Weekly Spotlight, Week 12 / 2025
- Thomas
- Mar 17
- 5 min read
A mixed bag of prog, thrash, folk and a few other flavors this week from Dessiderium, Nite, Trold, Purified in Blood, Rwake and Tiktaalika.
Dessiderium – Keys To The Palace
Genre: Progressive/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
Country of origin: USA
Take a quick listen to "Keys to the Palace" and ask yourself: Was this what you expected as a follow-up to 2021's widely acclaimed "Aria"? And if the answer is no, then isn't everything really as it should be? This is prog, after all. And if the answer is yes, then that probably just means you had high expectations, which also means that all is well. Dessiderium still play melodic, effortlessly complex extreme/death prog that explores its soundscape, sometimes like a curious little critter and sometimes like a frenzied predator. You get "part" tracks that stretch concepts over several songs, meaning that some will be more decidedly mild and some more decidedly harsh. It's a delight to listen to from beginning to end, and while perhaps not as concisely hard-hitting and mind-blowingly inspired as its predecessor, it offers a different flavor and a different story.
Highlights: "In The Midst Of May" and "Keys To The Palace - Pt.3"
Nite – Cult Of The Serpent Sun
Genre: Heavy/black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: USA
At what point does a blackened metal project become too much fun? I guess it depends on your definition of fun, but you're probably in the danger zone when the word "happy" comes to mind. Compared to its 2022 predecessor "Voices of the Kronian Moon", this album is almost, ALMOST happy in nature. It's still whisper-snarling, gothic-toned and darkly themed, but some of the mysticism has gone missing. That aside, it's still devilishly catchy in as tasteful a way as can be managed, and seems to absolutely revel in that spine-tingingly cool lead guitar work, reminiscent of the very best you get from Tribulation and Ghost. You get some pretty decent variation in intensity, with both entirely slow and entirely galloping tracks, and a generous handful of them are ones that will easily stick in your mind, and be very welcome to, at that. Nite should at this point be on anyone's list of top blackened heavy metal bands, and they further cement their spot with "Cult of the Serpent Moon".
Highlights: "Crow (Fear the Night)" and "Cult of the Serpent Sun"
Trold – I Skovens Rige
Genre: Folk metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: Denmark
What happens if you take Finntroll, strip away the slight blackened veneer, change the language to Danish and up the party factor? No, it's not, in fact, a great mystery. You get this. That's what happens. This gang of merry trolls understand perfectly how to play around and have fun within the style, while both keeping it simple enough to not have to philosophize over, and also keeping it alive and varied with some actual great musicianship. There's just enough melodic death metal in there to please people like me who drop out the minute it gets too silly, and a bunch of nods to classic folk tunes that they just irreverently throw in there to let you know that they're not trying too hard. Yes, there's a lot of crown-pleasing material, but it's balanced out by wit, skill and actual humor.
Highlights: "Tusind År I Dvale" and "Med Høtyv Og Fakkel"
Purified in Blood – Primal Pulse Thunder
Genre: Death/black metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: Norway
It's been a good long while since these gentlemen dropped an album - nearly thirteen years, in fact. They deal in hardcore-styled death- and black metal that's raw, evil and punishing, but not completely stripped of finesse or melody. With this release you get the impression that they have a strong, uncomplicated vision for each song from the start, and then throw themselves at it with little intention of playing around with the formula. It doesn't make for a lot of variation within each track, but for the most part they hit really quite hard indeed, and are born of more than enough unique intent to easily stand out. The slightly uneven production steals a little bit of force and fullness, but the band makes up for it with the visceral quality of their performances.
Highlights: "Primal Pulse Thunder" and "Portal"
Rwake – The Return Of Magik
Genre: Progressive sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: USA
Another album this week that arrives after a 13-year gap is the latest by Rwake. It's a mix of sludge and hardcore, with a blackened tone and a kind of dehumanizingly progressive approach. Not that it sounds industrial or rigid - quite the opposite in fact - but it's as if there's an otherworldly will behind the progressions, which rarely go anywhere that feels familiar. It doesn't feel complicated, overwhelming or whimsical, just free-spirited and slightly detached. The mix between contemplative atmosphere and jagged aggression is very well considered, and never strikes me as jarring in an unintentional way. The last half of the album goes a bit heavy on the doom-like, unhurried approach, and so the impression of the energy fizzling out might be a letdown for some. But thematically it's on point all the way through.
Highlight: "The Return of Magik"
Tiktaalika – Gods Of Pangaea
Genre: Progressive thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: England
Okay, this is a bit confusing. Haken's Charlie Griffiths has a solo project, with which he released the prog metal gem "Tiktaalika" in 2022. Now he's back, and the project has been renamed to exactly that, Tiktaalika. Or is it supposed to be a new project? Because the music is now thrash all of a sudden. Proggy thrash, but still. On Spotify both the Charlie Griffiths project and Tiktaalika are registered as contributors to the album, so maybe it's just a temporary, concept-minded thing that... you know what, fuck it, let's just review the darn thing. Technically this is a highly pleasing effort, with awesome solos and sneaky-complex, yet groove-laden riffs. But I can't shake the feeling that for a thrash record, there's too much thinking going on. The tone is right, the vocal style is right, but it feels reigned in and overly controlled. Which leaves it as a thrash sounding prog album, and when you accept it as such, you can start to appreciate all the fun things going on in it. In the end, it's very cool that this thing exists, but it comes up a bit short of being the best of both worlds.
Highlight: "Lost Continent"
Yorumlar