Category Archives: Reviews A – L

Amorphis – Borderland (2025) – Review

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Amorphis - Borderland - Album Cover

Halo still ranked pretty well over at the RMR Review Desk, despite pretty severe reservations from some crewmembers over here. In a way, Amorphis‘ (in)famous trilogy seemed to suffer from overreach at the end. A form of fatigue brought about by too much mandated playtime and not enough good ideas to fill the void with real mana.

And who can blame them, really? The sturdy roughy Under The Red Cloud and the feisty piece Queen of Time must have sucked the oxygen out of the songsmithing atelier. So, I reckon, the last one of the trio had trouble really … [...] Click to raid more!

Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia (2025) – Review

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Green Carnation - A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia - Album Cover

Green Carnation. A band stating that they – and I quote “…are returning to long-form storytelling…” with their first installment of a trilogy, clunkily called A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia. Wow. That’s quite a statement. But then, the Norwegians here pulled exactly that stunt before to quite some critical acclaim, we are told. And the band surely doesn’t take the easy road this time, stating that “…the ambitions are sky high musically.” Well, hell’s bells, that’s not something we really could resist. Right?

Storytelling ain’t no easy feat, though. A band needs to be

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Faun – Hex (2025) – Review

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Faun has been a frequent ‘guest’ of this zine over the years. The RMR crew got to know them once Von Den Elben took some more mainstream undercurrents by storm. The record was a revelation, unlike the forced Wardruna copycat feel that their previous pieces always induced. This drew a total shitstorm of ire from their hardcore fans and led the band to start pulling back from their newfound freedom after a while. Fast forward to Pagan of 2022, Faun‘s fare started to center yet again in the more esoteric form of Pagan Folk. It was interesting to see

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Helloween – Giants & Monsters (2025) – Review

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Helloween - Giants & Monsters - Album Cover

It happened at last. Helloween‘s newest concoction, Giants & Monsters, successfully made it onto our review pipe after all those years. The grandads of the Metal o’ The Light finally obtained lamestream n00b status over at the RMR Review Desk. Meaning, despite their verified existence since 1983 and their undisputed influence on the shaping of Ze Art ov Power Metal in general, the band never officially landed a review over at the office tower. The culprit holding us back usually was those slippery, pinkish, sugar-laden surfaces slathered in molten cheese that got in the way. But things changed, and

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