BAD TASTE! LOUD RIFFS! TOO MUCH CUM!
Korpiklaani
Korpiklaani’s drinking-song energy produces a few infectious moments, but thin arrangements and repetitive writing quickly exhaust the novelty.
Children Of Bodom
A dazzling rush of keyboards, solos and melodic aggression, but the spectacle sometimes outruns the songs beneath it.
Phronexis
A flamboyant, hook-heavy metal record whose excess works because the songs beneath it are sharp, varied and built to move a crowd.
Ensiferum
A valiant, if somewhat predictable, return to form for Ensiferum’s folk-infused metal mayhem.
Ensiferum
Ensiferum’s debut combines heroic melody, blackened aggression and folk atmosphere with remarkable confidence and unusually strong songwriting.
Opeth
Opeth’s landmark atmosphere remains potent, but the album’s grand scale too often turns tension into delay and repetition.
Dan Terminus
A dense, cinematic electronic-metal hybrid rich in texture and momentum, though its long runtime blunts the strongest ideas.
Feuerschwanz
Warriors is a compact, hook-heavy folk-metal record that thrives on momentum even when its themes feel overfamiliar.
DragonForce
DragonForce turn their familiar velocity into a bright arcade-metal sprint, with strong hooks and a few unnecessary bonus laps.
Midnight
Twenty-five minutes of filthy speed and blackened swagger: effective, immediate and too familiar to feel truly dangerous.
Edge Of Sanity
A ferocious progressive death-metal suite that turns fragmentation, conflict and repetition into a coherent dramatic whole.
Imperial Demonic
Beneath the Crimson Eclipse is a compact, cold-blooded statement with strong identity, sharp pacing and no wasted movement.