back time and time again to explore its sentiments, which feel both traced from a dream yet rooted in rich, earthly tone pleasures.

Saunders’ Slinky Sneaks

Enragement // Extinguish All Existence [October 31st, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity]

The back end of 2025 has thrown down some delightfully vicious, chunkified, and straightforward death metal gems, courtesy of the likes of Depravity, Glorious Depravity and Terror Corpse. Not to be discounted, Finland’s Enragement dropped their own intense slab of brutal death on fourth LP, Extinguish All Existence. Cutting with any pleasantries, Enragement get down to business, slamming through a tight, burly collection of Americanized death, keenly treading a balance between thuggish beatdowns, chest-busting blasts, slammy, pig-squealing grooves, and more traditional, though deceptively diverse brutal death fare. Despite the certifiably crushing formula deployed, there is an air of accessibility, perhaps attributed to the clean but suitably beefy production job, bludgeoning, addictive grooves and sinister currents of atmospheric melody flowing through the album’s riff-centric veins. Thrashy, straightforward bursts of fury are tempered by more technical flourishes and an impressively versatile vocal assault. The likes of Devourment, Deeds of Flesh, Dawn of Demise and Benighted are perhaps fitting reference points, however, Enragement blast their own path of uncompromisingly heavy destruction.

Stephen Brodsky // Cut to the Core Vol. 1 [October 3rd, 2025 – Pax Aeturnum]

There are a couple of ways to broach this latest solo endeavor from lovable rogue and Cave In/Mutoid Man mastermind Stephen Brodsky. Brodsky delivers refreshed interpretations of various ’90s hardcore songs, reimagined in acoustic form. Those familiar with the original compositions will likely have fun dissecting and comparing the original anthems. While others, such as myself, largely unfamiliar with the originals, can enjoy these polished takes in their reimagined form, without comparison. Over the years, I have developed a strong connection with Brodsky’s works and come to appreciate his softer, acoustic flavorings. The likes of Snapcase, Converge, Texas is the Reason, Threadbare and By the Grace of God are some of the acts covered with typical style, zest, and emotion. Brodsky’s expressive and emotive delivery showcases both a loving appreciation of the material and deeper emotional connection that bleeds through the often darker, melancholic vibes of the acoustic constructions. The collection is remarkably consistent and infectious, highlighted by Brodsky’s crisp and soulful acoustic playing and distinctive singing voice on standout cuts, including “Windows” (Snapcase), “Benchwarmer” (Lincoln), “Fissures” (By the Grace of God), “Farewell Note to This City” (Converge), and “Voice” (Sense Field).

Soul Blind // Red Sky Mourning [October 10th, 2025 – Closed Casket Activities]

Riding a familiar wave of early ’00s alt-rock/metal and ’90s grungy nostalgia, New York’s Soul Blind emerge with sophomore LP, Red Sky Mourning. Although they tread dangerously close to overt derivation of prominent influences, including Alice in Chains, Deftones, and Helmet, Soul Blind manage to just stay afloat on their own terms. The dreamy melodies, chunky alt metal riffs, and soaring, Cantrell-esque vocal melodies cultivate some earwormy hooks and fuzzy, 90s/’00s feels. Soul Blind possess a knack for writing textured, mildly sludgy, infectious rock ditties, dabbling in shoegazing atmospherics, and sturdier alt metal territories along the way. Soul Blind relish in AIC inspired earworms (“Dyno,” “Hide Your Evil”), grittier, more aggressive alt metal fare (‘Billy,’ “New York Smoke”) and airy, indie pop-rock (“Thru the Haze”). Soul Blind have work to do to stand out from their influences and develop a more unique sound and robust character. However, the signs are positive for better things to come. Red Sky Mourning is a solid throwback album and handy companion piece to the equally nostalgia-inspired album from Bleed earlier in the year.

#2025 #Acoustic #Adrift #Aggravate #AliceInChains #AmericanMetal #AncientMonumentsAndModernSadness #Ancst #Anthrax #AsTheWorldTreeFell #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackCrossHotel #BlackMetal #Bleed #Bloodgutter #ByTheGraceOfGod #CanadianMetal #CanvasOfSilence #CattleDecapitation #CaveIn #ClosedCasketActivities #Converge #Crust #CutToTheCoreVol1 #DeathMetal #Deftones #Depravity #DiamondHead #DormantOrdeal #EdgewoodArsenalRecords #Enragement #ExtinguishAllExistence #FellOmen #Fellowship #FiadhProductions #FinnishMetal #FuneralDoom #FysiskFormatRecords #GalgerOgBrann #GloriousDepravity #GordianKnot #GrooveMetal #Grunge #HardRock #Hardcore #Havok #HeavyMetal #Helmet #HorrorPainGoreDeathProductions #IndependentRelease #IndustrialMetal #InternationalMetal #IronMaiden #JapaneseMetal #KillingJoke #KingCrimson #Lincoln #MadderMortem #MeAndThatMan #MelodicBlackMetal #Miasmata #Ministry #MutoidMan #MyDyingBride #NapalmDeath #NaturmachtProductions #NewZealandMetal #Nightwish #NorwegianMetal #Oct25 #Oromet #Ossuary #PaxAeternum #PigDestroyer #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveRock #RedSkyMourning #RepulsiveSummoning #Review #Reviews #RockshotsRecords #Rotpit #Sanguisugabogg #ScorchingTomb #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SenseField #Skitsystem #Snapcase #SomeoddpilotReocrds #SongsForSwitches #SoulBlind #Soulfly #Starer #StephenBrodsky #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #Subterrania #Sutratma #SymphonicMetal #TerrorCorpse #Testament #TexasIsTheReason #TheDarkElement #Theocracy #Threadbare #TimeToKillRecords #toe #Tragedy #TranscendingObsurityRecords #Uaar #ViolentTestimony #Vomitory #Windir #Xaoc #РЛБ30011922 #夢遊病者

Embracer has sold off Arc Games and the sad remains of Cryptic Studios, and yes it’s confusing
🔗 https://massivelyop.com/2025/11/26/embracer-has-sold-off-arc-games-and-the-sad-remains-of-cryptic-studios-and-yes-its-confusing
#MMORPG #Neverwinter #StarTrekOnline #Cryptic #Embracer #Deca #ArcGames #Fellowship

Embracer Group selling off Arc Games and Cryptic Studios https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/11/embracer-group-selling-off-arc-games-and-cryptic-studios/

#Fellowship #Embracer #Gaming

Walk in the Light (Christian Music) = Share the joy of this new worship release 🎼 - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #Hope #Faith #Youth #Community #Inspiration #Light #Journey #Grace #Joy #Peace #Prayer #Worship #Strength #Trust #Salvation #Renewal #GuidedPath #DivineLove #SpiritualGrowth #Fellowship #Devotion #InnerLight #SpiritualAwakening #Purpose #Truth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

#VanJones Signs Up For New #ProIsrael #Journalism #Fellowship #tyt #yt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwrOdqy6P7I

Terra Atlantica – Oceans Review

By Kenstrosity

I had almost forgotten about German four-banger Terra Atlantica since I last covered them five years ago. Once my memory refreshed, I recalled what compelled me to snag Age of Steam in the first place: my love for steampunk. Far from the most dedicated—and perhaps even farther away from the best—piece of media based on that universe, Terra Atlantica nonetheless did sound appropriately grounded in a world propelled by superheated water. But their songwriting was too inconsistent to make a big splash with this sponge. With follow-up Oceans in tow, is their hope that Terra Atlantica will hoist my sails properly this time?

With a new lead guitarist, Terra Atlantica finds themselves armed with a more folk-driven base that sends their sea-faring stories even further into open water than ever before. Veering into jaunty pirate metal territory, Oceans boasts a wide variety of baubles and decorative deviations scattered around their cookie-cutter power metal foundation. Terra Atlantica’s unusually reedy vocals carry over from the last record, evoking a certain Muppet-y personality that I don’t hate, but which many could. Canned strings and horns make a resurgence as well, pushing Oceans deeper into symphonic territory. In short, Oceans is as cheesy a power metal record as can be without being Fellowship, only without even half the songwriting acumen.

In fact, songwriting is Oceans’ greatest downfall. Numbers that could’ve been great on their own merit find themselves stranded by downright infuriating choices. The greatest offenders are “Hoist the Sail,” ruined almost immediately once Terra Atlantica cribs the legendary “The Rake Hornpipe” for an overlong bridge and solo; and overblown closer “Oceans of Eternity,” which once again copies and pastes more than one segment from a piece of well-known classical music1 to pad its runtime without doing anything meaningful with them. Outside of those rage-inducing moments, though, there’s still very little substance to Oceans. Due to its dogged reliance on basic genre building blocks and banal lyrics, Oceans is effectively wall-to-wall tropes and fairytale pirate stereotypes (“Back to the Sea,” “Where My Brothers Await,” “Land of Submarines”).

Indeed, Oceans reminds me of a metallized The Muppet Treasure Island soundtrack, minus that masterpiece’s compositional excellence. Nonetheless, flashes of brilliance give me some hope that Terra Atlantica have the potential to write showstoppers worthy of positive comparisons to that iconic OST. “Raven in the Dark,” for example, might be the album’s strongest whole song, pumping a stadium-ready melody and boasting a sticky chorus and fun hair-metal solo. “Caribbean Shores,” too, maximizes its fun factor with a novel bit of tropical songwriting not often heard in power metal, unless you are Twilight Force. Additionally, I do appreciate the injection of real heft and a vaguely thrashy personality in “Turn of the Tide.” If these novelties and convincing attributes were integrated more successfully into a greater portion of Ocean’s runtime, the record would feel quite a bit different than what metal fans have been taught to expect from the symphonic power scene.

Unfortunately, Terra Atlantica only reinforce what metal fans learned to dread. To wit, a dearth of musical creativity in relation to material density, an overt abuse of classical standbys in the place of what should be original material (or at least a creative use of reference), and clear and present stereotyping in writing, theme, and lyrical content. What little hints of potential Terra Atlantica leave for listeners across Oceans’ relatively tight 49 minutes do not make up for the burden of uninspiring, sometimes outright annoying, material offered. Steer clear of this if you know what’s good for you, lads!

Rating: Bad
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Scarlet Records
Websites: terra-atlantica.de | facebook.com/terraatlantica
Releases Worldwide: September 26th, 2025

Show 1 footnote

1. We all know each of these melodies well, and I am almost completely sure they’re Mozart, but I cannot for the life of me find the name of the composition they’re from. ↩

#15 #2025 #Fellowship #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #Mozart #Oceans #PirateMetal #PowerMetal #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #Sep25 #SymphonicMetal #TerraAtlantica #TwilightForce

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Any communities today that feel this is necessary, lest inclusion, or speaking up against neglect, offend the majority?

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Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Angry Metal Guy

Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1

Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.

The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.

The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:

On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.

Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”

So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.

To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.

#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.

#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.

#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.

#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.

#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.

#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.

#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.

#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.

#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.

#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.

#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.

#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.

Honorable Mentions:

In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.

Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.

Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.

Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.

Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.

Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.

Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.

Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:

#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.

#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.

#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.

#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.

#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”

#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.

#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.

#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.

#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.

#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.

#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?

Show 12 footnotes

1. This joke is fucking hilarious but only a few of you are going to get it. ↩
2. I kid because I’m scared shitless of your country and will never visit it. – AMG ↩
3. Wondering where you are? 11. Poland; 12. Brazil; 13. Norway; 14. Belgium; 15. Italy; 16. Greece; 17. Denmark; 18. Czechia; 19. Austria; 20. Russia; 21: Mexico; 22. Portugal; 23. Switzerland; 24. Romania; 25. Hungary. ↩
4. Not that I’m *not* a big worthless loser, just that there’s more to it. ↩
5. They suffered unduly and cast a lot of longing stares at each other, but they survived! ↩
6. Because fucking Morbid Angel is the best, obviously. ↩
7. Read: reverb. ↩
8. Tell you what, guys, how ’bout Jón Aldará joins Octoploid and y’all start writing 15-minute songs? Then you can both be #1! ↩
9. And don’t get me started Steven Wilson. “Ooh, I should be famous, why haven’t I had a number one record when Nick Beggs has had one?!” 🙄 ↩
10. This is true because I am busy acclaiming it. ↩
11. Obviously, largely opaque for most of us. People from the Faroe Islands do, indeed, speak the language in which this album is sung. My AI translator does not. ↩
12. And if it is, it is obviously their best-executed one to date. ↩

#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun

Vielen Dank allen 28 nationalen und internationalen Bewerber:innen der 4Memory FAIR Data Fellowships 2025!
🤓 📩

Wir freuen uns sehr nun all eure Bewerbungen zu sichten.

Thanks to all 28 national and international applicants for the 4Memory FAIR Data Fellowships 2025!

Für alle, die mehr über die 4Memory FAIR Data Fellowships erfahren möchten, schaut doch Mal auf unserer Website vorbei: https://4memory.de/4memory-fair-data-fellowships/

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El Cuervo’s, GardensTale’s, and Eldritch Elitist’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By El Cuervo

El Cuervo

After more than a decade in this job, the years start to blur. While there may be an almost imperceptible feeling that some years are musically stronger than others, I’ve started to reach the realization that they’re all basically the same. 99% of heavy metal spawned into the world is destined to be forgotten or disparaged.

That’s not to say I’m bored of this state of affairs. The metal community, and in particular its underground, remains in a robust position to peddle the best non-mainstream music in the world, boasting a wide array of sub-genres from all over the globe. Just look at my list below: nine of the selections are from the atypical regions of Northern Europe and North America, hitherto unknown for their metal output.

Nonetheless, it’s the year-to-year consistency that highlights the importance of gathering our thoughts at annual intervals to assemble a list of real quality. This process reminds me why I still spend hundreds of hours each year consuming and reviewing new music. These stand-outs justify my decision and I deeply enjoy commemorating them in this ranking extravaganza. Revel in the albums that most excited me in 2024.

#10. A Burial at Sea // Close to Home – As much as music may impress you with its technical chops or hook you with its bold melodies, it’s music that makes you feel something that endures. The idiosyncratic brand of post-rock heard on Close to Home, dipping into brassy jazz and techy math rock as much as it does shoegaze, always prioritizes its emotive impact above all else. I love the gentle lilt, the crashing apices, the shimmering walls of noise, the orchestral edges. A Burial at Sea ebbs with slow rhythms and delicate chords, but flows with heavy drums and tremolo-picked melodies. The natural cadence across tracks makes the album feel complete. Each year yields one or two ‘mood’ releases for me to savor in a dark room with my headphones and my thoughts; 2024’s is Close to Home.

#9. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – As much as I initially enjoyed Die Urkatastrophe as a studio album, it took the Kanonenfieber live experience to really get its hooks into me. This isn’t just blackened death metal. It’s theatrical, energetic, and catchy, without devolving into something as simple as ‘meloblack’. The shout-along choruses and grooving leads were accentuated in a live setting, and I was incentivized to dig back through the Kanonenfieber back catalog. But the gig wouldn’t have been as entertaining as it was without the underlying music being of high quality. I’ve been to plenty of shows which have encouraged me to revisit an artist – but where the studio release is far less potent. Die Urkatastrophe has the chops and power to excel in both formats.

#8. Aquilus// Bellum II – Lots of black metal adopts the adjective of ‘atmospheric’ but few come as close to this as Aquilus. Horace Rosenqvist forges music that harmonizes but transcends classical and black metal, beguiling and terrifying in equal measure. Bellum II may be marginally the lesser of Bellum I, but it’s still among the best music released this year. Its compositions are extraordinary, as they subtly and satisfyingly transition from delicate piano and strings to towering black metal blasts. This is the prime example of the album’s devastating dichotomies that I previously described (“elegance and savagery; serenity and chaos; airiness and crunch”). Rosenqvist is a singularly mesmerizing instrumentalist and composer, able to pull contrasting music into a brutal but beautiful whole.

#7. Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk – It’s hard to conceive of a more metal homeland than the Faroe Islands. Cold? Dark? Remote? Check, check, check. This results in Hamferð’s frigid, towering block of death-inflected doom metal that owes as much to its isolated island roots as it does to any other metal band. Men Guðs hond er sterk is a crushingly heavy album, but one gilded with a hopeful edge derived from its concept wherein a survivor of a whaling accident emphasizes the miracle of his life. While prioritizing the sheer weight of mass and exquisitely despondent leads, the album also benefits from one of metal’s most talented vocalists in Jón Aldará, who runs the gamut from bellowing growls to melancholic croons. Though it runs out of steam by the gentle acoustic conclusion, the preceding thirty-nine minutes are monumental.

#6. Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere – Blood Incantation is plainly an excellent band. But I’m struggling to explain why Absolute Elsewhere became the underground cross-over metal album of the year, favored by big and small publications alike. Perhaps it’s the savage but technical riffs that make you mosh and think simultaneously. Perhaps it’s the Floydian approach to song structures. Perhaps it’s the penchant for meandering, Tangerine Dreamy interludes. Perhaps it’s the sophisticated fusion of something heavy so listeners feel edgy, with something chill so listeners feel safe. Perhaps it’s the conspiratorial orientation around our alien overlords building the pyramids. Perhaps it’s all of these and more. Hmm. On reflection, I think I do understand why everyone loves Absolute Elsewhere as much as they do.

#5. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – We all know that doom is the worst core metal sub-genre. To my abject horror, 2024 saw not one but two excellent examples of it. Crypt Sermon stormed the top five of my list, folding excellent leads and engaging solos into some of the most captivating metal of the year. While the front half is good, it’s the back half where things hit another level. “Heavy Is the Crown of Bone” until the title track exemplifies the best of the sub-genre through their epic proportions, memorable melodies and fat, crunchy guitar tones. While the riffs have immediate impact, the detailed compositions give the songs real staying power. Layers of guitars, a tempo that eschews dirge speeds, varied vocals and progressive song constructions march the album to a conclusion that comes too quickly.

#4. Syst3m Glitch // The Brave Ones – The remainder of this list documents my love for heavy metal and all things progressive. But synthwave is the third pillar of my music library and the most joyous. The best of the year comes from Florida’s Syst3m Glitch. He’s not always been my first pick for synths, but The Brave Ones dramatically outperformed his prior output and muscled its way into my favorite albums from 2024. It’s stuffed full of catchy, memorable tunes that traverse the synthwave soundscape, from the pop-laced sweetness of “California,” to the pulsing rhythms of “Thrill Ride,” to the darksynth pastiche of “Tommy Danger,” and finally to the smooth retrowave of “Raining in Tokyo.” It’s rare for one release to cover this much territory, and rarer still that it’s so successful in doing so.

#3. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – February is early in the year but I knew then that Lower Form Resistance would be high on my list. Dissimulator inherits death metal traits from the members’ other bands (including Beyond Creation and First Fragment) but builds these into uber-tight, technical thrash metal. The excellence of the riffs here is fucking relentlessness; no other 2024 release can boast such a fine repertoire. From the ridiculously good “Neural Hack” until the closer, the album generates such entertainment value that it feels half as long as it is. The exemplary instrumentation, chaotic energy and technological feel make Lower Form Resistance sound like Voivod reinvented for the 2020s. In a sub-genre so preoccupied with rehashing old ideas – I do not accept that thrash metal must sound like 1986 – Dissimulator thrives by looking forward.

#2. In Vain // Solemn – It’s no secret that I’m a prog nerd. While In Vain has always been plenty progressive through varied and unpredictable songwriting, what I envy most is the knack for incorporating myriad styles into one cohesive sound. Solemn follows two prior records demarcated by their fusions of melodic death metal, black metal, progressive rock, and Nordic folk music. This fusion has never been more seamless than it is in 2024. The expansive songs feel like they should be extremely long and complex but in reality, they hardly exceed seven minutes and utilize powerful melodic anchors. As if all this wasn’t enough, the quintessential In Vain guitar and vocal harmonies, and orchestral pomp, elevate the songs into metal magic. Solemn is pure Cuervo catnip.

#1. Opeth // The Last Will and Testament – It feels like I’ve spent much of the last few months describing just how much I admire Opeth. This year-end list is no exception as I properly rank The Last Will and Testament as 2024’s best release. With the Opeth ranking articles so recent, I think it would fall into the upper half of their work. In a discography littered with records revered by both metalheads and prog nerds, this demarcates a record of rare quality. Though – yes – Åkerfeldt returns to growled vocals here, this is just a small piece of what makes The Last Will and Testament so good. From the sophisticated compositions to the entertaining story, and the exemplary instrumentation to the immaculate production, its knotty harmonization of death metal with progressive rock has the aura of perfection. No other record from 2024 can make such a claim.

Honorable Mentions

• Beardfish // Songs for Beating Hearts – The unheralded return of these Swedes yields a shockingly vital slice of prog rock, boasting tidy riffs, folksy warmth, and engaging song-writing.
• At 1980 // Forget to Remember – While predictable, At 1980 remains an interminably satisfying retrowave artist through their smooth synths, melodic guitar solos, and easy vocals.
• Morgul Blade // Heavy Metal Wraiths – Morgul Blade forms a destructive harmony between three of my favorite things: razor-sharp classic metal leads, harsh vocal,s and Tolkien nerdery.
• Kalax // Lost – While bloated and meandering – lost, perhaps – the return of Liverpool’s premier retro synth act finds a delicate dichotomy between frigidity and comfort.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Unto Others – “Never, Neverland”
2. Syst3m Glitch – “Raining in Tokyo”
3. Iotunn – “Iridescent Way”
4. Opeth – “A Story Never Told”
5. Lebrock – “Goliath”
6. At 1980 – “Your Secret”
7. Nestor – “Caroline”
8. Crypt Sermon – “The Stygian Rose”
9. Dissimulator – “Neural Hack”
10. Winterun – “Silver Leaves”

GardensTale

Fucking hell, what a year. Ordinarily, I’d try and wax poetically on the passing of time or some shit here. Looking back with melancholy and whatnot seems to be the intention for opening paragraphs to arbitrary lists of what music this one rando that I happen to be got the most enjoyment from this year. But I think this time, I’ll try some brutal honesty instead. It’s not been a great year overall. I won’t bore you with a tedious list, numbering my shades of the various common mental issues people my age and disposition face, but suffice it to say I’ve closed out most prior years in better spirits. But I’m getting help, I’m fighting it, and I’m learning. Learning to give myself grace, to step back when I need to. And if that sometimes means slowing down on a review, well, it’s a small price to pay.

One consequence is that I have spent less time listening to music I wasn’t reviewing. That shows below because this list will look like the most self-congratulatory thing I ever wrote. The vast majority of entries I penned myself, be it as a full article, a TYMHM or even a filter entry. But the funny part is, I thought it was a really strong year! I had quite a sizeable shortlist to whittle down. But then I was done whittling and discovered I’d almost exclusively cut albums I did not review, like APES, Crypt Sermon and Hamferð for instance. Additionally, I find I’ve added less to the list in the second half of the year, and my sullied brain has questioned myself many times: was autumn weaker than usual, or is my growing ennui obstructing my ability to like things as much as they deserve?

I don’t know, to tell the truth. And I’m unlikely to find out, because time marches on and new releases darken the horizon of January even now. There are only so many hours in the day, so much music hitting the virtual marketplaces and streaming colossi. To give each year its proper due would take 5 years, or having no job or other hobbies. So I can’t give you a fair, balanced and complete list of the best records of the year, because I do have a job and other hobbies, and no time machine. I can only give you the records that made me feel good. I hope they made or will make you feel good, too.

(ish). Dool // The Shape of Fluidity — I’ve been aware of Dool for a while now, even before vocalist Raven van Dorst became a national television personality. But it wasn’t until I caught “Venus in Flames” on the metal radio station in the car that I became interested in their music. The Shape of Fluidity crystallizes Van Dorst’s lifelong struggle with identity into a fierce, defiant, and intensely personal album. The androgynous vocals sizzle with raw emotion, and the instrumentation is likewise fluid in its presentation, swaying from almost post-punk energy to Anathema-adjacent prog and dipping into epic doom. An excellent album that really puts Dool on the map.

10. Alcest // Les Chants de l’Aurore — Here’s a fun fact: I always thought Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde wasn’t Alcest’s first album. It was the first album of theirs I heard, but since about 97 out of 100 bands that evolve their sound go softer rather than harder, I assumed there was something more extreme preceding it. Alcest tends to do things differently, though, changing things up rather radically from album to album. Les Chants de l’Aurore has elements from many of its older siblings, but the mood it sets is such a beautiful warm summer melancholy, it sets it apart in a very special way. And seeing it performed live a few weeks ago was a very special experience that seared the album in my mind.

9. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart — No, I’ll never stop proselytizing Madder Mortem, why do you ask? Old Eyes, New Heart wasn’t what I expected, yet in many ways was just what I needed, and was strangely prophetic at times. It’s the most intensely personal album from the Norwegians (which is saying something) and through the healing power of shared misery, sitting down with it is like a good session with a therapist.

8. 40 Watt Sun // Little Weight — Patrick Walker could sing me The Cat In The Hat and I’d still feel like weeping. I’m not sure the man could earn anything below a 4.0 from me if he tried. That being said, Little Weight still takes a spot by the sunny window that 40 Watt Sun hasn’t explored before. Where Perfect Light and Wider Than the Sky were steeped in sadness, Little Weight expels it. It might be the most hopeful album I’ve heard this year, a return to the light from the deepest darkest places. It’s been a comforting hug on bad days, a warm blanket to fight the cold.

7. Walg // IV — The second year in a row I get to feature this duo. Walg is quickly becoming one of my favorite black metal bands. IV fits any mood, really. It’s got anger, it’s got despair, but it also has enough catchy tunes and energy for when you’re in a good mood. You can play the whole thing start to finish, and you can pick out your favorites and stick ‘em in a playlist. As such, it’s been this year’s ol’ reliable, the album to return to when nothing else sparks joy.

6. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe — If I had a nickel for every time an acclaimed blackened death metal band exclusively used historically accurate World War I accounts and even performed in uniform, I’d have two nickels. It’s kind of difficult for me to mentally separate Kanonenfieber and 1914 for obvious reasons. Luckily there is space for both in the trenches because Noise’s project has become a mean Menschen mühling machine. “Der Maulwurf” grabbed me by the throat from the first spin, and everything else followed over and over again. Epic, bludgeoning and harrowing.

5. Labyrinthus Stellarum // Vortex of the Worlds — I can’t stop playing this album. It is stuck in my algorithm. The bleeps and bloops that summon Hastur from the depths of space and time live in my head and they do not pay rent. How did two kids1 from a war-torn country manage this? Labyrinthus Stellarum is so goddamn good at composing addictive melodies in 4 dimensions it should be considered unfair. The only reason it’s not higher is because at this point the competition becomes even more unfair.

4. Iotunn // Kinship — A lot of people told me in the comments that the closing track on Kinship is a great song and shouldn’t have affected my rating of the album as a whole. They are wrong on both counts. This is a shame because up to that point, this is the album of the year. Earning what amounts to a 4.495 despite a disappointing closer is an incredible feat, but the songwriting on the best couple of tracks here is simply unparalleled. “Mistland,” “The Coming End” and especially “Earth to Sky” are just massive in a way few bands ever achieve, and Iotunn make it seem effortless.

3. Vredehammer // God Slayer — One improvement to my life is that I am returning semi-regularly to the gym these days. I’ve struggled with working out consistently, but I can usually get a session a week in these days. And my number one companion for these outings has been God Slayer. The bridge in the title track alone gives me enough energy to break whatever personal record I’ll be working on at the time. Just looking at the album art gives me an extra pound of gains for the week.

2. Meer // Wheels Within Wheels — Yeah, it’s not really metal, but it’s proggy and it’s fucking gorgeous so up yours, elitists! I’ve come to the opinion that Norway is simply the best country for prog in general, and Meer is just another notch in that belt. Whereas Playing House didn’t really grab me at the time, I couldn’t stop spinning Wheels Within Wheels. I had to start every day with “Come to Light” for a while, and the climax of that track is so uniquely empowering it’d help beat down whatever funk I found myself in at the time. The symphonic composition and multi-vocal approach are just beautiful and it truly does not get old. Meer has outdone itself.

1. Huntsmen // The Dry Land — I’ve had multiple comeback stories this year. Outside of metal, both Elbow and That Handsome Devil returned with fantastic albums after the last was simply disappointing. The biggest comeback and biggest surprise was, without a doubt, Huntsmen. Mandala of Fear was such a slog, I could never have expected the perfect tight flow of The Dry Land. Every track is a journey in and of itself, and the diversity is immense. The Dry Land has become one of those albums where I can’t put it on without finishing it entirely; I’ll just keep going ‘Oh yes the next song has these awesome mournful vocals’ or ‘Ah here comes that mindblowing transition.’ It’s been a great year for metal and music in general, but the way Huntsmen returned from the grave and far surpassed even their vaunted debut was the absolute peak for me, and it has not since been surpassed by any other release.

Honorable Mentions

• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // of the Last Human Being — Considering how thrilled I was to get a new SGM album I expected this to wind up higher, but it’s still a great and unsettling resurrection for one of the true premier avant-garde collectives.
• Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions — There’s been plenty of emotionally grabbing black metal of various sorts this year, but Selbst had the coolest take out of them all, with a melodic sense that felt almost trad metal without losing edge or impact.
• Monkey3 // Welcome to the Machine — Easily the best instrumental album of the year. Tasteful nods to Pink Floyd wrapped in a massive maelstrom of heavy psych that gets the balancing act of repetition and evolution precisely right.
• The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales — An even tighter and more cohesive album than its excellent predecessor. Weird Tales is like an amazing haunted house ride.
• Sidewinder // Talons — I really wanted to have this in the main list, because you don’t get stoner this great very often. Alas, the competition was too strong. But listen to it anyway if you haven’t!

Non-Metal Albums

This is a metal blog, despite our occasional forays into tangential material like Meer. But several of my favorite non-metal artists all released some excellent albums, and considering the year I’ve had and the state of the world, I’d rather end with some positivity for the open-minded among you, who are secure enough in their trveness to partake in some decidedly vntrve yet excellent releases.

• Man Man // Carrot on Strings — The quirky and rambunctious Zappa-in-the-Bayou outfit led by the enigmatic Honus Honus kills it with this eclectic and introspective release. Everything from pulsing club EDM to mellow country and various mixtures further off the musical maps, it’s a wild and engaging odyssey.
• That Handsome Devil // Exploitopia — After the disappointing Your Parents Are Sellouts, these weirdos blew off the barn doors with this comeback. Best described as alternative gypsy surf jazz rock hip-hop, Exploitopia gushes anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism with sardonic humor and biting sarcasm.
• Elbow // Audio Vertigo — The most commercially successful band on this list, but I still feel like many metalheads aren’t aware of how good these Brits are. And Audio Vertigo is one of their best albums to date: versatile, infectious, with a warm melancholy and wry camaraderie. Beautiful.
• Future Islands // People Who Aren’t There Anymore — A breakup album, filled with aching loneliness and longing, yet a strange sense of hope winds through the pulsing synth-pop. Frontman Samuel Herring is an absolute king of emotive, raspy crooning, and his performance brings a ton of personality to the album.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Huntsmen – “Rain”
2. Meer – “Come to Light”
3. Iotunn – “Earth to Sky”
4. Tom Cardy – “Transcendental Cha Cha Cha”
5. Walg – “Als een Korrel Zand”
6. Vredehammer – “God Slayer”
7. Tribulation – “The Reaping Song”
8. Madder Mortem – “Towers”
9. Kanonenfieber – “Der Maulwurf”
10. Iotunn – “The Coming End”
11. Selbst – “Chant of Self Confrontation”

Eldritch Elitist

Huh. It’s apparently been four fucking years since I last penned a proper 2 Records o’ the Year list for Angry Metal Guy. This time last year, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be contributing such a list ever again. I still love this blog and the music we celebrate, but making regular contributions to AMG requires a not-insignificant time investment, and I’ve found myself spread ever-thinner over the years. And then January happened, in which a startling number of fantastic releases in that month alone resulted in the crystallization of a single goal: To make 2024 my most complete year of musical indulgence to date. If there was an album released that even slightly piqued my interest in a given week, I was going to find time to listen to it, ideally to completion. This resolve resulted in so many discoveries that I could have penned Top Ten Records o’ the Month articles for multiple months of 2024.

When I say “multiple months,” I really mean “January through March”, as my momentum dwindled when mid-April rolled around. Compounding factors between life and work suddenly left me with much less time in which to indulge in new music. Once I fell behind, I quickly realized that it would be virtually impossible to keep up the listening schedule I had set for myself, and subsequently gave up the ghost. As badly as I wanted to contribute the most confidently comprehensive year-end list possible, this list might as well be titled “Eldritch Elitist’s Top 10 Records o’ Q1 2024 & Friends”. Lopsided though it may be, that’s no excuse to not take a legitimate stab at a list at all, especially not when comments like this keep rolling in… Wait, why the hell has that guy been hanging around the AMG break room? Christ, I really need to work on staying in the loop around here. Anyway, here’s some albums I like; no -ishs, HMs, or butts about it.

#10. Cruce Signatus // Cruce Signatus – While Cruce Signatus sits at the bottom of my top 10, I have listened to it more than any other record this year outside of my number 1 pick. It’s become a go-to record to throw on thanks to its instrumental nature and soundtrack-like ebb and flow. More than that, Cruce Signatus’ unique blend of metal and synthwave is legitimately compelling, feeling distinct from similar acts as an actual soundtrack to an in-progress animation project. The downside is that this record feels partially complete because it literally is. The upside is that the experience of listening to this record will surely evolve retroactively as this project continues, and in the meantime, I’ll remain content to absorb one of the most ambitious cross-media offerings of 2024.

#9. Myrath // Karma – The release of Karma marked my first prolonged exposure to Myrath, and while I don’t adore it as heavily as some of my AMG colleagues, it remained in heavy rotation throughout 2024 all the same. Karma is an uncommonly proficient slab of pop metal, one that smartly leverages its latent progressive and folk metal leanings in sublimely bombastic fashion. It lacks variety, but Myrath navigates Karma’s narrow aesthetic with such precision as to maximize its scope, resulting in an album that compels through efficiency. Ultimately, the most important quality of any pop record is its ability to lodge its hooks into my brain, and I have had every single one of these songs stuck in my head many times throughout the year. If that kind of recurring impact isn’t worthy of a spot on this list, I don’t know what is.

#8. Soulmass // Principality of Mechanical Violence – Despite Soulmass’ previous LP basing its concept on my favorite video game, Principality of Mechanical Violence hit me way harder despite unfamiliarity with its source material. My knowledge of Gundam may only go so far as that handsome blonde fellow in red who apparently did nothing wrong, but I do know that this Gundam concept album rocks unlike any other Soulmass record. It largely culls the band’s moodier death/doom passages in favor of concise riffage, yet is also densely melodic, neatly slotting melancholic guitar leads alongside meaty riffs that echo Bolt Thrower and Cannibal Corpse. The resulting listening experience is equally absorbing and exhilarating, enticing me to get in the robot time and time again.

#7. Mega Colossus // Showdown – Mega Colossus just gets it. Not once in my years of listening to this band have I gotten a sense that they are trying to recapture the heyday of traditional metal, or otherwise be anything in the moment other than themselves. Showdown further cements my impression, as it sees Mega Colossus reaching ever further into their bottomless bag of nerd fixations. The resulting songs cover topical ground ranging from Porco Rosso to Mad Max: Fury Road, but more importantly, they masterfully weave inspirations as far-reaching as Kansas and Megadeth into their core aesthetic of Iron Maiden-inspired trad metal. Combine the playfully loose hold on genre convention with Mega Colossus’ ever-effusive lyrics, and you have one of the most purely entertaining records of the year from one of the best modern bands in the genre.

#6. Black Curse // Burning in Celestial Poison – Unlike other albums on this list, I have not returned to Burning in Celestial Poison to reconfirm its standing. Call me irresponsible, but I must emphasize that my memory and impression of this record – one formed after multiple days of consecutive spins – remains fully crystalized in my mind. Black Curse’s sophomore outing is one that continues to linger in the darker corners of my mind, a wholly unique vision of blackened death metal that, while not as traditionally thrilling as the band’s debut, is more than the sum of its parts. That “more” manifests as an incorporeal malefic entity seemingly possessing motives independent of the artists who spawned it. Burning in Celestial Poison feels like a living, breathing work, one which unsettles as much as it entices.

#5. Oak, Ash & Thorn // Our Grief is Thus – Our Grief is Thus is one of those albums that feels made specifically for me, with power metal vocals and melodeath riffage wrapped in an overarching aesthetic of black metal, folk metal, and crust punk. Beyond gifting me the forbidden knowledge that power metal with d-beats can and does work, it’s also a generally excellent example of effective genre splicing, feeling as though it belongs in both all and none of the styles from which it cleverly pulls inspiration. What Oak, Ash & Thorn has accomplished with this sophomore outing is an explosively energetic yet cohesive record, and one so melodically effervescent as to be compulsively replayable. Our Grief is Thus is the most surprising record of 2024, and I am firmly seated on the OAT boat for whatever comes next.

#4. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart – Madder Mortem is a name I’ve heard tossed around since 2009, and who I never bothered to check out because I thought they were some sorta high falutin’, artsy fartsy doom metal band. That may have been the case once upon a time, but at some point they evolved into the accessible sort of dark progressive metal showcased on Old Eyes, New Heart. Immediately gripping and heavy yet disarmingly vulnerable, this record converted me to Madder Mortem fandom almost instantly. Its songs wormed their way under my skin with atomic precision and never left; as early as my third listen, they felt like old friends, albeit ones prone to trauma dumping. There may be records I liked more in 2024, but none moved or shook me quite like Old Eyes, New Heart.

#3. Galneryus // The Stars Will Light the Way – I’ve read dozens of comments all parroting a mildly irksome take: The Stars Will Light the Way feels like Galneryus on cruise control. While this has mostly been opined through a positive lens, it still feels unfairly reductive when considering the sheer quality and consistency of this album. Sure, Sho’s voice is notably strained at this point, but he excels at utilizing his current strengths in the strongest collection of Galneryus tracks since 2014’s Vetelgyus. It’s also the most straightforward record Galneryus has released since Vetelgyus, nixing much of the experimentation and darker leanings of recent offerings (“In Water’s Gaze” notwithstanding) in favor of unbridled jubilance. So yeah, sure, The Stars Will Light the Way is a “safe” record if you want to call it that. It’s still one of the best records from the best power metal band in the world.

#2. Nemedian Chronicles // The Savage Sword – I can hardly believe that Nemedian Chronicles is not a Greek band. They sound so in step with acts like Sacred Outcry that I can practically feel the lamb and tzatziki sauce falling out of an overloaded gyro and onto my lap. Yet the appeal of Nemedian Chronicles is singular. There is a lot of love for Blind Guardian and Sacred Outcry on The Savage Sword, but there is also a distinctly epic, cinematic quality that hearkens back to Bal-Sagoth’s overwrought storytelling. Between the propulsive riffs and sweeping melodies, I’m immediately absorbed into the experience with every listen, and that’s to say nothing of the engaging and often unpredictable songwriting. In most years, The Savage Sword would handily take the crown for best power metal release. However…

#1. Fellowship // The Skies Above Eternity – You know that little bit of text under my review of The Skies Above Eternity that says “Rating: 4.0/5.0?” That number is technically correct per the AMG style guide, but what that number can’t account for is the fact that The Skies Above Eternity is a record I’ll be listening to for the rest of my life. 2022’s The Saberlight Chronicles is a true 5.0/5.0 by any objective or subjective metric, and while The Skies Above Eternity is not as good from a technical standpoint, it fully recaptures the strengths that made its predecessor a modern power metal icon. Fellowship’s debut may have had higher and more frequent peaks, but The Skies Above Eternity excels through consistency and conciseness. The band’s trademark earnestness, vulnerability, and impeccable sense of melodic craft can be felt in every second of the experience. It doesn’t matter whether this record is the best material Fellowship is capable of producing because it warms me in the exact same way they’ve been doing since their first EP, making The Skies Above Eternity one of my most treasured records by default. This album may be a 4.0 in my brain, but it’s a 4.5 in my heart and a 5.0 in my soul.

Song o’ the Year

Fellowship’s “Hold Up Your Hearts (Again)” – I was present in the audience when Fellowship debuted this song live, and everyone was so on board with the silliness of its title that we enthusiastically welcomed it into the Fellowship canon with a communal sea of heart hands. It doesn’t top “Glint” as my favorite Fellowship song, but its concentrated formula of speedy Euro-power metal and the lyrics’ pitch-perfect shonen anime energy handily clear second place status.

Disappointment o’ the Year

Various “Artists” – The Continued Proliferation of Crappy AI Album “Art” – This blog has not adopted a formal stance on albums featuring generative AI artwork, nor do I feel it needs to. But this is my list, and I’m taking the opportunity to say that if I get so much as a whiff of AI coming off of an album going into 2025, I won’t be giving it the time of day, much less a review. It is unfathomable to think some musicians can devote so much time and creative energy into creating an album, only to hold zero value in the image that is supposed to be introducing that album to the world. In fact, if an album features an AI-generated cover, I automatically assume that the devaluation of art permeates the music itself in some form. Either pay a fucking artist to create an album cover for you, or go outside to take a picture of a cool tree or something and slap a Photoshop filter on it. If that proves too difficult, the public domain is your friend. If it’s good enough for Bolt Thrower, it’s sure as hell good enough for your shitty bedroom black metal project.

#2024 #40WattSun #ABurialAtSea #Alcest #andEldritchElitistSTopTenIshOf2024 #Aquilus #At1980 #Beardfish #BlackCurse #BloodIncantation #CruceSignatus #CryptSermon #Dissimulator #Dool #ElCuervoS #Fellowship #Galneryus #GardensTaleS #Hamferð #Huntsmen #InVain #Iotunn #Kalax #Kanonenfieber #LabyrinthusStellarum #Lists #Listurnalia #MadderMortem #Meer #MegaColossus #Monkey3 #MorgulBlade #Myrath #NemedianChronicles #OakAshThorn #Opeth #Selbst #Sidewinder #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #Soulmass #Syst3mGlitch #TheVisionBleak #Vredehammer #Walg

El Cuervo’s, GardensTale’s, and Eldritch Elitist’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By El Cuervo

El Cuervo

After more than a decade in this job, the years start to blur. While there may be an almost imperceptible feeling that some years are musically stronger than others, I’ve started to reach the realization that they’re all basically the same. 99% of heavy metal spawned into the world is destined to be forgotten or disparaged.

That’s not to say I’m bored of this state of affairs. The metal community, and in particular its underground, remains in a robust position to peddle the best non-mainstream music in the world, boasting a wide array of sub-genres from all over the globe. Just look at my list below: nine of the selections are from the atypical regions of Northern Europe and North America, hitherto unknown for their metal output.

Nonetheless, it’s the year-to-year consistency that highlights the importance of gathering our thoughts at annual intervals to assemble a list of real quality. This process reminds me why I still spend hundreds of hours each year consuming and reviewing new music. These stand-outs justify my decision and I deeply enjoy commemorating them in this ranking extravaganza. Revel in the albums that most excited me in 2024.

#10. A Burial at Sea // Close to Home – As much as music may impress you with its technical chops or hook you with its bold melodies, it’s music that makes you feel something that endures. The idiosyncratic brand of post-rock heard on Close to Home, dipping into brassy jazz and techy math rock as much as it does shoegaze, always prioritizes its emotive impact above all else. I love the gentle lilt, the crashing apices, the shimmering walls of noise, the orchestral edges. A Burial at Sea ebbs with slow rhythms and delicate chords, but flows with heavy drums and tremolo-picked melodies. The natural cadence across tracks makes the album feel complete. Each year yields one or two ‘mood’ releases for me to savor in a dark room with my headphones and my thoughts; 2024’s is Close to Home.

#9. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – As much as I initially enjoyed Die Urkatastrophe as a studio album, it took the Kanonenfieber live experience to really get its hooks into me. This isn’t just blackened death metal. It’s theatrical, energetic, and catchy, without devolving into something as simple as ‘meloblack’. The shout-along choruses and grooving leads were accentuated in a live setting, and I was incentivized to dig back through the Kanonenfieber back catalog. But the gig wouldn’t have been as entertaining as it was without the underlying music being of high quality. I’ve been to plenty of shows which have encouraged me to revisit an artist – but where the studio release is far less potent. Die Urkatastrophe has the chops and power to excel in both formats.

#8. Aquilus// Bellum II – Lots of black metal adopts the adjective of ‘atmospheric’ but few come as close to this as Aquilus. Horace Rosenqvist forges music that harmonizes but transcends classical and black metal, beguiling and terrifying in equal measure. Bellum II may be marginally the lesser of Bellum I, but it’s still among the best music released this year. Its compositions are extraordinary, as they subtly and satisfyingly transition from delicate piano and strings to towering black metal blasts. This is the prime example of the album’s devastating dichotomies that I previously described (“elegance and savagery; serenity and chaos; airiness and crunch”). Rosenqvist is a singularly mesmerizing instrumentalist and composer, able to pull contrasting music into a brutal but beautiful whole.

#7. Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk – It’s hard to conceive of a more metal homeland than the Faroe Islands. Cold? Dark? Remote? Check, check, check. This results in Hamferð’s frigid, towering block of death-inflected doom metal that owes as much to its isolated island roots as it does to any other metal band. Men Guðs hond er sterk is a crushingly heavy album, but one gilded with a hopeful edge derived from its concept wherein a survivor of a whaling accident emphasizes the miracle of his life. While prioritizing the sheer weight of mass and exquisitely despondent leads, the album also benefits from one of metal’s most talented vocalists in Jón Aldará, who runs the gamut from bellowing growls to melancholic croons. Though it runs out of steam by the gentle acoustic conclusion, the preceding thirty-nine minutes are monumental.

#6. Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere – Blood Incantation is plainly an excellent band. But I’m struggling to explain why Absolute Elsewhere became the underground cross-over metal album of the year, favored by big and small publications alike. Perhaps it’s the savage but technical riffs that make you mosh and think simultaneously. Perhaps it’s the Floydian approach to song structures. Perhaps it’s the penchant for meandering, Tangerine Dreamy interludes. Perhaps it’s the sophisticated fusion of something heavy so listeners feel edgy, with something chill so listeners feel safe. Perhaps it’s the conspiratorial orientation around our alien overlords building the pyramids. Perhaps it’s all of these and more. Hmm. On reflection, I think I do understand why everyone loves Absolute Elsewhere as much as they do.

#5. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – We all know that doom is the worst core metal sub-genre. To my abject horror, 2024 saw not one but two excellent examples of it. Crypt Sermon stormed the top five of my list, folding excellent leads and engaging solos into some of the most captivating metal of the year. While the front half is good, it’s the back half where things hit another level. “Heavy Is the Crown of Bone” until the title track exemplifies the best of the sub-genre through their epic proportions, memorable melodies and fat, crunchy guitar tones. While the riffs have immediate impact, the detailed compositions give the songs real staying power. Layers of guitars, a tempo that eschews dirge speeds, varied vocals and progressive song constructions march the album to a conclusion that comes too quickly.

#4. Syst3m Glitch // The Brave Ones – The remainder of this list documents my love for heavy metal and all things progressive. But synthwave is the third pillar of my music library and the most joyous. The best of the year comes from Florida’s Syst3m Glitch. He’s not always been my first pick for synths, but The Brave Ones dramatically outperformed his prior output and muscled its way into my favorite albums from 2024. It’s stuffed full of catchy, memorable tunes that traverse the synthwave soundscape, from the pop-laced sweetness of “California,” to the pulsing rhythms of “Thrill Ride,” to the darksynth pastiche of “Tommy Danger,” and finally to the smooth retrowave of “Raining in Tokyo.” It’s rare for one release to cover this much territory, and rarer still that it’s so successful in doing so.

#3. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – February is early in the year but I knew then that Lower Form Resistance would be high on my list. Dissimulator inherits death metal traits from the members’ other bands (including Beyond Creation and First Fragment) but builds these into uber-tight, technical thrash metal. The excellence of the riffs here is fucking relentlessness; no other 2024 release can boast such a fine repertoire. From the ridiculously good “Neural Hack” until the closer, the album generates such entertainment value that it feels half as long as it is. The exemplary instrumentation, chaotic energy and technological feel make Lower Form Resistance sound like Voivod reinvented for the 2020s. In a sub-genre so preoccupied with rehashing old ideas – I do not accept that thrash metal must sound like 1986 – Dissimulator thrives by looking forward.

#2. In Vain // Solemn – It’s no secret that I’m a prog nerd. While In Vain has always been plenty progressive through varied and unpredictable songwriting, what I envy most is the knack for incorporating myriad styles into one cohesive sound. Solemn follows two prior records demarcated by their fusions of melodic death metal, black metal, progressive rock, and Nordic folk music. This fusion has never been more seamless than it is in 2024. The expansive songs feel like they should be extremely long and complex but in reality, they hardly exceed seven minutes and utilize powerful melodic anchors. As if all this wasn’t enough, the quintessential In Vain guitar and vocal harmonies, and orchestral pomp, elevate the songs into metal magic. Solemn is pure Cuervo catnip.

#1. Opeth // The Last Will and Testament – It feels like I’ve spent much of the last few months describing just how much I admire Opeth. This year-end list is no exception as I properly rank The Last Will and Testament as 2024’s best release. With the Opeth ranking articles so recent, I think it would fall into the upper half of their work. In a discography littered with records revered by both metalheads and prog nerds, this demarcates a record of rare quality. Though – yes – Åkerfeldt returns to growled vocals here, this is just a small piece of what makes The Last Will and Testament so good. From the sophisticated compositions to the entertaining story, and the exemplary instrumentation to the immaculate production, its knotty harmonization of death metal with progressive rock has the aura of perfection. No other record from 2024 can make such a claim.

Honorable Mentions

• Beardfish // Songs for Beating Hearts – The unheralded return of these Swedes yields a shockingly vital slice of prog rock, boasting tidy riffs, folksy warmth, and engaging song-writing.
• At 1980 // Forget to Remember – While predictable, At 1980 remains an interminably satisfying retrowave artist through their smooth synths, melodic guitar solos, and easy vocals.
• Morgul Blade // Heavy Metal Wraiths – Morgul Blade forms a destructive harmony between three of my favorite things: razor-sharp classic metal leads, harsh vocal,s and Tolkien nerdery.
• Kalax // Lost – While bloated and meandering – lost, perhaps – the return of Liverpool’s premier retro synth act finds a delicate dichotomy between frigidity and comfort.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Unto Others – “Never, Neverland”
2. Syst3m Glitch – “Raining in Tokyo”
3. Iotunn – “Iridescent Way”
4. Opeth – “A Story Never Told”
5. Lebrock – “Goliath”
6. At 1980 – “Your Secret”
7. Nestor – “Caroline”
8. Crypt Sermon – “The Stygian Rose”
9. Dissimulator – “Neural Hack”
10. Winterun – “Silver Leaves”

GardensTale

Fucking hell, what a year. Ordinarily, I’d try and wax poetically on the passing of time or some shit here. Looking back with melancholy and whatnot seems to be the intention for opening paragraphs to arbitrary lists of what music this one rando that I happen to be got the most enjoyment from this year. But I think this time, I’ll try some brutal honesty instead. It’s not been a great year overall. I won’t bore you with a tedious list, numbering my shades of the various common mental issues people my age and disposition face, but suffice it to say I’ve closed out most prior years in better spirits. But I’m getting help, I’m fighting it, and I’m learning. Learning to give myself grace, to step back when I need to. And if that sometimes means slowing down on a review, well, it’s a small price to pay.

One consequence is that I have spent less time listening to music I wasn’t reviewing. That shows below because this list will look like the most self-congratulatory thing I ever wrote. The vast majority of entries I penned myself, be it as a full article, a TYMHM or even a filter entry. But the funny part is, I thought it was a really strong year! I had quite a sizeable shortlist to whittle down. But then I was done whittling and discovered I’d almost exclusively cut albums I did not review, like APES, Crypt Sermon and Hamferð for instance. Additionally, I find I’ve added less to the list in the second half of the year, and my sullied brain has questioned myself many times: was autumn weaker than usual, or is my growing ennui obstructing my ability to like things as much as they deserve?

I don’t know, to tell the truth. And I’m unlikely to find out, because time marches on and new releases darken the horizon of January even now. There are only so many hours in the day, so much music hitting the virtual marketplaces and streaming colossi. To give each year its proper due would take 5 years, or having no job or other hobbies. So I can’t give you a fair, balanced and complete list of the best records of the year, because I do have a job and other hobbies, and no time machine. I can only give you the records that made me feel good. I hope they made or will make you feel good, too.

(ish). Dool // The Shape of Fluidity — I’ve been aware of Dool for a while now, even before vocalist Raven van Dorst became a national television personality. But it wasn’t until I caught “Venus in Flames” on the metal radio station in the car that I became interested in their music. The Shape of Fluidity crystallizes Van Dorst’s lifelong struggle with identity into a fierce, defiant, and intensely personal album. The androgynous vocals sizzle with raw emotion, and the instrumentation is likewise fluid in its presentation, swaying from almost post-punk energy to Anathema-adjacent prog and dipping into epic doom. An excellent album that really puts Dool on the map.

10. Alcest // Les Chants de l’Aurore — Here’s a fun fact: I always thought Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde wasn’t Alcest’s first album. It was the first album of theirs I heard, but since about 97 out of 100 bands that evolve their sound go softer rather than harder, I assumed there was something more extreme preceding it. Alcest tends to do things differently, though, changing things up rather radically from album to album. Les Chants de l’Aurore has elements from many of its older siblings, but the mood it sets is such a beautiful warm summer melancholy, it sets it apart in a very special way. And seeing it performed live a few weeks ago was a very special experience that seared the album in my mind.

9. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart — No, I’ll never stop proselytizing Madder Mortem, why do you ask? Old Eyes, New Heart wasn’t what I expected, yet in many ways was just what I needed, and was strangely prophetic at times. It’s the most intensely personal album from the Norwegians (which is saying something) and through the healing power of shared misery, sitting down with it is like a good session with a therapist.

8. 40 Watt Sun // Little Weight — Patrick Walker could sing me The Cat In The Hat and I’d still feel like weeping. I’m not sure the man could earn anything below a 4.0 from me if he tried. That being said, Little Weight still takes a spot by the sunny window that 40 Watt Sun hasn’t explored before. Where Perfect Light and Wider Than the Sky were steeped in sadness, Little Weight expels it. It might be the most hopeful album I’ve heard this year, a return to the light from the deepest darkest places. It’s been a comforting hug on bad days, a warm blanket to fight the cold.

7. Walg // IV — The second year in a row I get to feature this duo. Walg is quickly becoming one of my favorite black metal bands. IV fits any mood, really. It’s got anger, it’s got despair, but it also has enough catchy tunes and energy for when you’re in a good mood. You can play the whole thing start to finish, and you can pick out your favorites and stick ‘em in a playlist. As such, it’s been this year’s ol’ reliable, the album to return to when nothing else sparks joy.

6. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe — If I had a nickel for every time an acclaimed blackened death metal band exclusively used historically accurate World War I accounts and even performed in uniform, I’d have two nickels. It’s kind of difficult for me to mentally separate Kanonenfieber and 1914 for obvious reasons. Luckily there is space for both in the trenches because Noise’s project has become a mean Menschen mühling machine. “Der Maulwurf” grabbed me by the throat from the first spin, and everything else followed over and over again. Epic, bludgeoning and harrowing.

5. Labyrinthus Stellarum // Vortex of the Worlds — I can’t stop playing this album. It is stuck in my algorithm. The bleeps and bloops that summon Hastur from the depths of space and time live in my head and they do not pay rent. How did two kids1 from a war-torn country manage this? Labyrinthus Stellarum is so goddamn good at composing addictive melodies in 4 dimensions it should be considered unfair. The only reason it’s not higher is because at this point the competition becomes even more unfair.

4. Iotunn // Kinship — A lot of people told me in the comments that the closing track on Kinship is a great song and shouldn’t have affected my rating of the album as a whole. They are wrong on both counts. This is a shame because up to that point, this is the album of the year. Earning what amounts to a 4.495 despite a disappointing closer is an incredible feat, but the songwriting on the best couple of tracks here is simply unparalleled. “Mistland,” “The Coming End” and especially “Earth to Sky” are just massive in a way few bands ever achieve, and Iotunn make it seem effortless.

3. Vredehammer // God Slayer — One improvement to my life is that I am returning semi-regularly to the gym these days. I’ve struggled with working out consistently, but I can usually get a session a week in these days. And my number one companion for these outings has been God Slayer. The bridge in the title track alone gives me enough energy to break whatever personal record I’ll be working on at the time. Just looking at the album art gives me an extra pound of gains for the week.

2. Meer // Wheels Within Wheels — Yeah, it’s not really metal, but it’s proggy and it’s fucking gorgeous so up yours, elitists! I’ve come to the opinion that Norway is simply the best country for prog in general, and Meer is just another notch in that belt. Whereas Playing House didn’t really grab me at the time, I couldn’t stop spinning Wheels Within Wheels. I had to start every day with “Come to Light” for a while, and the climax of that track is so uniquely empowering it’d help beat down whatever funk I found myself in at the time. The symphonic composition and multi-vocal approach are just beautiful and it truly does not get old. Meer has outdone itself.

1. Huntsmen // The Dry Land — I’ve had multiple comeback stories this year. Outside of metal, both Elbow and That Handsome Devil returned with fantastic albums after the last was simply disappointing. The biggest comeback and biggest surprise was, without a doubt, Huntsmen. Mandala of Fear was such a slog, I could never have expected the perfect tight flow of The Dry Land. Every track is a journey in and of itself, and the diversity is immense. The Dry Land has become one of those albums where I can’t put it on without finishing it entirely; I’ll just keep going ‘Oh yes the next song has these awesome mournful vocals’ or ‘Ah here comes that mindblowing transition.’ It’s been a great year for metal and music in general, but the way Huntsmen returned from the grave and far surpassed even their vaunted debut was the absolute peak for me, and it has not since been surpassed by any other release.

Honorable Mentions

• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // of the Last Human Being — Considering how thrilled I was to get a new SGM album I expected this to wind up higher, but it’s still a great and unsettling resurrection for one of the true premier avant-garde collectives.
• Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions — There’s been plenty of emotionally grabbing black metal of various sorts this year, but Selbst had the coolest take out of them all, with a melodic sense that felt almost trad metal without losing edge or impact.
• Monkey3 // Welcome to the Machine — Easily the best instrumental album of the year. Tasteful nods to Pink Floyd wrapped in a massive maelstrom of heavy psych that gets the balancing act of repetition and evolution precisely right.
• The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales — An even tighter and more cohesive album than its excellent predecessor. Weird Tales is like an amazing haunted house ride.
• Sidewinder // Talons — I really wanted to have this in the main list, because you don’t get stoner this great very often. Alas, the competition was too strong. But listen to it anyway if you haven’t!

Non-Metal Albums

This is a metal blog, despite our occasional forays into tangential material like Meer. But several of my favorite non-metal artists all released some excellent albums, and considering the year I’ve had and the state of the world, I’d rather end with some positivity for the open-minded among you, who are secure enough in their trveness to partake in some decidedly vntrve yet excellent releases.

• Man Man // Carrot on Strings — The quirky and rambunctious Zappa-in-the-Bayou outfit led by the enigmatic Honus Honus kills it with this eclectic and introspective release. Everything from pulsing club EDM to mellow country and various mixtures further off the musical maps, it’s a wild and engaging odyssey.
• That Handsome Devil // Exploitopia — After the disappointing Your Parents Are Sellouts, these weirdos blew off the barn doors with this comeback. Best described as alternative gypsy surf jazz rock hip-hop, Exploitopia gushes anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism with sardonic humor and biting sarcasm.
• Elbow // Audio Vertigo — The most commercially successful band on this list, but I still feel like many metalheads aren’t aware of how good these Brits are. And Audio Vertigo is one of their best albums to date: versatile, infectious, with a warm melancholy and wry camaraderie. Beautiful.
• Future Islands // People Who Aren’t There Anymore — A breakup album, filled with aching loneliness and longing, yet a strange sense of hope winds through the pulsing synth-pop. Frontman Samuel Herring is an absolute king of emotive, raspy crooning, and his performance brings a ton of personality to the album.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Huntsmen – “Rain”
2. Meer – “Come to Light”
3. Iotunn – “Earth to Sky”
4. Tom Cardy – “Transcendental Cha Cha Cha”
5. Walg – “Als een Korrel Zand”
6. Vredehammer – “God Slayer”
7. Tribulation – “The Reaping Song”
8. Madder Mortem – “Towers”
9. Kanonenfieber – “Der Maulwurf”
10. Iotunn – “The Coming End”
11. Selbst – “Chant of Self Confrontation”

Eldritch Elitist

Huh. It’s apparently been four fucking years since I last penned a proper 2 Records o’ the Year list for Angry Metal Guy. This time last year, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be contributing such a list ever again. I still love this blog and the music we celebrate, but making regular contributions to AMG requires a not-insignificant time investment, and I’ve found myself spread ever-thinner over the years. And then January happened, in which a startling number of fantastic releases in that month alone resulted in the crystallization of a single goal: To make 2024 my most complete year of musical indulgence to date. If there was an album released that even slightly piqued my interest in a given week, I was going to find time to listen to it, ideally to completion. This resolve resulted in so many discoveries that I could have penned Top Ten Records o’ the Month articles for multiple months of 2024.

When I say “multiple months,” I really mean “January through March”, as my momentum dwindled when mid-April rolled around. Compounding factors between life and work suddenly left me with much less time in which to indulge in new music. Once I fell behind, I quickly realized that it would be virtually impossible to keep up the listening schedule I had set for myself, and subsequently gave up the ghost. As badly as I wanted to contribute the most confidently comprehensive year-end list possible, this list might as well be titled “Eldritch Elitist’s Top 10 Records o’ Q1 2024 & Friends”. Lopsided though it may be, that’s no excuse to not take a legitimate stab at a list at all, especially not when comments like this keep rolling in… Wait, why the hell has that guy been hanging around the AMG break room? Christ, I really need to work on staying in the loop around here. Anyway, here’s some albums I like; no -ishs, HMs, or butts about it.

#10. Cruce Signatus // Cruce Signatus – While Cruce Signatus sits at the bottom of my top 10, I have listened to it more than any other record this year outside of my number 1 pick. It’s become a go-to record to throw on thanks to its instrumental nature and soundtrack-like ebb and flow. More than that, Cruce Signatus’ unique blend of metal and synthwave is legitimately compelling, feeling distinct from similar acts as an actual soundtrack to an in-progress animation project. The downside is that this record feels partially complete because it literally is. The upside is that the experience of listening to this record will surely evolve retroactively as this project continues, and in the meantime, I’ll remain content to absorb one of the most ambitious cross-media offerings of 2024.

#9. Myrath // Karma – The release of Karma marked my first prolonged exposure to Myrath, and while I don’t adore it as heavily as some of my AMG colleagues, it remained in heavy rotation throughout 2024 all the same. Karma is an uncommonly proficient slab of pop metal, one that smartly leverages its latent progressive and folk metal leanings in sublimely bombastic fashion. It lacks variety, but Myrath navigates Karma’s narrow aesthetic with such precision as to maximize its scope, resulting in an album that compels through efficiency. Ultimately, the most important quality of any pop record is its ability to lodge its hooks into my brain, and I have had every single one of these songs stuck in my head many times throughout the year. If that kind of recurring impact isn’t worthy of a spot on this list, I don’t know what is.

#8. Soulmass // Principality of Mechanical Violence – Despite Soulmass’ previous LP basing its concept on my favorite video game, Principality of Mechanical Violence hit me way harder despite unfamiliarity with its source material. My knowledge of Gundam may only go so far as that handsome blonde fellow in red who apparently did nothing wrong, but I do know that this Gundam concept album rocks unlike any other Soulmass record. It largely culls the band’s moodier death/doom passages in favor of concise riffage, yet is also densely melodic, neatly slotting melancholic guitar leads alongside meaty riffs that echo Bolt Thrower and Cannibal Corpse. The resulting listening experience is equally absorbing and exhilarating, enticing me to get in the robot time and time again.

#7. Mega Colossus // Showdown – Mega Colossus just gets it. Not once in my years of listening to this band have I gotten a sense that they are trying to recapture the heyday of traditional metal, or otherwise be anything in the moment other than themselves. Showdown further cements my impression, as it sees Mega Colossus reaching ever further into their bottomless bag of nerd fixations. The resulting songs cover topical ground ranging from Porco Rosso to Mad Max: Fury Road, but more importantly, they masterfully weave inspirations as far-reaching as Kansas and Megadeth into their core aesthetic of Iron Maiden-inspired trad metal. Combine the playfully loose hold on genre convention with Mega Colossus’ ever-effusive lyrics, and you have one of the most purely entertaining records of the year from one of the best modern bands in the genre.

#6. Black Curse // Burning in Celestial Poison – Unlike other albums on this list, I have not returned to Burning in Celestial Poison to reconfirm its standing. Call me irresponsible, but I must emphasize that my memory and impression of this record – one formed after multiple days of consecutive spins – remains fully crystalized in my mind. Black Curse’s sophomore outing is one that continues to linger in the darker corners of my mind, a wholly unique vision of blackened death metal that, while not as traditionally thrilling as the band’s debut, is more than the sum of its parts. That “more” manifests as an incorporeal malefic entity seemingly possessing motives independent of the artists who spawned it. Burning in Celestial Poison feels like a living, breathing work, one which unsettles as much as it entices.

#5. Oak, Ash & Thorn // Our Grief is Thus – Our Grief is Thus is one of those albums that feels made specifically for me, with power metal vocals and melodeath riffage wrapped in an overarching aesthetic of black metal, folk metal, and crust punk. Beyond gifting me the forbidden knowledge that power metal with d-beats can and does work, it’s also a generally excellent example of effective genre splicing, feeling as though it belongs in both all and none of the styles from which it cleverly pulls inspiration. What Oak, Ash & Thorn has accomplished with this sophomore outing is an explosively energetic yet cohesive record, and one so melodically effervescent as to be compulsively replayable. Our Grief is Thus is the most surprising record of 2024, and I am firmly seated on the OAT boat for whatever comes next.

#4. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart – Madder Mortem is a name I’ve heard tossed around since 2009, and who I never bothered to check out because I thought they were some sorta high falutin’, artsy fartsy doom metal band. That may have been the case once upon a time, but at some point they evolved into the accessible sort of dark progressive metal showcased on Old Eyes, New Heart. Immediately gripping and heavy yet disarmingly vulnerable, this record converted me to Madder Mortem fandom almost instantly. Its songs wormed their way under my skin with atomic precision and never left; as early as my third listen, they felt like old friends, albeit ones prone to trauma dumping. There may be records I liked more in 2024, but none moved or shook me quite like Old Eyes, New Heart.

#3. Galneryus // The Stars Will Light the Way – I’ve read dozens of comments all parroting a mildly irksome take: The Stars Will Light the Way feels like Galneryus on cruise control. While this has mostly been opined through a positive lens, it still feels unfairly reductive when considering the sheer quality and consistency of this album. Sure, Sho’s voice is notably strained at this point, but he excels at utilizing his current strengths in the strongest collection of Galneryus tracks since 2014’s Vetelgyus. It’s also the most straightforward record Galneryus has released since Vetelgyus, nixing much of the experimentation and darker leanings of recent offerings (“In Water’s Gaze” notwithstanding) in favor of unbridled jubilance. So yeah, sure, The Stars Will Light the Way is a “safe” record if you want to call it that. It’s still one of the best records from the best power metal band in the world.

#2. Nemedian Chronicles // The Savage Sword – I can hardly believe that Nemedian Chronicles is not a Greek band. They sound so in step with acts like Sacred Outcry that I can practically feel the lamb and tzatziki sauce falling out of an overloaded gyro and onto my lap. Yet the appeal of Nemedian Chronicles is singular. There is a lot of love for Blind Guardian and Sacred Outcry on The Savage Sword, but there is also a distinctly epic, cinematic quality that hearkens back to Bal-Sagoth’s overwrought storytelling. Between the propulsive riffs and sweeping melodies, I’m immediately absorbed into the experience with every listen, and that’s to say nothing of the engaging and often unpredictable songwriting. In most years, The Savage Sword would handily take the crown for best power metal release. However…

#1. Fellowship // The Skies Above Eternity – You know that little bit of text under my review of The Skies Above Eternity that says “Rating: 4.0/5.0?” That number is technically correct per the AMG style guide, but what that number can’t account for is the fact that The Skies Above Eternity is a record I’ll be listening to for the rest of my life. 2022’s The Saberlight Chronicles is a true 5.0/5.0 by any objective or subjective metric, and while The Skies Above Eternity is not as good from a technical standpoint, it fully recaptures the strengths that made its predecessor a modern power metal icon. Fellowship’s debut may have had higher and more frequent peaks, but The Skies Above Eternity excels through consistency and conciseness. The band’s trademark earnestness, vulnerability, and impeccable sense of melodic craft can be felt in every second of the experience. It doesn’t matter whether this record is the best material Fellowship is capable of producing because it warms me in the exact same way they’ve been doing since their first EP, making The Skies Above Eternity one of my most treasured records by default. This album may be a 4.0 in my brain, but it’s a 4.5 in my heart and a 5.0 in my soul.

Song o’ the Year

Fellowship’s “Hold Up Your Hearts (Again)” – I was present in the audience when Fellowship debuted this song live, and everyone was so on board with the silliness of its title that we enthusiastically welcomed it into the Fellowship canon with a communal sea of heart hands. It doesn’t top “Glint” as my favorite Fellowship song, but its concentrated formula of speedy Euro-power metal and the lyrics’ pitch-perfect shonen anime energy handily clear second place status.

Disappointment o’ the Year

Various “Artists” – The Continued Proliferation of Crappy AI Album “Art” – This blog has not adopted a formal stance on albums featuring generative AI artwork, nor do I feel it needs to. But this is my list, and I’m taking the opportunity to say that if I get so much as a whiff of AI coming off of an album going into 2025, I won’t be giving it the time of day, much less a review. It is unfathomable to think some musicians can devote so much time and creative energy into creating an album, only to hold zero value in the image that is supposed to be introducing that album to the world. In fact, if an album features an AI-generated cover, I automatically assume that the devaluation of art permeates the music itself in some form. Either pay a fucking artist to create an album cover for you, or go outside to take a picture of a cool tree or something and slap a Photoshop filter on it. If that proves too difficult, the public domain is your friend. If it’s good enough for Bolt Thrower, it’s sure as hell good enough for your shitty bedroom black metal project.

#2024 #40WattSun #ABurialAtSea #Alcest #andEldritchElitistSTopTenIshOf2024 #Aquilus #At1980 #Beardfish #BlackCurse #BloodIncantation #CruceSignatus #CryptSermon #Dissimulator #Dool #ElCuervoS #Fellowship #Galneryus #GardensTaleS #Hamferð #Huntsmen #InVain #Iotunn #Kalax #Kanonenfieber #LabyrinthusStellarum #Lists #Listurnalia #MadderMortem #Meer #MegaColossus #Monkey3 #MorgulBlade #Myrath #NemedianChronicles #OakAshThorn #Opeth #Selbst #Sidewinder #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #Soulmass #Syst3mGlitch #TheVisionBleak #Vredehammer #Walg

El Cuervo’s, GardensTale’s, and Eldritch Elitist’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By El Cuervo

El Cuervo

After more than a decade in this job, the years start to blur. While there may be an almost imperceptible feeling that some years are musically stronger than others, I’ve started to reach the realization that they’re all basically the same. 99% of heavy metal spawned into the world is destined to be forgotten or disparaged.

That’s not to say I’m bored of this state of affairs. The metal community, and in particular its underground, remains in a robust position to peddle the best non-mainstream music in the world, boasting a wide array of sub-genres from all over the globe. Just look at my list below: nine of the selections are from the atypical regions of Northern Europe and North America, hitherto unknown for their metal output.

Nonetheless, it’s the year-to-year consistency that highlights the importance of gathering our thoughts at annual intervals to assemble a list of real quality. This process reminds me why I still spend hundreds of hours each year consuming and reviewing new music. These stand-outs justify my decision and I deeply enjoy commemorating them in this ranking extravaganza. Revel in the albums that most excited me in 2024.

#10. A Burial at Sea // Close to Home – As much as music may impress you with its technical chops or hook you with its bold melodies, it’s music that makes you feel something that endures. The idiosyncratic brand of post-rock heard on Close to Home, dipping into brassy jazz and techy math rock as much as it does shoegaze, always prioritizes its emotive impact above all else. I love the gentle lilt, the crashing apices, the shimmering walls of noise, the orchestral edges. A Burial at Sea ebbs with slow rhythms and delicate chords, but flows with heavy drums and tremolo-picked melodies. The natural cadence across tracks makes the album feel complete. Each year yields one or two ‘mood’ releases for me to savor in a dark room with my headphones and my thoughts; 2024’s is Close to Home.

#9. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – As much as I initially enjoyed Die Urkatastrophe as a studio album, it took the Kanonenfieber live experience to really get its hooks into me. This isn’t just blackened death metal. It’s theatrical, energetic, and catchy, without devolving into something as simple as ‘meloblack’. The shout-along choruses and grooving leads were accentuated in a live setting, and I was incentivized to dig back through the Kanonenfieber back catalog. But the gig wouldn’t have been as entertaining as it was without the underlying music being of high quality. I’ve been to plenty of shows which have encouraged me to revisit an artist – but where the studio release is far less potent. Die Urkatastrophe has the chops and power to excel in both formats.

#8. Aquilus// Bellum II – Lots of black metal adopts the adjective of ‘atmospheric’ but few come as close to this as Aquilus. Horace Rosenqvist forges music that harmonizes but transcends classical and black metal, beguiling and terrifying in equal measure. Bellum II may be marginally the lesser of Bellum I, but it’s still among the best music released this year. Its compositions are extraordinary, as they subtly and satisfyingly transition from delicate piano and strings to towering black metal blasts. This is the prime example of the album’s devastating dichotomies that I previously described (“elegance and savagery; serenity and chaos; airiness and crunch”). Rosenqvist is a singularly mesmerizing instrumentalist and composer, able to pull contrasting music into a brutal but beautiful whole.

#7. Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk – It’s hard to conceive of a more metal homeland than the Faroe Islands. Cold? Dark? Remote? Check, check, check. This results in Hamferð’s frigid, towering block of death-inflected doom metal that owes as much to its isolated island roots as it does to any other metal band. Men Guðs hond er sterk is a crushingly heavy album, but one gilded with a hopeful edge derived from its concept wherein a survivor of a whaling accident emphasizes the miracle of his life. While prioritizing the sheer weight of mass and exquisitely despondent leads, the album also benefits from one of metal’s most talented vocalists in Jón Aldará, who runs the gamut from bellowing growls to melancholic croons. Though it runs out of steam by the gentle acoustic conclusion, the preceding thirty-nine minutes are monumental.

#6. Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere – Blood Incantation is plainly an excellent band. But I’m struggling to explain why Absolute Elsewhere became the underground cross-over metal album of the year, favored by big and small publications alike. Perhaps it’s the savage but technical riffs that make you mosh and think simultaneously. Perhaps it’s the Floydian approach to song structures. Perhaps it’s the penchant for meandering, Tangerine Dreamy interludes. Perhaps it’s the sophisticated fusion of something heavy so listeners feel edgy, with something chill so listeners feel safe. Perhaps it’s the conspiratorial orientation around our alien overlords building the pyramids. Perhaps it’s all of these and more. Hmm. On reflection, I think I do understand why everyone loves Absolute Elsewhere as much as they do.

#5. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – We all know that doom is the worst core metal sub-genre. To my abject horror, 2024 saw not one but two excellent examples of it. Crypt Sermon stormed the top five of my list, folding excellent leads and engaging solos into some of the most captivating metal of the year. While the front half is good, it’s the back half where things hit another level. “Heavy Is the Crown of Bone” until the title track exemplifies the best of the sub-genre through their epic proportions, memorable melodies and fat, crunchy guitar tones. While the riffs have immediate impact, the detailed compositions give the songs real staying power. Layers of guitars, a tempo that eschews dirge speeds, varied vocals and progressive song constructions march the album to a conclusion that comes too quickly.

#4. Syst3m Glitch // The Brave Ones – The remainder of this list documents my love for heavy metal and all things progressive. But synthwave is the third pillar of my music library and the most joyous. The best of the year comes from Florida’s Syst3m Glitch. He’s not always been my first pick for synths, but The Brave Ones dramatically outperformed his prior output and muscled its way into my favorite albums from 2024. It’s stuffed full of catchy, memorable tunes that traverse the synthwave soundscape, from the pop-laced sweetness of “California,” to the pulsing rhythms of “Thrill Ride,” to the darksynth pastiche of “Tommy Danger,” and finally to the smooth retrowave of “Raining in Tokyo.” It’s rare for one release to cover this much territory, and rarer still that it’s so successful in doing so.

#3. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – February is early in the year but I knew then that Lower Form Resistance would be high on my list. Dissimulator inherits death metal traits from the members’ other bands (including Beyond Creation and First Fragment) but builds these into uber-tight, technical thrash metal. The excellence of the riffs here is fucking relentlessness; no other 2024 release can boast such a fine repertoire. From the ridiculously good “Neural Hack” until the closer, the album generates such entertainment value that it feels half as long as it is. The exemplary instrumentation, chaotic energy and technological feel make Lower Form Resistance sound like Voivod reinvented for the 2020s. In a sub-genre so preoccupied with rehashing old ideas – I do not accept that thrash metal must sound like 1986 – Dissimulator thrives by looking forward.

#2. In Vain // Solemn – It’s no secret that I’m a prog nerd. While In Vain has always been plenty progressive through varied and unpredictable songwriting, what I envy most is the knack for incorporating myriad styles into one cohesive sound. Solemn follows two prior records demarcated by their fusions of melodic death metal, black metal, progressive rock, and Nordic folk music. This fusion has never been more seamless than it is in 2024. The expansive songs feel like they should be extremely long and complex but in reality, they hardly exceed seven minutes and utilize powerful melodic anchors. As if all this wasn’t enough, the quintessential In Vain guitar and vocal harmonies, and orchestral pomp, elevate the songs into metal magic. Solemn is pure Cuervo catnip.

#1. Opeth // The Last Will and Testament – It feels like I’ve spent much of the last few months describing just how much I admire Opeth. This year-end list is no exception as I properly rank The Last Will and Testament as 2024’s best release. With the Opeth ranking articles so recent, I think it would fall into the upper half of their work. In a discography littered with records revered by both metalheads and prog nerds, this demarcates a record of rare quality. Though – yes – Åkerfeldt returns to growled vocals here, this is just a small piece of what makes The Last Will and Testament so good. From the sophisticated compositions to the entertaining story, and the exemplary instrumentation to the immaculate production, its knotty harmonization of death metal with progressive rock has the aura of perfection. No other record from 2024 can make such a claim.

Honorable Mentions

• Beardfish // Songs for Beating Hearts – The unheralded return of these Swedes yields a shockingly vital slice of prog rock, boasting tidy riffs, folksy warmth, and engaging song-writing.
• At 1980 // Forget to Remember – While predictable, At 1980 remains an interminably satisfying retrowave artist through their smooth synths, melodic guitar solos, and easy vocals.
• Morgul Blade // Heavy Metal Wraiths – Morgul Blade forms a destructive harmony between three of my favorite things: razor-sharp classic metal leads, harsh vocal,s and Tolkien nerdery.
• Kalax // Lost – While bloated and meandering – lost, perhaps – the return of Liverpool’s premier retro synth act finds a delicate dichotomy between frigidity and comfort.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Unto Others – “Never, Neverland”
2. Syst3m Glitch – “Raining in Tokyo”
3. Iotunn – “Iridescent Way”
4. Opeth – “A Story Never Told”
5. Lebrock – “Goliath”
6. At 1980 – “Your Secret”
7. Nestor – “Caroline”
8. Crypt Sermon – “The Stygian Rose”
9. Dissimulator – “Neural Hack”
10. Winterun – “Silver Leaves”

GardensTale

Fucking hell, what a year. Ordinarily, I’d try and wax poetically on the passing of time or some shit here. Looking back with melancholy and whatnot seems to be the intention for opening paragraphs to arbitrary lists of what music this one rando that I happen to be got the most enjoyment from this year. But I think this time, I’ll try some brutal honesty instead. It’s not been a great year overall. I won’t bore you with a tedious list, numbering my shades of the various common mental issues people my age and disposition face, but suffice it to say I’ve closed out most prior years in better spirits. But I’m getting help, I’m fighting it, and I’m learning. Learning to give myself grace, to step back when I need to. And if that sometimes means slowing down on a review, well, it’s a small price to pay.

One consequence is that I have spent less time listening to music I wasn’t reviewing. That shows below because this list will look like the most self-congratulatory thing I ever wrote. The vast majority of entries I penned myself, be it as a full article, a TYMHM or even a filter entry. But the funny part is, I thought it was a really strong year! I had quite a sizeable shortlist to whittle down. But then I was done whittling and discovered I’d almost exclusively cut albums I did not review, like APES, Crypt Sermon and Hamferð for instance. Additionally, I find I’ve added less to the list in the second half of the year, and my sullied brain has questioned myself many times: was autumn weaker than usual, or is my growing ennui obstructing my ability to like things as much as they deserve?

I don’t know, to tell the truth. And I’m unlikely to find out, because time marches on and new releases darken the horizon of January even now. There are only so many hours in the day, so much music hitting the virtual marketplaces and streaming colossi. To give each year its proper due would take 5 years, or having no job or other hobbies. So I can’t give you a fair, balanced and complete list of the best records of the year, because I do have a job and other hobbies, and no time machine. I can only give you the records that made me feel good. I hope they made or will make you feel good, too.

(ish). Dool // The Shape of Fluidity — I’ve been aware of Dool for a while now, even before vocalist Raven van Dorst became a national television personality. But it wasn’t until I caught “Venus in Flames” on the metal radio station in the car that I became interested in their music. The Shape of Fluidity crystallizes Van Dorst’s lifelong struggle with identity into a fierce, defiant, and intensely personal album. The androgynous vocals sizzle with raw emotion, and the instrumentation is likewise fluid in its presentation, swaying from almost post-punk energy to Anathema-adjacent prog and dipping into epic doom. An excellent album that really puts Dool on the map.

10. Alcest // Les Chants de l’Aurore — Here’s a fun fact: I always thought Souvenirs d’un Autre Monde wasn’t Alcest’s first album. It was the first album of theirs I heard, but since about 97 out of 100 bands that evolve their sound go softer rather than harder, I assumed there was something more extreme preceding it. Alcest tends to do things differently, though, changing things up rather radically from album to album. Les Chants de l’Aurore has elements from many of its older siblings, but the mood it sets is such a beautiful warm summer melancholy, it sets it apart in a very special way. And seeing it performed live a few weeks ago was a very special experience that seared the album in my mind.

9. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart — No, I’ll never stop proselytizing Madder Mortem, why do you ask? Old Eyes, New Heart wasn’t what I expected, yet in many ways was just what I needed, and was strangely prophetic at times. It’s the most intensely personal album from the Norwegians (which is saying something) and through the healing power of shared misery, sitting down with it is like a good session with a therapist.

8. 40 Watt Sun // Little Weight — Patrick Walker could sing me The Cat In The Hat and I’d still feel like weeping. I’m not sure the man could earn anything below a 4.0 from me if he tried. That being said, Little Weight still takes a spot by the sunny window that 40 Watt Sun hasn’t explored before. Where Perfect Light and Wider Than the Sky were steeped in sadness, Little Weight expels it. It might be the most hopeful album I’ve heard this year, a return to the light from the deepest darkest places. It’s been a comforting hug on bad days, a warm blanket to fight the cold.

7. Walg // IV — The second year in a row I get to feature this duo. Walg is quickly becoming one of my favorite black metal bands. IV fits any mood, really. It’s got anger, it’s got despair, but it also has enough catchy tunes and energy for when you’re in a good mood. You can play the whole thing start to finish, and you can pick out your favorites and stick ‘em in a playlist. As such, it’s been this year’s ol’ reliable, the album to return to when nothing else sparks joy.

6. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe — If I had a nickel for every time an acclaimed blackened death metal band exclusively used historically accurate World War I accounts and even performed in uniform, I’d have two nickels. It’s kind of difficult for me to mentally separate Kanonenfieber and 1914 for obvious reasons. Luckily there is space for both in the trenches because Noise’s project has become a mean Menschen mühling machine. “Der Maulwurf” grabbed me by the throat from the first spin, and everything else followed over and over again. Epic, bludgeoning and harrowing.

5. Labyrinthus Stellarum // Vortex of the Worlds — I can’t stop playing this album. It is stuck in my algorithm. The bleeps and bloops that summon Hastur from the depths of space and time live in my head and they do not pay rent. How did two kids1 from a war-torn country manage this? Labyrinthus Stellarum is so goddamn good at composing addictive melodies in 4 dimensions it should be considered unfair. The only reason it’s not higher is because at this point the competition becomes even more unfair.

4. Iotunn // Kinship — A lot of people told me in the comments that the closing track on Kinship is a great song and shouldn’t have affected my rating of the album as a whole. They are wrong on both counts. This is a shame because up to that point, this is the album of the year. Earning what amounts to a 4.495 despite a disappointing closer is an incredible feat, but the songwriting on the best couple of tracks here is simply unparalleled. “Mistland,” “The Coming End” and especially “Earth to Sky” are just massive in a way few bands ever achieve, and Iotunn make it seem effortless.

3. Vredehammer // God Slayer — One improvement to my life is that I am returning semi-regularly to the gym these days. I’ve struggled with working out consistently, but I can usually get a session a week in these days. And my number one companion for these outings has been God Slayer. The bridge in the title track alone gives me enough energy to break whatever personal record I’ll be working on at the time. Just looking at the album art gives me an extra pound of gains for the week.

2. Meer // Wheels Within Wheels — Yeah, it’s not really metal, but it’s proggy and it’s fucking gorgeous so up yours, elitists! I’ve come to the opinion that Norway is simply the best country for prog in general, and Meer is just another notch in that belt. Whereas Playing House didn’t really grab me at the time, I couldn’t stop spinning Wheels Within Wheels. I had to start every day with “Come to Light” for a while, and the climax of that track is so uniquely empowering it’d help beat down whatever funk I found myself in at the time. The symphonic composition and multi-vocal approach are just beautiful and it truly does not get old. Meer has outdone itself.

1. Huntsmen // The Dry Land — I’ve had multiple comeback stories this year. Outside of metal, both Elbow and That Handsome Devil returned with fantastic albums after the last was simply disappointing. The biggest comeback and biggest surprise was, without a doubt, Huntsmen. Mandala of Fear was such a slog, I could never have expected the perfect tight flow of The Dry Land. Every track is a journey in and of itself, and the diversity is immense. The Dry Land has become one of those albums where I can’t put it on without finishing it entirely; I’ll just keep going ‘Oh yes the next song has these awesome mournful vocals’ or ‘Ah here comes that mindblowing transition.’ It’s been a great year for metal and music in general, but the way Huntsmen returned from the grave and far surpassed even their vaunted debut was the absolute peak for me, and it has not since been surpassed by any other release.

Honorable Mentions

• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // of the Last Human Being — Considering how thrilled I was to get a new SGM album I expected this to wind up higher, but it’s still a great and unsettling resurrection for one of the true premier avant-garde collectives.
• Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions — There’s been plenty of emotionally grabbing black metal of various sorts this year, but Selbst had the coolest take out of them all, with a melodic sense that felt almost trad metal without losing edge or impact.
• Monkey3 // Welcome to the Machine — Easily the best instrumental album of the year. Tasteful nods to Pink Floyd wrapped in a massive maelstrom of heavy psych that gets the balancing act of repetition and evolution precisely right.
• The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales — An even tighter and more cohesive album than its excellent predecessor. Weird Tales is like an amazing haunted house ride.
• Sidewinder // Talons — I really wanted to have this in the main list, because you don’t get stoner this great very often. Alas, the competition was too strong. But listen to it anyway if you haven’t!

Non-Metal Albums

This is a metal blog, despite our occasional forays into tangential material like Meer. But several of my favorite non-metal artists all released some excellent albums, and considering the year I’ve had and the state of the world, I’d rather end with some positivity for the open-minded among you, who are secure enough in their trveness to partake in some decidedly vntrve yet excellent releases.

• Man Man // Carrot on Strings — The quirky and rambunctious Zappa-in-the-Bayou outfit led by the enigmatic Honus Honus kills it with this eclectic and introspective release. Everything from pulsing club EDM to mellow country and various mixtures further off the musical maps, it’s a wild and engaging odyssey.
• That Handsome Devil // Exploitopia — After the disappointing Your Parents Are Sellouts, these weirdos blew off the barn doors with this comeback. Best described as alternative gypsy surf jazz rock hip-hop, Exploitopia gushes anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism with sardonic humor and biting sarcasm.
• Elbow // Audio Vertigo — The most commercially successful band on this list, but I still feel like many metalheads aren’t aware of how good these Brits are. And Audio Vertigo is one of their best albums to date: versatile, infectious, with a warm melancholy and wry camaraderie. Beautiful.
• Future Islands // People Who Aren’t There Anymore — A breakup album, filled with aching loneliness and longing, yet a strange sense of hope winds through the pulsing synth-pop. Frontman Samuel Herring is an absolute king of emotive, raspy crooning, and his performance brings a ton of personality to the album.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Huntsmen – “Rain”
2. Meer – “Come to Light”
3. Iotunn – “Earth to Sky”
4. Tom Cardy – “Transcendental Cha Cha Cha”
5. Walg – “Als een Korrel Zand”
6. Vredehammer – “God Slayer”
7. Tribulation – “The Reaping Song”
8. Madder Mortem – “Towers”
9. Kanonenfieber – “Der Maulwurf”
10. Iotunn – “The Coming End”
11. Selbst – “Chant of Self Confrontation”

Eldritch Elitist

Huh. It’s apparently been four fucking years since I last penned a proper 2 Records o’ the Year list for Angry Metal Guy. This time last year, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be contributing such a list ever again. I still love this blog and the music we celebrate, but making regular contributions to AMG requires a not-insignificant time investment, and I’ve found myself spread ever-thinner over the years. And then January happened, in which a startling number of fantastic releases in that month alone resulted in the crystallization of a single goal: To make 2024 my most complete year of musical indulgence to date. If there was an album released that even slightly piqued my interest in a given week, I was going to find time to listen to it, ideally to completion. This resolve resulted in so many discoveries that I could have penned Top Ten Records o’ the Month articles for multiple months of 2024.

When I say “multiple months,” I really mean “January through March”, as my momentum dwindled when mid-April rolled around. Compounding factors between life and work suddenly left me with much less time in which to indulge in new music. Once I fell behind, I quickly realized that it would be virtually impossible to keep up the listening schedule I had set for myself, and subsequently gave up the ghost. As badly as I wanted to contribute the most confidently comprehensive year-end list possible, this list might as well be titled “Eldritch Elitist’s Top 10 Records o’ Q1 2024 & Friends”. Lopsided though it may be, that’s no excuse to not take a legitimate stab at a list at all, especially not when comments like this keep rolling in… Wait, why the hell has that guy been hanging around the AMG break room? Christ, I really need to work on staying in the loop around here. Anyway, here’s some albums I like; no -ishs, HMs, or butts about it.

#10. Cruce Signatus // Cruce Signatus – While Cruce Signatus sits at the bottom of my top 10, I have listened to it more than any other record this year outside of my number 1 pick. It’s become a go-to record to throw on thanks to its instrumental nature and soundtrack-like ebb and flow. More than that, Cruce Signatus’ unique blend of metal and synthwave is legitimately compelling, feeling distinct from similar acts as an actual soundtrack to an in-progress animation project. The downside is that this record feels partially complete because it literally is. The upside is that the experience of listening to this record will surely evolve retroactively as this project continues, and in the meantime, I’ll remain content to absorb one of the most ambitious cross-media offerings of 2024.

#9. Myrath // Karma – The release of Karma marked my first prolonged exposure to Myrath, and while I don’t adore it as heavily as some of my AMG colleagues, it remained in heavy rotation throughout 2024 all the same. Karma is an uncommonly proficient slab of pop metal, one that smartly leverages its latent progressive and folk metal leanings in sublimely bombastic fashion. It lacks variety, but Myrath navigates Karma’s narrow aesthetic with such precision as to maximize its scope, resulting in an album that compels through efficiency. Ultimately, the most important quality of any pop record is its ability to lodge its hooks into my brain, and I have had every single one of these songs stuck in my head many times throughout the year. If that kind of recurring impact isn’t worthy of a spot on this list, I don’t know what is.

#8. Soulmass // Principality of Mechanical Violence – Despite Soulmass’ previous LP basing its concept on my favorite video game, Principality of Mechanical Violence hit me way harder despite unfamiliarity with its source material. My knowledge of Gundam may only go so far as that handsome blonde fellow in red who apparently did nothing wrong, but I do know that this Gundam concept album rocks unlike any other Soulmass record. It largely culls the band’s moodier death/doom passages in favor of concise riffage, yet is also densely melodic, neatly slotting melancholic guitar leads alongside meaty riffs that echo Bolt Thrower and Cannibal Corpse. The resulting listening experience is equally absorbing and exhilarating, enticing me to get in the robot time and time again.

#7. Mega Colossus // Showdown – Mega Colossus just gets it. Not once in my years of listening to this band have I gotten a sense that they are trying to recapture the heyday of traditional metal, or otherwise be anything in the moment other than themselves. Showdown further cements my impression, as it sees Mega Colossus reaching ever further into their bottomless bag of nerd fixations. The resulting songs cover topical ground ranging from Porco Rosso to Mad Max: Fury Road, but more importantly, they masterfully weave inspirations as far-reaching as Kansas and Megadeth into their core aesthetic of Iron Maiden-inspired trad metal. Combine the playfully loose hold on genre convention with Mega Colossus’ ever-effusive lyrics, and you have one of the most purely entertaining records of the year from one of the best modern bands in the genre.

#6. Black Curse // Burning in Celestial Poison – Unlike other albums on this list, I have not returned to Burning in Celestial Poison to reconfirm its standing. Call me irresponsible, but I must emphasize that my memory and impression of this record – one formed after multiple days of consecutive spins – remains fully crystalized in my mind. Black Curse’s sophomore outing is one that continues to linger in the darker corners of my mind, a wholly unique vision of blackened death metal that, while not as traditionally thrilling as the band’s debut, is more than the sum of its parts. That “more” manifests as an incorporeal malefic entity seemingly possessing motives independent of the artists who spawned it. Burning in Celestial Poison feels like a living, breathing work, one which unsettles as much as it entices.

#5. Oak, Ash & Thorn // Our Grief is Thus – Our Grief is Thus is one of those albums that feels made specifically for me, with power metal vocals and melodeath riffage wrapped in an overarching aesthetic of black metal, folk metal, and crust punk. Beyond gifting me the forbidden knowledge that power metal with d-beats can and does work, it’s also a generally excellent example of effective genre splicing, feeling as though it belongs in both all and none of the styles from which it cleverly pulls inspiration. What Oak, Ash & Thorn has accomplished with this sophomore outing is an explosively energetic yet cohesive record, and one so melodically effervescent as to be compulsively replayable. Our Grief is Thus is the most surprising record of 2024, and I am firmly seated on the OAT boat for whatever comes next.

#4. Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart – Madder Mortem is a name I’ve heard tossed around since 2009, and who I never bothered to check out because I thought they were some sorta high falutin’, artsy fartsy doom metal band. That may have been the case once upon a time, but at some point they evolved into the accessible sort of dark progressive metal showcased on Old Eyes, New Heart. Immediately gripping and heavy yet disarmingly vulnerable, this record converted me to Madder Mortem fandom almost instantly. Its songs wormed their way under my skin with atomic precision and never left; as early as my third listen, they felt like old friends, albeit ones prone to trauma dumping. There may be records I liked more in 2024, but none moved or shook me quite like Old Eyes, New Heart.

#3. Galneryus // The Stars Will Light the Way – I’ve read dozens of comments all parroting a mildly irksome take: The Stars Will Light the Way feels like Galneryus on cruise control. While this has mostly been opined through a positive lens, it still feels unfairly reductive when considering the sheer quality and consistency of this album. Sure, Sho’s voice is notably strained at this point, but he excels at utilizing his current strengths in the strongest collection of Galneryus tracks since 2014’s Vetelgyus. It’s also the most straightforward record Galneryus has released since Vetelgyus, nixing much of the experimentation and darker leanings of recent offerings (“In Water’s Gaze” notwithstanding) in favor of unbridled jubilance. So yeah, sure, The Stars Will Light the Way is a “safe” record if you want to call it that. It’s still one of the best records from the best power metal band in the world.

#2. Nemedian Chronicles // The Savage Sword – I can hardly believe that Nemedian Chronicles is not a Greek band. They sound so in step with acts like Sacred Outcry that I can practically feel the lamb and tzatziki sauce falling out of an overloaded gyro and onto my lap. Yet the appeal of Nemedian Chronicles is singular. There is a lot of love for Blind Guardian and Sacred Outcry on The Savage Sword, but there is also a distinctly epic, cinematic quality that hearkens back to Bal-Sagoth’s overwrought storytelling. Between the propulsive riffs and sweeping melodies, I’m immediately absorbed into the experience with every listen, and that’s to say nothing of the engaging and often unpredictable songwriting. In most years, The Savage Sword would handily take the crown for best power metal release. However…

#1. Fellowship // The Skies Above Eternity – You know that little bit of text under my review of The Skies Above Eternity that says “Rating: 4.0/5.0?” That number is technically correct per the AMG style guide, but what that number can’t account for is the fact that The Skies Above Eternity is a record I’ll be listening to for the rest of my life. 2022’s The Saberlight Chronicles is a true 5.0/5.0 by any objective or subjective metric, and while The Skies Above Eternity is not as good from a technical standpoint, it fully recaptures the strengths that made its predecessor a modern power metal icon. Fellowship’s debut may have had higher and more frequent peaks, but The Skies Above Eternity excels through consistency and conciseness. The band’s trademark earnestness, vulnerability, and impeccable sense of melodic craft can be felt in every second of the experience. It doesn’t matter whether this record is the best material Fellowship is capable of producing because it warms me in the exact same way they’ve been doing since their first EP, making The Skies Above Eternity one of my most treasured records by default. This album may be a 4.0 in my brain, but it’s a 4.5 in my heart and a 5.0 in my soul.

Song o’ the Year

Fellowship’s “Hold Up Your Hearts (Again)” – I was present in the audience when Fellowship debuted this song live, and everyone was so on board with the silliness of its title that we enthusiastically welcomed it into the Fellowship canon with a communal sea of heart hands. It doesn’t top “Glint” as my favorite Fellowship song, but its concentrated formula of speedy Euro-power metal and the lyrics’ pitch-perfect shonen anime energy handily clear second place status.

Disappointment o’ the Year

Various “Artists” – The Continued Proliferation of Crappy AI Album “Art” – This blog has not adopted a formal stance on albums featuring generative AI artwork, nor do I feel it needs to. But this is my list, and I’m taking the opportunity to say that if I get so much as a whiff of AI coming off of an album going into 2025, I won’t be giving it the time of day, much less a review. It is unfathomable to think some musicians can devote so much time and creative energy into creating an album, only to hold zero value in the image that is supposed to be introducing that album to the world. In fact, if an album features an AI-generated cover, I automatically assume that the devaluation of art permeates the music itself in some form. Either pay a fucking artist to create an album cover for you, or go outside to take a picture of a cool tree or something and slap a Photoshop filter on it. If that proves too difficult, the public domain is your friend. If it’s good enough for Bolt Thrower, it’s sure as hell good enough for your shitty bedroom black metal project.

#2024 #40WattSun #ABurialAtSea #Alcest #andEldritchElitistSTopTenIshOf2024 #Aquilus #At1980 #Beardfish #BlackCurse #BloodIncantation #CruceSignatus #CryptSermon #Dissimulator #Dool #ElCuervoS #Fellowship #Galneryus #GardensTaleS #Hamferð #Huntsmen #InVain #Iotunn #Kalax #Kanonenfieber #LabyrinthusStellarum #Lists #Listurnalia #MadderMortem #Meer #MegaColossus #Monkey3 #MorgulBlade #Myrath #NemedianChronicles #OakAshThorn #Opeth #Selbst #Sidewinder #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #Soulmass #Syst3mGlitch #TheVisionBleak #Vredehammer #Walg

Reminder
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AMG Goes Ranking – DragonForce

By Eldritch Elitist

The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography, and what if the rest of the personality used a Google sheet some kind of dark magic to produce an official guide to, and an all-around definitive aggregated ranking of, that band’s entire discography? Well, if that happened, we imagine it would look something like this…

If you’re a regular around these parts, you might have seen this article’s title and thought to yourself: how the hell could something like this come from the fortress of snobbery that is AMG? You might have then seen the author of said article and thought to yourself: Oh, THAT’S how. My involvement in this endeavor might be a given for those who know my musical diet, but should there really be any surprise that I managed to wrangle two extra participants through mild coercion and weaponized nostalgia? For a certain generation of metal fans, whether they loved or hated them, DragonForce was a big deal. Thanks to the popularity of “Through the Fire and Flames” in the then-phenomenon that was Guitar Hero, guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman were practically household names. For me, DragonForce was so much more than a one-hit-wonder. Inhuman Rampage (which I discovered months before “Through the Fire and Flames” debuted in Guitar Hero 3, thank you very much) marked my very first exposure to power metal, an instant obsession that blew open the gates to the underground in pursuit of more music that could make me feel like that. It is by no means hyperbolic to state that without DragonForce, I might have never had enough interest to write about metal music at all.

My initial obsession waned, along with my interest in metal in general, as I moved on to college life. When I emerged four years later, I found myself with a revitalized passion for metal, which led me to apply at my favorite metal blog, but it took a while for that ol’ love for DragonForce to re-emerge. The band had long since parted ways with original singer ZP Theart, and their new material with Marc Hudson on mic duties lacked that undiluted rush of sugar bomb pyromania. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I delved into the Hudson era in earnest. Blame it on many of my musical pretenses falling away with age, but by god, DragonForce can still kill it when they really set their minds to it. They never have (and likely never will) recapture the thrills of their “glory” days, but a desire to highlight that disparity was not what prompted this ranking. Rather, it’s to shine a light on how the majority of DragonForce’s modern material is still really, truly good, and deserving of wider discussion than most fans and critics have afforded them in the last decade.

In short: With the impending landfall of their ninth LP Warp Speed Warriors, I’m here to report that rumors of DragonForce’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The fire still burns, proud and so glorious. Their soul and their spirit will go on, for all of eternity.

– Eldritch Elitist

Eldritch Elitist

#8. Extreme Power Metal (2019). I was more optimistic for Extreme Power Metal than I’d been for any DragonForce album since The Power Within. “Highway to Oblivion” was an excellent lead single that heralded the return of the dynamic songwriting and production panache that defined records like Ultra Beatdown. Turns out, this was just the result of DragonForce putting their best foot forward. “Troopers of the Stars” is a blast as a one-off novelty, and “Strangers” is a neat little slice of glam-power metal in the vein of Power Quest, but for me, the fun stops there. “In a Skyforged Dream” is DragonForce at their most phoned-in, “The Last Dragonborn” aims for bombast yet ultimately bores, and “Razorblade Meltdown” kills its momentum with a shockingly weak chorus melody. Extreme Power Metal’s choruses are disappointing in general, really, a chronic condition of their Marc Hudson era that comes to a head with this record. I’ll give credit where it’s due to DragonForce’s other albums, but for me, this one is strictly fodder for playlist harvesting.

#7. Maximum Overload (2014). The first half of Maximum Overload is the best A-side of DragonForce’s Marc Hudson era. “The Game” in particular is an experiment in modern melodeath that I’ve always felt worked brilliantly for the band, but “Tomorrow’s Kings” thrills as a driving force of no-frills power metal, and “Symphony of the Night” excels through a blistering, neo-baroque homage to Castlevania. Yet aside from the thrash-coded fun of “Defenders,” Maximum Overload’s back half disappoints. “The Sun is Dead” and “Extraction Zone” have great instrumentals yet totally uninspired vocal execution, “City of Gold” is a thoroughly lame closer, and the cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is a half-baked realization of its full potential. At final tabulation, Maximum Overload is still a record of mostly great material, but its whiffs signposted the end of DragonForce albums featuring wall-to-wall quality.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017). I was pretty harsh on Reaching Into Infinity upon release. I immediately felt that it failed to match the peaks of Maximum Overload, and for me, DragonForce just didn’t sound much like DragonForce anymore. Seven years on, I’ve come to the revelation that the distinct non-DragonForce-ness of Reaching Into Infinity makes it fresh. It’s still fast, furious fun, without overtly trying to ape the band’s fan-favorite material, the sole exception being the fantastic “Midnight Madness” in all its Sonic Firestorming goodness. The record’s sporadic experimental swings don’t always hit paydirt, as both “Silence” and “The Edge of the World” are divisive momentum killers, but the pure thrash thrills of “War!” and the Running Wild-on-stimulants rush of “Hatred and Revenge” proves that DragonForce can still find great success through large departures. Out of the band’s post The Power Within material, this is the album I’ve returned to the most, and I’d bump my review score up by a full point if I were to review it today.

#5. The Power Within (2012). “It is with great regret that DragonForce announce a parting of the ways with singer ZP Theart […] due to insurmountable differences of musical opinion.” These words hit seventeen-year-old Eldritch like a freight train. A foundational pillar of my musical tastes was now down one of power metal’s greatest vocalists, their musical direction uncertain. Enter Marc Hudson and The Power Within, something of a departure for DragonForce that lacks none of their signature spirit. The fantastic “Wings of Liberty” is the only cut that retains the lengthy structures of DragonForce’s earlier works; the remaining tracks are lean cuts of pure power metal, forming what is easily the band’s most riff-centric album. For all the gripes I have with Marc Hudson and his nowadays paper-thin delivery, he sounded pretty great on his first go around, with his intense delivery on tracks like “Heart of the Storm” being such a great fit that I can’t imagine ZP ever having sung it. The Power Within doesn’t quite live up to the records that preceded it in terms of sheer catchiness, but it’s very nearly as good and is easily recommendable to non-fans who just want a great slab of power metal.

#4. Inhuman Rampage (2006). If you’re one of those people who think DragonForce only knows how to write one song, Inhuman Rampage is probably the reason why. You would be correct to think so based on this album alone, which is exactly what makes it essential in power metal canon. Nothing else on Earth sounds like Inhuman Rampage, and it sounds like that for its entire runtime (closing ballad notwithstanding). Inhuman Rampage’s near-constant tempo of 200 bpm, layered with countless solos and electronic flourishes, is absolutely fucking bonkers. It’s the sound of the world ending via a joyous sugar bomb of metallic hellfire, and DragonForce is laughing their asses off the whole way through. The band clearly had the time of their lives coming up with this insanity, never once considering that they might have to play “Through the Fire and Flames” every night for the rest of their lives. It’s an entirely exhausting listening experience that borders on monotony, but Inhuman Rampage is so singular that I truly believe every metal fan should hear it at least once. If it clicks with you, good luck ever putting it down.

#3. Valley of the Damned (2003). If Inhuman Rampage is your sole exposure to DragonForce, and if you have even a casual appreciation for power metal, then you should be aware that their debut is mandatory listening. Valley of the Damned’s title track is as classic of a power metal song as has ever graced the genre, and between “Valley of the Damned,” “Revelations,” and “Heart of a Dragon,” the album sports three of my all-time favorite power metal tracks. Its standing in this ranking is only dragged down by a handful of relative weak points, namely “Evening Star,” and yet there are plenty of people out there who will swear that it is one of the best DragonForce songs. The magic of Valley of the Damned is that, as a debut, it’s less streamlined than other records from the ZP Theart era, meaning there are loveable oddities like “Evening Star” or “Disciples of Babylon” that could only feel at home on this album. But make no mistake; DragonForce still sounds righteously confident with their sound on this record, coming shockingly close to realizing their full potential at the starting line.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004). “Fury of the Storm” is probably the second DragonForce song people know if they know anything beyond “Through the Fire and Flames,” and for good reason, as it has one of the most iconic intros and choruses in all of power metal. And yet Sonic Firestorm is so incredible that I couldn’t justify ranking it in my top five tracks from the album. In a way, this sophomore offering represents DragonForce at their purest, an early career crystallization of their signature sound that isn’t distorted by the glossy production of their later efforts. As such, its songs feel straightforward, yet brilliant. “My Spirit Will Go On” and “Soldiers of the Wasteland” deserve extra special commendations, with the former acting as one of the best album openings in its genre and also my favorite DragonForce song, period. “Prepare for War” is the only weak link here (why this song didn’t swap places with the phenomenal bonus track “Cry of the Brave” will forever elude me), but otherwise, Sonic Firestorm is a virtually untouchable power metal powerhouse.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Valley of the Damned and Sonic Firestorm may have higher peaks than the band’s final album with ZP Theart on the mic, but in terms of consistency and sheer melodic quality, nothing beats Ultra Beatdown. This record offers uplifting major key excellence from its first second to its last, so much so that even its most predictable songs (“The Fire Still Burns,” “Heartbreak Armageddon”) feel downright monumental. But what really makes Ultra Beatdown DragonForce’s finest showing is that it’s an idealized version of their sound, combining the harmonic bliss of Sonic Firestorm with a tastefully reserved take on Inhuman Rampage’s massively bombastic production. It accomplishes this while also delving into the proggiest material of the ZP Theart era (“Reasons to Live,” “The Last Journey Home”), spawning DragonForce’s best and most underrated ballad (“A Flame for Freedom”), and still finding time to deliver the two best examples of the “stereotypical” DragonForce formula (“Heroes of Our Time”, “Inside the Winter Storm”). In short, this is the DragonForce album that truly feels like the best of all worlds, a collection of universally great songs that represent everything I have ever loved about the band and then some.

Kenstrosity

DragonForce was a force to be reckoned with for young Ken. As you’d expect for young teens like me who were just getting into metal, “Through the Fire and Flames” had my jaw on the floor faster than Herman Li could complete a full chromatic scale. Needless to say, I had to hear more, and one thing led to another and suddenly I was listening to all manner of fast, shreddy, cheesy stuff. To my great surprise, much of DragonForce’s discography held up quite nicely over the years. With greater knowledge of metal at large, both historical and current, I found only a deeper appreciation of what DragonForce do and how they do it. You might expect the opposite to be true, as I did when I embarked on ranking close to nine hours of supersonic wankery. Yet, here I am, ready as ever to sing the praises of one band who helped shape my music tastes and who still informs it to this day.

THROUGH THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES WE CARRY ON!!!

The Ranking:

#8: Extreme Power Metal (2019). No album on Earth makes me miss ZP Theart’s vocals as much as Extreme Power Metal. Admirable though his efforts are, Marc Hudson just doesn’t fit this material, and somehow his voice just continues to degrade with time. On this, his falsetto sounds reedy, and his midrange nasal beyond belief. This only exacerbates my issues with an album chock full of lackluster tunes and gutless guitar showmanship (with the exceptions of the awesome “Heart Demolition” and “Razorblade Meltdown”), the two things that make DragonForce albums so much fun. Without those two core characteristics, Extreme Power Metal brings nothing to the table.

#7: Reaching into Infinity (2017). Despite the fact that I strongly dislike the way Hudson sounds on this late-stage DragonForce record, Reaching into Infinity still charms me. Unlike Extreme Power Metal, the immense hooks and the striking musicianship here more closely align with what I expect and enjoy most from the band. Killer tunes like “Ashes of the Dawn,” “Midnight Madness,” and “The Edge of the World” ensure that I do, indeed, enjoy this record back to front in the moment. Sadly, uneven songwriting (“Silence,” oof) and Hudson’s irritatingly nasal delivery don’t entice me to return down the line.

#6: Maximum Overload (2014). Maximum Overload is an interesting album. Hudson’s voice isn’t quite as buttoned down or powerful as on The Power Within, and I quickly realize that he’s no replacement for the awesome ZP Theart. Musically, Maximum Overload finds a happy medium between the straightforward power metal of The Power Within and the breakneck velocity of Inhuman Rampage. However, something’s missing here. There’s a lack of soul and passion in some of these tracks (“Tomorrow’s Kings,” “Three Hammers”) that undermine its highlights (“The Game,” “Symphony of the Night,” “The Sun is Dead,” “Extraction Zone”) such that the whole fails to live up to expectations. A band going through the motions.

#5: Ultra Beatdown (2008). DragonForce’s most explorative and experimental record, Ultra Beatdown quite simply rocks my socks, for the most part. Exploring various non-metal genres while also featuring more metallic extremity outside of the usual hyperspeed technicality, standouts like “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “Inside the Winter Storm,” and “Scars of Yesterday” inject a rather impressive variety of approaches to break up the band’s trademark style. An unfortunate consequence of that adventurous songwriting, for every awesome moment, there’s another that just doesn’t quite fit (“A Flame for Freedom,” “Strike of the Ninja”). Truly, that’s the only thing keeping it from a higher rank.

#4: The Power Within (2012). The first record to feature Marc Hudson instead of ZP Theart, The Power Within is immediately recognizable as an outlier in DragonForce’s discography. Still fast as fuck and rife with ample wankery, these tunes are much more direct fare. With only one song surpassing six minutes, this is also among the band’s tightest outings. Massively hooky and immensely fun, killer tunes like “Fallen World,” “Cry Thunder,” “Wings of Liberty,” “Heart of the Storm,” and “Die By the Sword” perfectly suit Hudson’s voice while still offering tons of album variety. More importantly, I keep coming back to it. It’s got its claws in me and simply won’t let go.

#3: Valley of the Damned (2003). Possessor of one of the most useless intro tracks of all time (fifteen seconds of atmospheric crescendo does not deserve its own track), DragonForce’s debut is one of those records that sounds like something a far more established, seasoned band crafts. Hyperspeed rippers like “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” “Black Fire,” “Disciples of Babylon” and “Heart of a Dragon” launch a project of great passion, insanely catchy lines, and a million WHOOAAHs. A wide array of tones and textures built into that supersonic wank blueprint allow these fifty-eight minutes of extreme wank to feel justified and immensely satisfying. And yet, it was only the beginning for the fledgling band!

#2: Sonic Firestorm (2004). The three-album streak between the debut and Inhuman Rampage constitutes an unstoppable hot streak of triumphant, epic, shreddy power metal. Arguably the thrashiest record of the bunch, Sonic Firestorm deftly balances the riff/solo quotient, with an obvious but largely justified bias towards solos, and brings in a tasteful amount of blasts and keys to round out the palette. With massive hits like “Fury of the Storm,” “Fields of Despair,” “Above the Winter Moonlight,” “Soldiers of the Wastelands,” and “Once in a Lifetime,” I find it hard not to be totally enamored and enraptured. And of course, ZP Theart is in fine form, soaring above everything else to deliver only the catchiest, most infectious lines and choruses. Sonic Firestorm is the classic DragonForce formula, stripped down to its purest form and delivered straight to the cranium with a meteor impact.

#1: Inhuman Rampage (2006) – Okay, I know I probably spoiled this result in my intro, but even after an exhaustive run through their discography, Inhuman Rampage still stands proudly as my favorite DragonForce record. Side-by-side comparisons to equally strong albums like Sonic Firestorm cannot dull the sharp memories I have of whiplashing my neck to “Storming the Burning Fields,” belting my little heart out to “Cry for Eternity,” and stomping my feet to “Operation Ground and Pound.” Nostalgia only holds so much sway over this result, however. Much more power belongs to the strength of this record’s immense songwriting successes, its ridiculous technicality balanced by uncanny memorability, and ZP Theart’s uniquely passionate voice. Inhuman Rampage is an unstoppable record that not only formed core memories for me as a budding metalhead who loved so much more than just the still awesome “Through the Fire and Flames,” but also remains a regular standby for my power metal fix. Lambast this decision if you must, but it matters not. I will always love this record above the rest, and nobody else can do a damn thing about it!

Dragon Whisperer

Did you expect to see me here too? Yes, I know, you don’t necessarily associate your guy Dolph with the likes of these full-lactose weenies. But you may not know that a young Dolph broke his metal concert cherry by seeing DragonForce on their first US tour for their breakout album Inhuman Rampage. And that DragonForce, along with many 00s wanky power metal acts like Galneryus, At Vance, and Rhapsody—yes, before all the name change bullshit—made up a huge chunk of my teenage musical development. I used to be cool, and I hope that through my eyes you can relive the glory days of when DragonForce was cool. You know, before Herman Li got big on Twitch1 and then subsequently banned from there for supposedly stupid reasons. Or maybe DragonForce is still cool? Who knows. All their albums are too long, too full of solos, and histrionic as all get out. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Ranking:

#8. Reaching into Infinity (2017). Dragonforce was never not a Europower band at heart, but increasingly so in the Hudson universe, Europower presented as the default expression for chorus builds and general song flow. Tracks like “Judgement Day” and the ballad “Silence” feel like they could be any chipmunk-speed flower-power band with a little extra chirp in the extended solo runs. Only for the run from “War!” to the powerful eleven-minute opus “The Edge of the World” does DragonForce put any real effort into being their epic selves while showcasing some of the melodeath influence that makes their later era interesting. Oh, and this one has an absolutely pointless intro—no need to tack extra time onto an album that’s already too long.

#7. The Power Within (2012). As a guy who grew up with ZP being the voice of DragonForce, this first outing with Hudson was destined to present a challenge to my younger self. In the modern day, that feeling persists in the thought that many of the better tunes on this album feel like off-cuts from Ultra Beatdown with an increased 80s montage feel to many synth lines. The biggest issue with these choices is that the songs don’t feel entirely constructed around some of Hudson’s strengths, which he displays better on most later albums. For his first outing, he feels plain and safe save for the kick-in-the-teeth of “Give Me the Night” and “Seasons” and, well, the tail-end of the album… again. At least until the whiff of a closer that “Last Man Stands” offers. Such a shame that this fairly trim album lacks in impact.

#6. Extreme Power Metal (2019). This is the first album without longtime keys and weird noise maestro Vadim Pruzhanov, with Coen Janssen (Epica) providing guest arrangements, backings, and other keys sounds. In the present day, I can say this reminds me of the twinklecore that Fellowship presents on many occasions, but still DragonForce has a little more weight in tone. Please, understand, though, that this album is pretty much anything but the extreme in its own name, with a hefty, anthemic, Europe pounce striking through the sticky-sweet cuts “Heart Demolition” and “Strangers.” DragonForce plays with true restraint, and Hudson sounds great on these kinds of tracks—for better or worse—and it’s no surprise to hear that his solo work leans even into this kind of high glycemic power pop with guitar noises, frighteningly similar to Japanese Idol rock. Whatever the case, it works here, even if I don’t want to admit it out loud all the time. “My Heart Will Go On” is a good cover too.

#5. Inhuman Rampage (2006). I went through a ten-year period or so where I never wanted to hear “Through the Fire and the Flames” again, and anytime I revisited this album after its first year or so of existence, I just started at “Revolution Deathsquad,” which is a monster banger anyway. Witnessing DragonForce, of all the dorky bands I loved at the time, blow up because of Guitar Hero blew me away—still does. But with DragonForce dipping their toes into weirder guitar sounds (“Body Breakdown” in particular), more aggressive rhythm structures, and even a growl or two in the background from old friend of the band Lindsay Dawson (Demoniac), it’s hard to put Inhuman Rampage down once it gets going, especially since ZP is just about at the top of his game.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003). For the most authentic experience in this discog run experience and ranking, I pulled up some old shitty mp3s I had of this debut outing rather than hit the remastered version on stream. You see, my first experience with DragonForce came from a seedy copy of “Black Fire” and a corrupted version of “Disciples of Babylon” from LimeWire. And wouldn’t you know, when I finally heard the full, unclipped, unsqueaking version of the latter, it grew to be one of my favorite songs from this early incarnation of hyper-speed power metal. And though those two cuts leaned a little more on the sound of Blind Guardian at the time—you could even envision ZP as a budget Hansi Kürsch with extra warbling character—the prance and play inherent in the DragonForce sound still lived free in the spirit of “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” and “Heart of a Dragon.” The ballad isn’t particularly enjoyable, but Valley of the Damned remains a rollicking good time in all its youth and flaws.

#3. Maximum Overload (2014). It’s very simple: Maximum Overload wears Hudson better than any of his other outings with DragonForce. True to the album’s namesake, Hudson pushes his ventures into falsetto more recklessly, and DragonForce as a band finds that smart balance of fun, video game inspires noises and forward-moving riff-work. The heft of the Gothenberg-ripped guitar tone plays well against the smattering of video game noises and resplendent choruses, and many of the song choices ring true to a more classic and warm power metal sound than this band had ever displayed before. “The Sun Is Dead” reminds me of the gritty swagger of a band like Thunderstone more than DragonForce. Couple that with bassist Fredric Leclerq’s extreme metal influences that sharpen the steel of “The Game” and “Three Hammers,” a scorching cover of “Ring of Fire,” and NO BALLADS, Maximum Overload tears front to back all in under fifty minutes.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004) – Both a major step up in recording quality from the debut and a further diversification of attack, Sonic Firestorm hosts some of the best cuts that this discography has to offer. Yes, the continuing trend of DragonForce having overwrought ballads—very pretty piano on this one though—remains true on this piece, but its placement between the unyielding “Fields of Despair” and iconic synth warble of “Above the Winter Moonlight” ensures that this album never loses its course. Every track has bombastic intros, brain-staining choruses, dopamine-spiking solos, and sugar rush power that even twenty years removed from my first encounter still causes the flow. Yes, all of these songs are too long and have solo sections that extend well beyond what one might consider good taste, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? And though this track has no bearing on this record’s standing, “Cry of the Brave” should have been on the album proper, damnit.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Around when Ultra Beatdown landed in the world, my love affair with DragonForce and frolicking power metal was waning in favor of things equally noodly but more progressive—I am a refined individual, after all. However, despite my own musical journey, this massive album just couldn’t let me go. No song is less than five minutes. Most are over seven. In these very halls, recently even, I’ve rallied against the over-soloization of music to diminishing effects. But every tone-exploring keys break, every hot-handed guitar squeal, every ZP led anthem, fills me with joy, with the urge to scream and air guitar and smash a keytar that I wouldn’t even know how to turn on. Context matters, and the story here is that no matter what level of excess this band poured into the making of Ultra Beatdown, it seared a near hour-long corridor in my mind built specifically for this album. “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “The Last Journey Home”—I could really just name all the songs including the bonus tracks “Strike of the Ninja” and “Scars of Yesterday”—represent the fullest vision of the first era of DragonForce and to this day remains their best work. And most importantly, Ultra Beatdown is one of my favorite power metal albums of all time.2

Official Ranking

The writers’ votes have been cast and counted. As the contributors to this ranking were also the only ones to have any strong feelings about DragonForce one way or the other, a poll was not conducted to obtain a tally from AMG staff. The below is an aggregate of the Rankings above. Here, to be scrawled on the sparkliest of unicorn hide with a can of Cheez Whiz, is the definitive AMG Ranking for DragonForce:

#7. Extreme Power Metal (2019), with 5 points out of a possible 24.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017), with 6 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) Maximum Overload (2014), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) The Power Within (2012), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003), with 14 points out of a possible 24.

#3. Inhuman Rampage (2006), with 17 points out of a possible 24.

#2. Ultra Beatdown (2008), with 20 points out of a possible 24.

#1. Sonic Firestorm (2004), with 21 points out of a possible 24.

If you don’t know DragonForce, you’ve probably saved yourself from a considerable heap of shame and embarrassment, but it’s never too late to shamelessly indulge with this playlist assembled by Eldritch Elitist, Kenstrosity, and Dolphin Whisperer:

#AtVance #BlindGuardian #BritishMetal #DragonForce #EarMusic #Epica #Europe #ExtremePowerMetal #Fellowship #Galneryus #InhumanRampage #JohnnyCash #MaximumOverload #PowerMetal #PowerQuest #ReachingIntoInfinity #Rhapsody #RoadrunnerRecords #RunningWild #SanctuaryRecords #SonicFirestorm #ThePowerWithin #Thunderstone #UltraBeatdown #ValleyOfTheDamned

AMG Goes Ranking – DragonForce

By Eldritch Elitist

The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography, and what if the rest of the personality used a Google sheet some kind of dark magic to produce an official guide to, and an all-around definitive aggregated ranking of, that band’s entire discography? Well, if that happened, we imagine it would look something like this…

If you’re a regular around these parts, you might have seen this article’s title and thought to yourself: how the hell could something like this come from the fortress of snobbery that is AMG? You might have then seen the author of said article and thought to yourself: Oh, THAT’S how. My involvement in this endeavor might be a given for those who know my musical diet, but should there really be any surprise that I managed to wrangle two extra participants through mild coercion and weaponized nostalgia? For a certain generation of metal fans, whether they loved or hated them, DragonForce was a big deal. Thanks to the popularity of “Through the Fire and Flames” in the then-phenomenon that was Guitar Hero, guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman were practically household names. For me, DragonForce was so much more than a one-hit-wonder. Inhuman Rampage (which I discovered months before “Through the Fire and Flames” debuted in Guitar Hero 3, thank you very much) marked my very first exposure to power metal, an instant obsession that blew open the gates to the underground in pursuit of more music that could make me feel like that. It is by no means hyperbolic to state that without DragonForce, I might have never had enough interest to write about metal music at all.

My initial obsession waned, along with my interest in metal in general, as I moved on to college life. When I emerged four years later, I found myself with a revitalized passion for metal, which led me to apply at my favorite metal blog, but it took a while for that ol’ love for DragonForce to re-emerge. The band had long since parted ways with original singer ZP Theart, and their new material with Marc Hudson on mic duties lacked that undiluted rush of sugar bomb pyromania. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I delved into the Hudson era in earnest. Blame it on many of my musical pretenses falling away with age, but by god, DragonForce can still kill it when they really set their minds to it. They never have (and likely never will) recapture the thrills of their “glory” days, but a desire to highlight that disparity was not what prompted this ranking. Rather, it’s to shine a light on how the majority of DragonForce’s modern material is still really, truly good, and deserving of wider discussion than most fans and critics have afforded them in the last decade.

In short: With the impending landfall of their ninth LP Warp Speed Warriors, I’m here to report that rumors of DragonForce’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The fire still burns, proud and so glorious. Their soul and their spirit will go on, for all of eternity.

– Eldritch Elitist

Eldritch Elitist

#8. Extreme Power Metal (2019). I was more optimistic for Extreme Power Metal than I’d been for any DragonForce album since The Power Within. “Highway to Oblivion” was an excellent lead single that heralded the return of the dynamic songwriting and production panache that defined records like Ultra Beatdown. Turns out, this was just the result of DragonForce putting their best foot forward. “Troopers of the Stars” is a blast as a one-off novelty, and “Strangers” is a neat little slice of glam-power metal in the vein of Power Quest, but for me, the fun stops there. “In a Skyforged Dream” is DragonForce at their most phoned-in, “The Last Dragonborn” aims for bombast yet ultimately bores, and “Razorblade Meltdown” kills its momentum with a shockingly weak chorus melody. Extreme Power Metal’s choruses are disappointing in general, really, a chronic condition of their Marc Hudson era that comes to a head with this record. I’ll give credit where it’s due to DragonForce’s other albums, but for me, this one is strictly fodder for playlist harvesting.

#7. Maximum Overload (2014). The first half of Maximum Overload is the best A-side of DragonForce’s Marc Hudson era. “The Game” in particular is an experiment in modern melodeath that I’ve always felt worked brilliantly for the band, but “Tomorrow’s Kings” thrills as a driving force of no-frills power metal, and “Symphony of the Night” excels through a blistering, neo-baroque homage to Castlevania. Yet aside from the thrash-coded fun of “Defenders,” Maximum Overload’s back half disappoints. “The Sun is Dead” and “Extraction Zone” have great instrumentals yet totally uninspired vocal execution, “City of Gold” is a thoroughly lame closer, and the cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is a half-baked realization of its full potential. At final tabulation, Maximum Overload is still a record of mostly great material, but its whiffs signposted the end of DragonForce albums featuring wall-to-wall quality.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017). I was pretty harsh on Reaching Into Infinity upon release. I immediately felt that it failed to match the peaks of Maximum Overload, and for me, DragonForce just didn’t sound much like DragonForce anymore. Seven years on, I’ve come to the revelation that the distinct non-DragonForce-ness of Reaching Into Infinity makes it fresh. It’s still fast, furious fun, without overtly trying to ape the band’s fan-favorite material, the sole exception being the fantastic “Midnight Madness” in all its Sonic Firestorming goodness. The record’s sporadic experimental swings don’t always hit paydirt, as both “Silence” and “The Edge of the World” are divisive momentum killers, but the pure thrash thrills of “War!” and the Running Wild-on-stimulants rush of “Hatred and Revenge” proves that DragonForce can still find great success through large departures. Out of the band’s post The Power Within material, this is the album I’ve returned to the most, and I’d bump my review score up by a full point if I were to review it today.

#5. The Power Within (2012). “It is with great regret that DragonForce announce a parting of the ways with singer ZP Theart […] due to insurmountable differences of musical opinion.” These words hit seventeen-year-old Eldritch like a freight train. A foundational pillar of my musical tastes was now down one of power metal’s greatest vocalists, their musical direction uncertain. Enter Marc Hudson and The Power Within, something of a departure for DragonForce that lacks none of their signature spirit. The fantastic “Wings of Liberty” is the only cut that retains the lengthy structures of DragonForce’s earlier works; the remaining tracks are lean cuts of pure power metal, forming what is easily the band’s most riff-centric album. For all the gripes I have with Marc Hudson and his nowadays paper-thin delivery, he sounded pretty great on his first go around, with his intense delivery on tracks like “Heart of the Storm” being such a great fit that I can’t imagine ZP ever having sung it. The Power Within doesn’t quite live up to the records that preceded it in terms of sheer catchiness, but it’s very nearly as good and is easily recommendable to non-fans who just want a great slab of power metal.

#4. Inhuman Rampage (2006). If you’re one of those people who think DragonForce only knows how to write one song, Inhuman Rampage is probably the reason why. You would be correct to think so based on this album alone, which is exactly what makes it essential in power metal canon. Nothing else on Earth sounds like Inhuman Rampage, and it sounds like that for its entire runtime (closing ballad notwithstanding). Inhuman Rampage’s near-constant tempo of 200 bpm, layered with countless solos and electronic flourishes, is absolutely fucking bonkers. It’s the sound of the world ending via a joyous sugar bomb of metallic hellfire, and DragonForce is laughing their asses off the whole way through. The band clearly had the time of their lives coming up with this insanity, never once considering that they might have to play “Through the Fire and Flames” every night for the rest of their lives. It’s an entirely exhausting listening experience that borders on monotony, but Inhuman Rampage is so singular that I truly believe every metal fan should hear it at least once. If it clicks with you, good luck ever putting it down.

#3. Valley of the Damned (2003). If Inhuman Rampage is your sole exposure to DragonForce, and if you have even a casual appreciation for power metal, then you should be aware that their debut is mandatory listening. Valley of the Damned’s title track is as classic of a power metal song as has ever graced the genre, and between “Valley of the Damned,” “Revelations,” and “Heart of a Dragon,” the album sports three of my all-time favorite power metal tracks. Its standing in this ranking is only dragged down by a handful of relative weak points, namely “Evening Star,” and yet there are plenty of people out there who will swear that it is one of the best DragonForce songs. The magic of Valley of the Damned is that, as a debut, it’s less streamlined than other records from the ZP Theart era, meaning there are loveable oddities like “Evening Star” or “Disciples of Babylon” that could only feel at home on this album. But make no mistake; DragonForce still sounds righteously confident with their sound on this record, coming shockingly close to realizing their full potential at the starting line.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004). “Fury of the Storm” is probably the second DragonForce song people know if they know anything beyond “Through the Fire and Flames,” and for good reason, as it has one of the most iconic intros and choruses in all of power metal. And yet Sonic Firestorm is so incredible that I couldn’t justify ranking it in my top five tracks from the album. In a way, this sophomore offering represents DragonForce at their purest, an early career crystallization of their signature sound that isn’t distorted by the glossy production of their later efforts. As such, its songs feel straightforward, yet brilliant. “My Spirit Will Go On” and “Soldiers of the Wasteland” deserve extra special commendations, with the former acting as one of the best album openings in its genre and also my favorite DragonForce song, period. “Prepare for War” is the only weak link here (why this song didn’t swap places with the phenomenal bonus track “Cry of the Brave” will forever elude me), but otherwise, Sonic Firestorm is a virtually untouchable power metal powerhouse.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Valley of the Damned and Sonic Firestorm may have higher peaks than the band’s final album with ZP Theart on the mic, but in terms of consistency and sheer melodic quality, nothing beats Ultra Beatdown. This record offers uplifting major key excellence from its first second to its last, so much so that even its most predictable songs (“The Fire Still Burns,” “Heartbreak Armageddon”) feel downright monumental. But what really makes Ultra Beatdown DragonForce’s finest showing is that it’s an idealized version of their sound, combining the harmonic bliss of Sonic Firestorm with a tastefully reserved take on Inhuman Rampage’s massively bombastic production. It accomplishes this while also delving into the proggiest material of the ZP Theart era (“Reasons to Live,” “The Last Journey Home”), spawning DragonForce’s best and most underrated ballad (“A Flame for Freedom”), and still finding time to deliver the two best examples of the “stereotypical” DragonForce formula (“Heroes of Our Time”, “Inside the Winter Storm”). In short, this is the DragonForce album that truly feels like the best of all worlds, a collection of universally great songs that represent everything I have ever loved about the band and then some.

Kenstrosity

DragonForce was a force to be reckoned with for young Ken. As you’d expect for young teens like me who were just getting into metal, “Through the Fire and Flames” had my jaw on the floor faster than Herman Li could complete a full chromatic scale. Needless to say, I had to hear more, and one thing led to another and suddenly I was listening to all manner of fast, shreddy, cheesy stuff. To my great surprise, much of DragonForce’s discography held up quite nicely over the years. With greater knowledge of metal at large, both historical and current, I found only a deeper appreciation of what DragonForce do and how they do it. You might expect the opposite to be true, as I did when I embarked on ranking close to nine hours of supersonic wankery. Yet, here I am, ready as ever to sing the praises of one band who helped shape my music tastes and who still informs it to this day.

THROUGH THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES WE CARRY ON!!!

The Ranking:

#8: Extreme Power Metal (2019). No album on Earth makes me miss ZP Theart’s vocals as much as Extreme Power Metal. Admirable though his efforts are, Marc Hudson just doesn’t fit this material, and somehow his voice just continues to degrade with time. On this, his falsetto sounds reedy, and his midrange nasal beyond belief. This only exacerbates my issues with an album chock full of lackluster tunes and gutless guitar showmanship (with the exceptions of the awesome “Heart Demolition” and “Razorblade Meltdown”), the two things that make DragonForce albums so much fun. Without those two core characteristics, Extreme Power Metal brings nothing to the table.

#7: Reaching into Infinity (2017). Despite the fact that I strongly dislike the way Hudson sounds on this late-stage DragonForce record, Reaching into Infinity still charms me. Unlike Extreme Power Metal, the immense hooks and the striking musicianship here more closely align with what I expect and enjoy most from the band. Killer tunes like “Ashes of the Dawn,” “Midnight Madness,” and “The Edge of the World” ensure that I do, indeed, enjoy this record back to front in the moment. Sadly, uneven songwriting (“Silence,” oof) and Hudson’s irritatingly nasal delivery don’t entice me to return down the line.

#6: Maximum Overload (2014). Maximum Overload is an interesting album. Hudson’s voice isn’t quite as buttoned down or powerful as on The Power Within, and I quickly realize that he’s no replacement for the awesome ZP Theart. Musically, Maximum Overload finds a happy medium between the straightforward power metal of The Power Within and the breakneck velocity of Inhuman Rampage. However, something’s missing here. There’s a lack of soul and passion in some of these tracks (“Tomorrow’s Kings,” “Three Hammers”) that undermine its highlights (“The Game,” “Symphony of the Night,” “The Sun is Dead,” “Extraction Zone”) such that the whole fails to live up to expectations. A band going through the motions.

#5: Ultra Beatdown (2008). DragonForce’s most explorative and experimental record, Ultra Beatdown quite simply rocks my socks, for the most part. Exploring various non-metal genres while also featuring more metallic extremity outside of the usual hyperspeed technicality, standouts like “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “Inside the Winter Storm,” and “Scars of Yesterday” inject a rather impressive variety of approaches to break up the band’s trademark style. An unfortunate consequence of that adventurous songwriting, for every awesome moment, there’s another that just doesn’t quite fit (“A Flame for Freedom,” “Strike of the Ninja”). Truly, that’s the only thing keeping it from a higher rank.

#4: The Power Within (2012). The first record to feature Marc Hudson instead of ZP Theart, The Power Within is immediately recognizable as an outlier in DragonForce’s discography. Still fast as fuck and rife with ample wankery, these tunes are much more direct fare. With only one song surpassing six minutes, this is also among the band’s tightest outings. Massively hooky and immensely fun, killer tunes like “Fallen World,” “Cry Thunder,” “Wings of Liberty,” “Heart of the Storm,” and “Die By the Sword” perfectly suit Hudson’s voice while still offering tons of album variety. More importantly, I keep coming back to it. It’s got its claws in me and simply won’t let go.

#3: Valley of the Damned (2003). Possessor of one of the most useless intro tracks of all time (fifteen seconds of atmospheric crescendo does not deserve its own track), DragonForce’s debut is one of those records that sounds like something a far more established, seasoned band crafts. Hyperspeed rippers like “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” “Black Fire,” “Disciples of Babylon” and “Heart of a Dragon” launch a project of great passion, insanely catchy lines, and a million WHOOAAHs. A wide array of tones and textures built into that supersonic wank blueprint allow these fifty-eight minutes of extreme wank to feel justified and immensely satisfying. And yet, it was only the beginning for the fledgling band!

#2: Sonic Firestorm (2004). The three-album streak between the debut and Inhuman Rampage constitutes an unstoppable hot streak of triumphant, epic, shreddy power metal. Arguably the thrashiest record of the bunch, Sonic Firestorm deftly balances the riff/solo quotient, with an obvious but largely justified bias towards solos, and brings in a tasteful amount of blasts and keys to round out the palette. With massive hits like “Fury of the Storm,” “Fields of Despair,” “Above the Winter Moonlight,” “Soldiers of the Wastelands,” and “Once in a Lifetime,” I find it hard not to be totally enamored and enraptured. And of course, ZP Theart is in fine form, soaring above everything else to deliver only the catchiest, most infectious lines and choruses. Sonic Firestorm is the classic DragonForce formula, stripped down to its purest form and delivered straight to the cranium with a meteor impact.

#1: Inhuman Rampage (2006) – Okay, I know I probably spoiled this result in my intro, but even after an exhaustive run through their discography, Inhuman Rampage still stands proudly as my favorite DragonForce record. Side-by-side comparisons to equally strong albums like Sonic Firestorm cannot dull the sharp memories I have of whiplashing my neck to “Storming the Burning Fields,” belting my little heart out to “Cry for Eternity,” and stomping my feet to “Operation Ground and Pound.” Nostalgia only holds so much sway over this result, however. Much more power belongs to the strength of this record’s immense songwriting successes, its ridiculous technicality balanced by uncanny memorability, and ZP Theart’s uniquely passionate voice. Inhuman Rampage is an unstoppable record that not only formed core memories for me as a budding metalhead who loved so much more than just the still awesome “Through the Fire and Flames,” but also remains a regular standby for my power metal fix. Lambast this decision if you must, but it matters not. I will always love this record above the rest, and nobody else can do a damn thing about it!

Dragon Whisperer

Did you expect to see me here too? Yes, I know, you don’t necessarily associate your guy Dolph with the likes of these full-lactose weenies. But you may not know that a young Dolph broke his metal concert cherry by seeing DragonForce on their first US tour for their breakout album Inhuman Rampage. And that DragonForce, along with many 00s wanky power metal acts like Galneryus, At Vance, and Rhapsody—yes, before all the name change bullshit—made up a huge chunk of my teenage musical development. I used to be cool, and I hope that through my eyes you can relive the glory days of when DragonForce was cool. You know, before Herman Li got big on Twitch1 and then subsequently banned from there for supposedly stupid reasons. Or maybe DragonForce is still cool? Who knows. All their albums are too long, too full of solos, and histrionic as all get out. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Ranking:

#8. Reaching into Infinity (2017). Dragonforce was never not a Europower band at heart, but increasingly so in the Hudson universe, Europower presented as the default expression for chorus builds and general song flow. Tracks like “Judgement Day” and the ballad “Silence” feel like they could be any chipmunk-speed flower-power band with a little extra chirp in the extended solo runs. Only for the run from “War!” to the powerful eleven-minute opus “The Edge of the World” does DragonForce put any real effort into being their epic selves while showcasing some of the melodeath influence that makes their later era interesting. Oh, and this one has an absolutely pointless intro—no need to tack extra time onto an album that’s already too long.

#7. The Power Within (2012). As a guy who grew up with ZP being the voice of DragonForce, this first outing with Hudson was destined to present a challenge to my younger self. In the modern day, that feeling persists in the thought that many of the better tunes on this album feel like off-cuts from Ultra Beatdown with an increased 80s montage feel to many synth lines. The biggest issue with these choices is that the songs don’t feel entirely constructed around some of Hudson’s strengths, which he displays better on most later albums. For his first outing, he feels plain and safe save for the kick-in-the-teeth of “Give Me the Night” and “Seasons” and, well, the tail-end of the album… again. At least until the whiff of a closer that “Last Man Stands” offers. Such a shame that this fairly trim album lacks in impact.

#6. Extreme Power Metal (2019). This is the first album without longtime keys and weird noise maestro Vadim Pruzhanov, with Coen Janssen (Epica) providing guest arrangements, backings, and other keys sounds. In the present day, I can say this reminds me of the twinklecore that Fellowship presents on many occasions, but still DragonForce has a little more weight in tone. Please, understand, though, that this album is pretty much anything but the extreme in its own name, with a hefty, anthemic, Europe pounce striking through the sticky-sweet cuts “Heart Demolition” and “Strangers.” DragonForce plays with true restraint, and Hudson sounds great on these kinds of tracks—for better or worse—and it’s no surprise to hear that his solo work leans even into this kind of high glycemic power pop with guitar noises, frighteningly similar to Japanese Idol rock. Whatever the case, it works here, even if I don’t want to admit it out loud all the time. “My Heart Will Go On” is a good cover too.

#5. Inhuman Rampage (2006). I went through a ten-year period or so where I never wanted to hear “Through the Fire and the Flames” again, and anytime I revisited this album after its first year or so of existence, I just started at “Revolution Deathsquad,” which is a monster banger anyway. Witnessing DragonForce, of all the dorky bands I loved at the time, blow up because of Guitar Hero blew me away—still does. But with DragonForce dipping their toes into weirder guitar sounds (“Body Breakdown” in particular), more aggressive rhythm structures, and even a growl or two in the background from old friend of the band Lindsay Dawson (Demoniac), it’s hard to put Inhuman Rampage down once it gets going, especially since ZP is just about at the top of his game.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003). For the most authentic experience in this discog run experience and ranking, I pulled up some old shitty mp3s I had of this debut outing rather than hit the remastered version on stream. You see, my first experience with DragonForce came from a seedy copy of “Black Fire” and a corrupted version of “Disciples of Babylon” from LimeWire. And wouldn’t you know, when I finally heard the full, unclipped, unsqueaking version of the latter, it grew to be one of my favorite songs from this early incarnation of hyper-speed power metal. And though those two cuts leaned a little more on the sound of Blind Guardian at the time—you could even envision ZP as a budget Hansi Kürsch with extra warbling character—the prance and play inherent in the DragonForce sound still lived free in the spirit of “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” and “Heart of a Dragon.” The ballad isn’t particularly enjoyable, but Valley of the Damned remains a rollicking good time in all its youth and flaws.

#3. Maximum Overload (2014). It’s very simple: Maximum Overload wears Hudson better than any of his other outings with DragonForce. True to the album’s namesake, Hudson pushes his ventures into falsetto more recklessly, and DragonForce as a band finds that smart balance of fun, video game inspires noises and forward-moving riff-work. The heft of the Gothenberg-ripped guitar tone plays well against the smattering of video game noises and resplendent choruses, and many of the song choices ring true to a more classic and warm power metal sound than this band had ever displayed before. “The Sun Is Dead” reminds me of the gritty swagger of a band like Thunderstone more than DragonForce. Couple that with bassist Fredric Leclerq’s extreme metal influences that sharpen the steel of “The Game” and “Three Hammers,” a scorching cover of “Ring of Fire,” and NO BALLADS, Maximum Overload tears front to back all in under fifty minutes.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004) – Both a major step up in recording quality from the debut and a further diversification of attack, Sonic Firestorm hosts some of the best cuts that this discography has to offer. Yes, the continuing trend of DragonForce having overwrought ballads—very pretty piano on this one though—remains true on this piece, but its placement between the unyielding “Fields of Despair” and iconic synth warble of “Above the Winter Moonlight” ensures that this album never loses its course. Every track has bombastic intros, brain-staining choruses, dopamine-spiking solos, and sugar rush power that even twenty years removed from my first encounter still causes the flow. Yes, all of these songs are too long and have solo sections that extend well beyond what one might consider good taste, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? And though this track has no bearing on this record’s standing, “Cry of the Brave” should have been on the album proper, damnit.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Around when Ultra Beatdown landed in the world, my love affair with DragonForce and frolicking power metal was waning in favor of things equally noodly but more progressive—I am a refined individual, after all. However, despite my own musical journey, this massive album just couldn’t let me go. No song is less than five minutes. Most are over seven. In these very halls, recently even, I’ve rallied against the over-soloization of music to diminishing effects. But every tone-exploring keys break, every hot-handed guitar squeal, every ZP led anthem, fills me with joy, with the urge to scream and air guitar and smash a keytar that I wouldn’t even know how to turn on. Context matters, and the story here is that no matter what level of excess this band poured into the making of Ultra Beatdown, it seared a near hour-long corridor in my mind built specifically for this album. “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “The Last Journey Home”—I could really just name all the songs including the bonus tracks “Strike of the Ninja” and “Scars of Yesterday”—represent the fullest vision of the first era of DragonForce and to this day remains their best work. And most importantly, Ultra Beatdown is one of my favorite power metal albums of all time.2

Official Ranking

The writers’ votes have been cast and counted. As the contributors to this ranking were also the only ones to have any strong feelings about DragonForce one way or the other, a poll was not conducted to obtain a tally from AMG staff. The below is an aggregate of the Rankings above. Here, to be scrawled on the sparkliest of unicorn hide with a can of Cheez Whiz, is the definitive AMG Ranking for DragonForce:

#7. Extreme Power Metal (2019), with 5 points out of a possible 24.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017), with 6 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) Maximum Overload (2014), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) The Power Within (2012), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003), with 14 points out of a possible 24.

#3. Inhuman Rampage (2006), with 17 points out of a possible 24.

#2. Ultra Beatdown (2008), with 20 points out of a possible 24.

#1. Sonic Firestorm (2004), with 21 points out of a possible 24.

If you don’t know DragonForce, you’ve probably saved yourself from a considerable heap of shame and embarrassment, but it’s never too late to shamelessly indulge with this playlist assembled by Eldritch Elitist, Kenstrosity, and Dolphin Whisperer:

#AtVance #BlindGuardian #BritishMetal #DragonForce #EarMusic #Epica #Europe #ExtremePowerMetal #Fellowship #Galneryus #InhumanRampage #JohnnyCash #MaximumOverload #PowerMetal #PowerQuest #ReachingIntoInfinity #Rhapsody #RoadrunnerRecords #RunningWild #SanctuaryRecords #SonicFirestorm #ThePowerWithin #Thunderstone #UltraBeatdown #ValleyOfTheDamned

AMG Goes Ranking – DragonForce

By Eldritch Elitist

The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography, and what if the rest of the personality used a Google sheet some kind of dark magic to produce an official guide to, and an all-around definitive aggregated ranking of, that band’s entire discography? Well, if that happened, we imagine it would look something like this…

If you’re a regular around these parts, you might have seen this article’s title and thought to yourself: how the hell could something like this come from the fortress of snobbery that is AMG? You might have then seen the author of said article and thought to yourself: Oh, THAT’S how. My involvement in this endeavor might be a given for those who know my musical diet, but should there really be any surprise that I managed to wrangle two extra participants through mild coercion and weaponized nostalgia? For a certain generation of metal fans, whether they loved or hated them, DragonForce was a big deal. Thanks to the popularity of “Through the Fire and Flames” in the then-phenomenon that was Guitar Hero, guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman were practically household names. For me, DragonForce was so much more than a one-hit-wonder. Inhuman Rampage (which I discovered months before “Through the Fire and Flames” debuted in Guitar Hero 3, thank you very much) marked my very first exposure to power metal, an instant obsession that blew open the gates to the underground in pursuit of more music that could make me feel like that. It is by no means hyperbolic to state that without DragonForce, I might have never had enough interest to write about metal music at all.

My initial obsession waned, along with my interest in metal in general, as I moved on to college life. When I emerged four years later, I found myself with a revitalized passion for metal, which led me to apply at my favorite metal blog, but it took a while for that ol’ love for DragonForce to re-emerge. The band had long since parted ways with original singer ZP Theart, and their new material with Marc Hudson on mic duties lacked that undiluted rush of sugar bomb pyromania. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I delved into the Hudson era in earnest. Blame it on many of my musical pretenses falling away with age, but by god, DragonForce can still kill it when they really set their minds to it. They never have (and likely never will) recapture the thrills of their “glory” days, but a desire to highlight that disparity was not what prompted this ranking. Rather, it’s to shine a light on how the majority of DragonForce’s modern material is still really, truly good, and deserving of wider discussion than most fans and critics have afforded them in the last decade.

In short: With the impending landfall of their ninth LP Warp Speed Warriors, I’m here to report that rumors of DragonForce’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The fire still burns, proud and so glorious. Their soul and their spirit will go on, for all of eternity.

– Eldritch Elitist

Eldritch Elitist

#8. Extreme Power Metal (2019). I was more optimistic for Extreme Power Metal than I’d been for any DragonForce album since The Power Within. “Highway to Oblivion” was an excellent lead single that heralded the return of the dynamic songwriting and production panache that defined records like Ultra Beatdown. Turns out, this was just the result of DragonForce putting their best foot forward. “Troopers of the Stars” is a blast as a one-off novelty, and “Strangers” is a neat little slice of glam-power metal in the vein of Power Quest, but for me, the fun stops there. “In a Skyforged Dream” is DragonForce at their most phoned-in, “The Last Dragonborn” aims for bombast yet ultimately bores, and “Razorblade Meltdown” kills its momentum with a shockingly weak chorus melody. Extreme Power Metal’s choruses are disappointing in general, really, a chronic condition of their Marc Hudson era that comes to a head with this record. I’ll give credit where it’s due to DragonForce’s other albums, but for me, this one is strictly fodder for playlist harvesting.

#7. Maximum Overload (2014). The first half of Maximum Overload is the best A-side of DragonForce’s Marc Hudson era. “The Game” in particular is an experiment in modern melodeath that I’ve always felt worked brilliantly for the band, but “Tomorrow’s Kings” thrills as a driving force of no-frills power metal, and “Symphony of the Night” excels through a blistering, neo-baroque homage to Castlevania. Yet aside from the thrash-coded fun of “Defenders,” Maximum Overload’s back half disappoints. “The Sun is Dead” and “Extraction Zone” have great instrumentals yet totally uninspired vocal execution, “City of Gold” is a thoroughly lame closer, and the cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is a half-baked realization of its full potential. At final tabulation, Maximum Overload is still a record of mostly great material, but its whiffs signposted the end of DragonForce albums featuring wall-to-wall quality.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017). I was pretty harsh on Reaching Into Infinity upon release. I immediately felt that it failed to match the peaks of Maximum Overload, and for me, DragonForce just didn’t sound much like DragonForce anymore. Seven years on, I’ve come to the revelation that the distinct non-DragonForce-ness of Reaching Into Infinity makes it fresh. It’s still fast, furious fun, without overtly trying to ape the band’s fan-favorite material, the sole exception being the fantastic “Midnight Madness” in all its Sonic Firestorming goodness. The record’s sporadic experimental swings don’t always hit paydirt, as both “Silence” and “The Edge of the World” are divisive momentum killers, but the pure thrash thrills of “War!” and the Running Wild-on-stimulants rush of “Hatred and Revenge” proves that DragonForce can still find great success through large departures. Out of the band’s post The Power Within material, this is the album I’ve returned to the most, and I’d bump my review score up by a full point if I were to review it today.

#5. The Power Within (2012). “It is with great regret that DragonForce announce a parting of the ways with singer ZP Theart […] due to insurmountable differences of musical opinion.” These words hit seventeen-year-old Eldritch like a freight train. A foundational pillar of my musical tastes was now down one of power metal’s greatest vocalists, their musical direction uncertain. Enter Marc Hudson and The Power Within, something of a departure for DragonForce that lacks none of their signature spirit. The fantastic “Wings of Liberty” is the only cut that retains the lengthy structures of DragonForce’s earlier works; the remaining tracks are lean cuts of pure power metal, forming what is easily the band’s most riff-centric album. For all the gripes I have with Marc Hudson and his nowadays paper-thin delivery, he sounded pretty great on his first go around, with his intense delivery on tracks like “Heart of the Storm” being such a great fit that I can’t imagine ZP ever having sung it. The Power Within doesn’t quite live up to the records that preceded it in terms of sheer catchiness, but it’s very nearly as good and is easily recommendable to non-fans who just want a great slab of power metal.

#4. Inhuman Rampage (2006). If you’re one of those people who think DragonForce only knows how to write one song, Inhuman Rampage is probably the reason why. You would be correct to think so based on this album alone, which is exactly what makes it essential in power metal canon. Nothing else on Earth sounds like Inhuman Rampage, and it sounds like that for its entire runtime (closing ballad notwithstanding). Inhuman Rampage’s near-constant tempo of 200 bpm, layered with countless solos and electronic flourishes, is absolutely fucking bonkers. It’s the sound of the world ending via a joyous sugar bomb of metallic hellfire, and DragonForce is laughing their asses off the whole way through. The band clearly had the time of their lives coming up with this insanity, never once considering that they might have to play “Through the Fire and Flames” every night for the rest of their lives. It’s an entirely exhausting listening experience that borders on monotony, but Inhuman Rampage is so singular that I truly believe every metal fan should hear it at least once. If it clicks with you, good luck ever putting it down.

#3. Valley of the Damned (2003). If Inhuman Rampage is your sole exposure to DragonForce, and if you have even a casual appreciation for power metal, then you should be aware that their debut is mandatory listening. Valley of the Damned’s title track is as classic of a power metal song as has ever graced the genre, and between “Valley of the Damned,” “Revelations,” and “Heart of a Dragon,” the album sports three of my all-time favorite power metal tracks. Its standing in this ranking is only dragged down by a handful of relative weak points, namely “Evening Star,” and yet there are plenty of people out there who will swear that it is one of the best DragonForce songs. The magic of Valley of the Damned is that, as a debut, it’s less streamlined than other records from the ZP Theart era, meaning there are loveable oddities like “Evening Star” or “Disciples of Babylon” that could only feel at home on this album. But make no mistake; DragonForce still sounds righteously confident with their sound on this record, coming shockingly close to realizing their full potential at the starting line.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004). “Fury of the Storm” is probably the second DragonForce song people know if they know anything beyond “Through the Fire and Flames,” and for good reason, as it has one of the most iconic intros and choruses in all of power metal. And yet Sonic Firestorm is so incredible that I couldn’t justify ranking it in my top five tracks from the album. In a way, this sophomore offering represents DragonForce at their purest, an early career crystallization of their signature sound that isn’t distorted by the glossy production of their later efforts. As such, its songs feel straightforward, yet brilliant. “My Spirit Will Go On” and “Soldiers of the Wasteland” deserve extra special commendations, with the former acting as one of the best album openings in its genre and also my favorite DragonForce song, period. “Prepare for War” is the only weak link here (why this song didn’t swap places with the phenomenal bonus track “Cry of the Brave” will forever elude me), but otherwise, Sonic Firestorm is a virtually untouchable power metal powerhouse.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Valley of the Damned and Sonic Firestorm may have higher peaks than the band’s final album with ZP Theart on the mic, but in terms of consistency and sheer melodic quality, nothing beats Ultra Beatdown. This record offers uplifting major key excellence from its first second to its last, so much so that even its most predictable songs (“The Fire Still Burns,” “Heartbreak Armageddon”) feel downright monumental. But what really makes Ultra Beatdown DragonForce’s finest showing is that it’s an idealized version of their sound, combining the harmonic bliss of Sonic Firestorm with a tastefully reserved take on Inhuman Rampage’s massively bombastic production. It accomplishes this while also delving into the proggiest material of the ZP Theart era (“Reasons to Live,” “The Last Journey Home”), spawning DragonForce’s best and most underrated ballad (“A Flame for Freedom”), and still finding time to deliver the two best examples of the “stereotypical” DragonForce formula (“Heroes of Our Time”, “Inside the Winter Storm”). In short, this is the DragonForce album that truly feels like the best of all worlds, a collection of universally great songs that represent everything I have ever loved about the band and then some.

Kenstrosity

DragonForce was a force to be reckoned with for young Ken. As you’d expect for young teens like me who were just getting into metal, “Through the Fire and Flames” had my jaw on the floor faster than Herman Li could complete a full chromatic scale. Needless to say, I had to hear more, and one thing led to another and suddenly I was listening to all manner of fast, shreddy, cheesy stuff. To my great surprise, much of DragonForce’s discography held up quite nicely over the years. With greater knowledge of metal at large, both historical and current, I found only a deeper appreciation of what DragonForce do and how they do it. You might expect the opposite to be true, as I did when I embarked on ranking close to nine hours of supersonic wankery. Yet, here I am, ready as ever to sing the praises of one band who helped shape my music tastes and who still informs it to this day.

THROUGH THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES WE CARRY ON!!!

The Ranking:

#8: Extreme Power Metal (2019). No album on Earth makes me miss ZP Theart’s vocals as much as Extreme Power Metal. Admirable though his efforts are, Marc Hudson just doesn’t fit this material, and somehow his voice just continues to degrade with time. On this, his falsetto sounds reedy, and his midrange nasal beyond belief. This only exacerbates my issues with an album chock full of lackluster tunes and gutless guitar showmanship (with the exceptions of the awesome “Heart Demolition” and “Razorblade Meltdown”), the two things that make DragonForce albums so much fun. Without those two core characteristics, Extreme Power Metal brings nothing to the table.

#7: Reaching into Infinity (2017). Despite the fact that I strongly dislike the way Hudson sounds on this late-stage DragonForce record, Reaching into Infinity still charms me. Unlike Extreme Power Metal, the immense hooks and the striking musicianship here more closely align with what I expect and enjoy most from the band. Killer tunes like “Ashes of the Dawn,” “Midnight Madness,” and “The Edge of the World” ensure that I do, indeed, enjoy this record back to front in the moment. Sadly, uneven songwriting (“Silence,” oof) and Hudson’s irritatingly nasal delivery don’t entice me to return down the line.

#6: Maximum Overload (2014). Maximum Overload is an interesting album. Hudson’s voice isn’t quite as buttoned down or powerful as on The Power Within, and I quickly realize that he’s no replacement for the awesome ZP Theart. Musically, Maximum Overload finds a happy medium between the straightforward power metal of The Power Within and the breakneck velocity of Inhuman Rampage. However, something’s missing here. There’s a lack of soul and passion in some of these tracks (“Tomorrow’s Kings,” “Three Hammers”) that undermine its highlights (“The Game,” “Symphony of the Night,” “The Sun is Dead,” “Extraction Zone”) such that the whole fails to live up to expectations. A band going through the motions.

#5: Ultra Beatdown (2008). DragonForce’s most explorative and experimental record, Ultra Beatdown quite simply rocks my socks, for the most part. Exploring various non-metal genres while also featuring more metallic extremity outside of the usual hyperspeed technicality, standouts like “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “Inside the Winter Storm,” and “Scars of Yesterday” inject a rather impressive variety of approaches to break up the band’s trademark style. An unfortunate consequence of that adventurous songwriting, for every awesome moment, there’s another that just doesn’t quite fit (“A Flame for Freedom,” “Strike of the Ninja”). Truly, that’s the only thing keeping it from a higher rank.

#4: The Power Within (2012). The first record to feature Marc Hudson instead of ZP Theart, The Power Within is immediately recognizable as an outlier in DragonForce’s discography. Still fast as fuck and rife with ample wankery, these tunes are much more direct fare. With only one song surpassing six minutes, this is also among the band’s tightest outings. Massively hooky and immensely fun, killer tunes like “Fallen World,” “Cry Thunder,” “Wings of Liberty,” “Heart of the Storm,” and “Die By the Sword” perfectly suit Hudson’s voice while still offering tons of album variety. More importantly, I keep coming back to it. It’s got its claws in me and simply won’t let go.

#3: Valley of the Damned (2003). Possessor of one of the most useless intro tracks of all time (fifteen seconds of atmospheric crescendo does not deserve its own track), DragonForce’s debut is one of those records that sounds like something a far more established, seasoned band crafts. Hyperspeed rippers like “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” “Black Fire,” “Disciples of Babylon” and “Heart of a Dragon” launch a project of great passion, insanely catchy lines, and a million WHOOAAHs. A wide array of tones and textures built into that supersonic wank blueprint allow these fifty-eight minutes of extreme wank to feel justified and immensely satisfying. And yet, it was only the beginning for the fledgling band!

#2: Sonic Firestorm (2004). The three-album streak between the debut and Inhuman Rampage constitutes an unstoppable hot streak of triumphant, epic, shreddy power metal. Arguably the thrashiest record of the bunch, Sonic Firestorm deftly balances the riff/solo quotient, with an obvious but largely justified bias towards solos, and brings in a tasteful amount of blasts and keys to round out the palette. With massive hits like “Fury of the Storm,” “Fields of Despair,” “Above the Winter Moonlight,” “Soldiers of the Wastelands,” and “Once in a Lifetime,” I find it hard not to be totally enamored and enraptured. And of course, ZP Theart is in fine form, soaring above everything else to deliver only the catchiest, most infectious lines and choruses. Sonic Firestorm is the classic DragonForce formula, stripped down to its purest form and delivered straight to the cranium with a meteor impact.

#1: Inhuman Rampage (2006) – Okay, I know I probably spoiled this result in my intro, but even after an exhaustive run through their discography, Inhuman Rampage still stands proudly as my favorite DragonForce record. Side-by-side comparisons to equally strong albums like Sonic Firestorm cannot dull the sharp memories I have of whiplashing my neck to “Storming the Burning Fields,” belting my little heart out to “Cry for Eternity,” and stomping my feet to “Operation Ground and Pound.” Nostalgia only holds so much sway over this result, however. Much more power belongs to the strength of this record’s immense songwriting successes, its ridiculous technicality balanced by uncanny memorability, and ZP Theart’s uniquely passionate voice. Inhuman Rampage is an unstoppable record that not only formed core memories for me as a budding metalhead who loved so much more than just the still awesome “Through the Fire and Flames,” but also remains a regular standby for my power metal fix. Lambast this decision if you must, but it matters not. I will always love this record above the rest, and nobody else can do a damn thing about it!

Dragon Whisperer

Did you expect to see me here too? Yes, I know, you don’t necessarily associate your guy Dolph with the likes of these full-lactose weenies. But you may not know that a young Dolph broke his metal concert cherry by seeing DragonForce on their first US tour for their breakout album Inhuman Rampage. And that DragonForce, along with many 00s wanky power metal acts like Galneryus, At Vance, and Rhapsody—yes, before all the name change bullshit—made up a huge chunk of my teenage musical development. I used to be cool, and I hope that through my eyes you can relive the glory days of when DragonForce was cool. You know, before Herman Li got big on Twitch1 and then subsequently banned from there for supposedly stupid reasons. Or maybe DragonForce is still cool? Who knows. All their albums are too long, too full of solos, and histrionic as all get out. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Ranking:

#8. Reaching into Infinity (2017). Dragonforce was never not a Europower band at heart, but increasingly so in the Hudson universe, Europower presented as the default expression for chorus builds and general song flow. Tracks like “Judgement Day” and the ballad “Silence” feel like they could be any chipmunk-speed flower-power band with a little extra chirp in the extended solo runs. Only for the run from “War!” to the powerful eleven-minute opus “The Edge of the World” does DragonForce put any real effort into being their epic selves while showcasing some of the melodeath influence that makes their later era interesting. Oh, and this one has an absolutely pointless intro—no need to tack extra time onto an album that’s already too long.

#7. The Power Within (2012). As a guy who grew up with ZP being the voice of DragonForce, this first outing with Hudson was destined to present a challenge to my younger self. In the modern day, that feeling persists in the thought that many of the better tunes on this album feel like off-cuts from Ultra Beatdown with an increased 80s montage feel to many synth lines. The biggest issue with these choices is that the songs don’t feel entirely constructed around some of Hudson’s strengths, which he displays better on most later albums. For his first outing, he feels plain and safe save for the kick-in-the-teeth of “Give Me the Night” and “Seasons” and, well, the tail-end of the album… again. At least until the whiff of a closer that “Last Man Stands” offers. Such a shame that this fairly trim album lacks in impact.

#6. Extreme Power Metal (2019). This is the first album without longtime keys and weird noise maestro Vadim Pruzhanov, with Coen Janssen (Epica) providing guest arrangements, backings, and other keys sounds. In the present day, I can say this reminds me of the twinklecore that Fellowship presents on many occasions, but still DragonForce has a little more weight in tone. Please, understand, though, that this album is pretty much anything but the extreme in its own name, with a hefty, anthemic, Europe pounce striking through the sticky-sweet cuts “Heart Demolition” and “Strangers.” DragonForce plays with true restraint, and Hudson sounds great on these kinds of tracks—for better or worse—and it’s no surprise to hear that his solo work leans even into this kind of high glycemic power pop with guitar noises, frighteningly similar to Japanese Idol rock. Whatever the case, it works here, even if I don’t want to admit it out loud all the time. “My Heart Will Go On” is a good cover too.

#5. Inhuman Rampage (2006). I went through a ten-year period or so where I never wanted to hear “Through the Fire and the Flames” again, and anytime I revisited this album after its first year or so of existence, I just started at “Revolution Deathsquad,” which is a monster banger anyway. Witnessing DragonForce, of all the dorky bands I loved at the time, blow up because of Guitar Hero blew me away—still does. But with DragonForce dipping their toes into weirder guitar sounds (“Body Breakdown” in particular), more aggressive rhythm structures, and even a growl or two in the background from old friend of the band Lindsay Dawson (Demoniac), it’s hard to put Inhuman Rampage down once it gets going, especially since ZP is just about at the top of his game.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003). For the most authentic experience in this discog run experience and ranking, I pulled up some old shitty mp3s I had of this debut outing rather than hit the remastered version on stream. You see, my first experience with DragonForce came from a seedy copy of “Black Fire” and a corrupted version of “Disciples of Babylon” from LimeWire. And wouldn’t you know, when I finally heard the full, unclipped, unsqueaking version of the latter, it grew to be one of my favorite songs from this early incarnation of hyper-speed power metal. And though those two cuts leaned a little more on the sound of Blind Guardian at the time—you could even envision ZP as a budget Hansi Kürsch with extra warbling character—the prance and play inherent in the DragonForce sound still lived free in the spirit of “Valley of the Damned,” “Black Winter Night,” and “Heart of a Dragon.” The ballad isn’t particularly enjoyable, but Valley of the Damned remains a rollicking good time in all its youth and flaws.

#3. Maximum Overload (2014). It’s very simple: Maximum Overload wears Hudson better than any of his other outings with DragonForce. True to the album’s namesake, Hudson pushes his ventures into falsetto more recklessly, and DragonForce as a band finds that smart balance of fun, video game inspires noises and forward-moving riff-work. The heft of the Gothenberg-ripped guitar tone plays well against the smattering of video game noises and resplendent choruses, and many of the song choices ring true to a more classic and warm power metal sound than this band had ever displayed before. “The Sun Is Dead” reminds me of the gritty swagger of a band like Thunderstone more than DragonForce. Couple that with bassist Fredric Leclerq’s extreme metal influences that sharpen the steel of “The Game” and “Three Hammers,” a scorching cover of “Ring of Fire,” and NO BALLADS, Maximum Overload tears front to back all in under fifty minutes.

#2. Sonic Firestorm (2004) – Both a major step up in recording quality from the debut and a further diversification of attack, Sonic Firestorm hosts some of the best cuts that this discography has to offer. Yes, the continuing trend of DragonForce having overwrought ballads—very pretty piano on this one though—remains true on this piece, but its placement between the unyielding “Fields of Despair” and iconic synth warble of “Above the Winter Moonlight” ensures that this album never loses its course. Every track has bombastic intros, brain-staining choruses, dopamine-spiking solos, and sugar rush power that even twenty years removed from my first encounter still causes the flow. Yes, all of these songs are too long and have solo sections that extend well beyond what one might consider good taste, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? And though this track has no bearing on this record’s standing, “Cry of the Brave” should have been on the album proper, damnit.

#1. Ultra Beatdown (2008). Around when Ultra Beatdown landed in the world, my love affair with DragonForce and frolicking power metal was waning in favor of things equally noodly but more progressive—I am a refined individual, after all. However, despite my own musical journey, this massive album just couldn’t let me go. No song is less than five minutes. Most are over seven. In these very halls, recently even, I’ve rallied against the over-soloization of music to diminishing effects. But every tone-exploring keys break, every hot-handed guitar squeal, every ZP led anthem, fills me with joy, with the urge to scream and air guitar and smash a keytar that I wouldn’t even know how to turn on. Context matters, and the story here is that no matter what level of excess this band poured into the making of Ultra Beatdown, it seared a near hour-long corridor in my mind built specifically for this album. “Reasons to Live,” “Heartbreak Armageddon,” “The Last Journey Home”—I could really just name all the songs including the bonus tracks “Strike of the Ninja” and “Scars of Yesterday”—represent the fullest vision of the first era of DragonForce and to this day remains their best work. And most importantly, Ultra Beatdown is one of my favorite power metal albums of all time.2

Official Ranking

The writers’ votes have been cast and counted. As the contributors to this ranking were also the only ones to have any strong feelings about DragonForce one way or the other, a poll was not conducted to obtain a tally from AMG staff. The below is an aggregate of the Rankings above. Here, to be scrawled on the sparkliest of unicorn hide with a can of Cheez Whiz, is the definitive AMG Ranking for DragonForce:

#7. Extreme Power Metal (2019), with 5 points out of a possible 24.

#6. Reaching Into Infinity (2017), with 6 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) Maximum Overload (2014), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#5. (tied) The Power Within (2012), with 11 points out of a possible 24.

#4. Valley of the Damned (2003), with 14 points out of a possible 24.

#3. Inhuman Rampage (2006), with 17 points out of a possible 24.

#2. Ultra Beatdown (2008), with 20 points out of a possible 24.

#1. Sonic Firestorm (2004), with 21 points out of a possible 24.

If you don’t know DragonForce, you’ve probably saved yourself from a considerable heap of shame and embarrassment, but it’s never too late to shamelessly indulge with this playlist assembled by Eldritch Elitist, Kenstrosity, and Dolphin Whisperer:

#AtVance #BlindGuardian #BritishMetal #DragonForce #EarMusic #Epica #Europe #ExtremePowerMetal #Fellowship #Galneryus #InhumanRampage #JohnnyCash #MaximumOverload #PowerMetal #PowerQuest #ReachingIntoInfinity #Rhapsody #RoadrunnerRecords #RunningWild #SanctuaryRecords #SonicFirestorm #ThePowerWithin #Thunderstone #UltraBeatdown #ValleyOfTheDamned

💛🎓🙌🏾 Say hello to a new Honorary Fellow of West Dean! We had such a beautiful ceremony and magic day. So honoured and excited to receive this fellowship. Congratulations to all graduates and thank you all so much! Here’s a reel … we all had such a special day! Thank you! Xx

#WestDean #Fellowship #SalenaGodden #Awards #Sussex #Fellows #Blackjoy #BlackMastodon #thankyou

This week we welcome Dr. Jesper Verhoef as our 100th #CAISfellow!🥳He will spend 3 months at CAIS researching "Mapping the Dutch queer web sphere". Elliot Montpellier also joined our Fellows in June to conduct research on "Making Media, Making Muslimness: Drama Creators’ Pious Identities in the Digital Worlds of Pakistani Entertainment Television".
More about our #Fellows:
https://www.cais-research.de/cais-kolleg/cais-fellows/

Are you also interested in a #fellowship?👀 👇
https://www.cais-research.de/cais-kolleg/fellowships/

Working on my artist statement for the first time for an upcoming writing fellowship application. Anybody have any tips, resources or examples to share?
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#writingcommunity #academia #fellowship #writeradvice #CVSkills #writerslife #writersresearch #essayist #poet #feminist #grants #workingwriter