Howdy Fans and Friends! Yep! It is (already) time again for an update on what has been cooking at RockmusicRaider since Tome III. And there has been a lot of action, I can tell ya. It looks like Tome IV shows less influence of Black Metal and everything blackened. Even if this particular genre has whelped a few very good specimens worth mentioning. And I expect this to continue for the remainder of the year. But enough of this and let’s get down to what we got.

But first we take to the sea. The wild, cold sea. Rain drenched shores, ready to be invaded. Proud dragon-headed longships crawling with crazed, screaming vikings on the prowl. That is the blood-soaked fare the latest offering Jomsviking from Amon Amarth is saddling us with. The band clearly kept up the standard for themselves for this newest offering. But not only that: A rock solid theme – the saga of the Jomsviking – lent further spice to an already juicy soundscape. So, reviewing this record has been a real pleasure. And the album was good for football too (soccer, for you folks in the US). The RockmusicRaider household blasted Jomsviking during the European Championship in support of the viking team from Iceland. Very fitting – and they got far.

Then we moved and actually stayed in Italy for a while. Nice and sunny there and full of #metal. Fleshgod Apocalypse gave their corpse-like and – for sure – Machiavellian appearance for our pleasure with King. I almost heard Lucrezia traipsing around in the background, when listening to their tune. And it is a mighty cauldron of stuff being thrown at us. So much so, that it almost veers off into the unmanageable. But they just about strung this together, managing to get a very complex, but also very decent record out to the fan crowd. The album is pretty hefty fare and you will need some time to get used to it. But – hey – this is really good stuff. You should try it one day.  [...]  Got hooked? Raid on...!