Tag Archives: 5/10

Savage Lands – Army of the Trees (2025) – Review

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Savage Lands - Army of the Trees - Album Cover

Let me tell you what made us pick this record up in the first place. Black Rock Heart, the first track on Savage Lands‘ debut album Army of the Trees, wildly reminded us of Slap Betty‘s piece of work that aired some years ago. A record containing a lot of progression, some limited emotion, but little substance otherwise.1 Apart from loads of red-hot, well-chiseled Heavy Rock, that is. A feature that rarely garnishes this zine’s review pipe.

So, here we got ourselves a record featuring a limited core band created by Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth) and Sylvain … [...] Click to raid more!

Ancient Bards – Artifex (2025) – Review

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Ancient Bards - Artifex - Album Cover

Italy. An astonishing haven for all sorts of metal shenanigans found up and down the famous boot-shaped peninsula. The RMR crew found a full-blown panoply of metal delights, out of which Power and Symphonic Metal grab themselves an important chunk.

Around 15% of all Italian records covered since the zine’s inception wander about these two genres. Put differently, Power Metal has become one of the main staples of Italy’s cheesiest metal soundscapes. And RMR stepped right into it. Gunk or geekery? We might need some Artifex to pull ourselves out of this.

Ancient Bards‘ 2019 piece Origine didn’t quite … [...] Click to raid more!

Bloody Valkyria – In Our Home, Across The Fog (2025) – Review

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Bloody Valkyria - In Our Home, Across The Fog - Album Cover

Early 2025 seems to turn into the year of the Valkyries. The RMR crew already had some earlier. A flamboyant platter of moods and flavors served with an underlying vampiric Victorian flair. But here, things are moving seriously North. To the places where the sun either gets stuck in the sky for months or won’t shine at all. But it is also to places where true metal excellence happens more often than not.

So, the question here is: Will Bloody Valkyria and their somewhat unwieldingly structured piece In Our Home, Across the Fog really cut the dense Scandinavian mustard? There’s … [...] Click to raid more!

The 7th Guild – Triumviro (2025) – Review

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The 7th Guild - Triumviro - Album Cover

The 7th Guild. A brand-new massive Italian collective of eight professional adepts of the art of Power Metal. Well, the project in itself is not that brand new, apparently. Tomi Fooler (SkeleToon) started the action back in 2021. But it is only this February 2025 that the first full-length album Triumviro will see the light of day. In other words, this burgeoning gang of band members stayed undercover for a while, methinks. So much so that even the mighty Metal Archives don’t sport an entry for the band yet at the time of writing this review. And that means … [...] Click to raid more!