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Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

I am trying to resist the urge to begin this review with “this album will melt your fucking face”, but, well, it will. Amon Amarth have managed to bring together the brutal elements of their earlier releases with the head-crushing riffs of their later sound into a cohesive, brutal, melodic massacre of an album. The songs move from strength to strength, from the classic Amon Amarth opener “War of the Gods”, to the stunning guitar in “Töck’s Taunt – Loke’s Treachery Part II” to the almost power metal feel of “For Victory or Death”. Tracks like “Destroyer of the Universe” and “Doom Over Dead Man” will become classics for sure. “Live without Regrets” is my new theme song.

The rougher, dirtier mix on this album moves away from the exquisitely clean production of the last two releases, and reminds me of the production on my favorite album, Fate of Norns. The songs, however, blow that album out of Valhalla. The band show their maturity, their unparalleled mastery of their subject. These boys aren’t playing at vikings, they are fucking vikings.

And, as such, it couldn’t be an Amon Amarth album without suitably epic and Viking-ish themes. Here, Surtur, leader of the giants of Muspelheim, takes centre stage. He graces the cover – a monolithic giant who dwarfs the Norsemen he’s about to slay with his flaming sword. He dips that huge-ass sword in the Eternal Flame and gains the power to raze the nine worlds. He fights a grueling battle with Frej (ruler of fertility and peace) at the end of the world. He causes chaos and carnage, and he leaves us broken, destroyed … munted, as we say in NZ.

Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialoges

The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues represents BTBAM’s musical and conceptual masterwork; the record showcases both the quintet’s vivid execution and ambitious vision. The otherworldly conceptual thread linking each of the songs is mobilized around two human characters that live in different planes of existence and are separated by millions of light years, each confronted with similar personal issues. Subsequently, both characters make decisions that will change their lives, and perhaps the course of the universe, forever. Musically, the release presents aura-rich atmospheres rife with roaring volumes, corrugated rhythms and trance-inducing intricacies. Cerebral and visceral, soft and heavy, melodic and abrasive, tender and brutal, familiar and strange and taut yet sprawling and epic, Between The Buried And Me has crafted a sound that is musically sophisticated yet primal and a disc where every new passage leads to the culmination of an epic adventure.

Asking Alexandria - Reckless and Relentless

Asking Alexandria is a metalcore band from York, England that actually has a somewhat decent sound, and a horrible fanbase. Those who listened to their first album, Stand Up and Scream, know what Asking Alexandria is all about. Danny Worsnop is (I must admit) a beast on vocals. His screams have impressive range—lows are nasty and gravelly, and highs are similar to those found in deathcore. When he sings, things tend to go downhill, but it could be worse. Now, the instruments…while I’m not saying AA is terrible, they could put a bit more effort into songwriting then just throwing in random breakdowns between the intervals of clean lyrics.


Now, while Reckless and Relentless has its flaws, it’s an overall improvement over Stand Up and Scream in almost every way. The breakdowns are more creative, vocals have improved and believe it if you can, the album actually has some nice hooks. However, the album’s feeling is the same. The whole effort comes off as Stand Up and Scream 2.0 in the way that they are better, but not different, and there are no new elements in their music. Danny Worsnop said in an interview this album was “influenced by 80’s hard rock,” as he didn’t listen to most modern bands. 

Reckless and Relentless is straight-up metalcore with electronica/trance influences that the lead singer and programmer manages to imbue their music with. This can be done well, such as in “Dear Insanity,” “Lesson Never Learned” and “Breathless.” But sometimes the metal just stops and a completely random trance moment will begin, such as in “Closure” and “The Match.”