King Witch: III (2025)

Simple tastes. Tight riffs. Big snares and plenty of cymbal sizzle, with the bass holding it all together in conjunction with the Almighty Kick. Stretch beyond pentatonic scales at your peril and, best of all, make sure the vocals can settle a hummingbird one moment, and rip the shingles off a house the next. I don’t know that I was expecting it to blow in from Scotland, but it’s no matter when King Witch get practically everything right about what I love in heavy music on III, their (you guessed it) third full length. All the above criteria are met, there are a few surprises, and best of all, this baby comes in at a lean 44 minutes. I always said, if it can’t fit on one side of 90-min cassette, it can probably be cut.

ChrisDecember 10, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Phantom Spell: Heather & Hearth (2025)

How many times have I said that some albums seem tailor-made just for me? More than a few, by my addled-brain estimation. And yet that’s where we find ourselves with Heather & Hearth, the second album from Spain’s Phantom Spell, which is essentially one guy. But that guy, Kyle McNeill, seems to have offered up his soul to be the perfect vessel for 70s analog progressive rock (emphasis on the rock) blended with NWOBHM and a keen ear for songwriting. Like I said, tailor-made just for me. Due to…well, everything, it took a while to secure a copy on vinyl. But now it’s landed and I can finally talk about why I was so persistent in grabbing a physical copy.

ChrisNovember 3, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Century: Sign Of The Storm (2025)

Search the darkened nooks and crannies of any genre and you’ll find nuggets of wealth. Tried and true traditional heavy metal never had a visibility problem, but as I peruse heaping promo piles it doesn’t seen to have the market frothing had it had a decade ago when bands like Spirit Adrift and Haunt (somewhere between their fifth and fifteenth album) were showing just how much life the children of the NWOBHM could bring to the masses. So it’s a relief to find a band like Century not only holding the torch aloft for others to heed the call, but that they do it with a shine and polish that recalls my favorite bands of the past 40 years while maintaining a modern edge production-wise. Sign Of The Storm was an early highlight of 2025 for me, and almost a half year later still brings everything I want in my traditional heavy metal review to the fore.

ChrisMay 6, 2025May 6, 20251 Comment

Vinyl

Nite: Cult Of The Serpent Sun (2025)

Only three months into the new year and traditional heavy metal is having one hell of a banner year. First there was Century in January bringing us their debut Sign of the Storm; in February came the streetwise and ripping Mean Mistreater with their second album Do Or Die. And now in March we have the big one: the furious blackened rock and roll heavy metal swagger of San Francisco’s Nite returning with album #3. Cult of the Serpent Sun embraces the spirit of denim and leather, of the NWOBHM and makes sure to inject some lethal dark majesty in its riffs and lyrics, taking the “heavy” part of heavy metal to its zenith. Goddamn do I love this album…

ChrisMarch 19, 2025March 18, 20252 Comments

Cassette

Helms Deep: Treacherous Ways (2023)

Every week in March we’re doing themes (he randomly decided this morning), and this week we’re going with my weirdly growing and evolving cassette collection. Similar to my collection as a kid, it’s largely made up of smaller metal releases, filled with killer cover art and tiny inserts almost impossible to read, often imprinted with color on the cassette itself. I’m not going to advocate for its fidelity or superiority over other formats: the truth is I love the nostalgia it brings, and if I’m ordering something from a band on bandcamp and the price difference isn’t massive, I’d rather spring for physical media when I can. And so we begin with some fantastic trad metal from Florida’s Helms Deep, and their debut Treacherous Ways.

ChrisMarch 3, 2025March 7, 20251 Comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Tag: trad metal

King Witch: III (2025)

Phantom Spell: Heather & Hearth (2025)

Century: Sign Of The Storm (2025)

Nite: Cult Of The Serpent Sun (2025)

Helms Deep: Treacherous Ways (2023)