Lmst

#NowPlaying the recent album "Dark Believer" by the band #Martyr from #Netherlands

#Metal #HeavyMetal #TrueMetal #AlbumsOf2025

Personal Rating: 4 / 10

Recommended Tracks: "Dark Believer", "Cemetery Symphony", "Legions of the Cross"

https://martyronline.bandcamp.com/album/dark-believer

Mitología nórdica y #Heavy-Metal, se aderezarán con pinturas de guerra que atronarán en tierras andaluzas, especialmente recomendado para fieles al #True-Metal www.lafactoriadelritmo.com/sun-thunder-... #Metalsky #Metal #Rock #Power-Metal #Metal-Épico #Press #Gigs #Tours @zliveoficial.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:rei54k7nmu57w3k4oz4q75kl/post/3mbgxksn3dk2p

Sun & Thunder 2026 (Reportajes...

MANOWAR regresan a España en 2027 con dos conciertos muy especiales. Madrid y Barcelona acogerán shows únicos con “Kings Of Metal” y “Fighting The World” interpretados al completo.
#Manowar #KingsOfMetal #FightingTheWorld #HeavyMetal #ConciertosMetal #MetalEnEspaña #Gira2027 #TrueMetal

https://rockandblog.net/manowar-vuelven-a-espana-con-dos-conciertos-exclusivos-en-2027/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

#NowPlaying the recent album "Ritual Supremecy" by the band #SacredSteel from #Germany

#TrueMetal #HeavyMetal #AlbumsOf2025

Personal Rating: 6 / 10

Recommended Tracks: "Leather, Spikes and Chains", "Let the Blackness come to me", "Entombed within the Iron Walls of Dis", "A Shadow in The Vell Tower", "Omen Rider"

A ghostly skeleton with arms outstretched stands centrally on a raised platform or stage, facing a dark crowd below. Above the skeleton glows a spectral figure or angel-like shape, radiating pale light over the scene. The background is dominated by swirling dark and golden tones, evoking a ritualistic and apocalyptic atmosphere. At the bottom, the album title ‘Ritual Supremacy’ appears in bold, heavy-metal-style lettering.

Starlight Ritual – Rogue Angels Review

By Steel Druhm

Deep in the protozoic slime that sits at the center of Steel Druhm’s rusted metal heart, there’s a discreet region that craves early-to-mid 80s classic heavy metal. It’s an undying hunger that can never be slaked, and it drives me to look for turbo love in all the wrong places. Thus did I come to Starlight Ritual’s Sealed in Starlight debut back in 2021, dragging Kenword R. Spongewell along for moral support. What I found was an energetic young group of ne’er-do-wells who love the olden ways as much as I do. They delivered a punchy platter of nostalgia-core as they sought after the perfect blend of Mötörhead, Rainbow, Judas Priest, and lesser-known 80s metal fiends like Cities and Jag Panzer. It was rough around the edges, but the core elements were there, and the writing was catchy with ample metallic sack.1 Now they’re back with sophomore opus Rogue Angels, endeavoring to stuff more “epic” in their brawny compositions. MOAR epic is always better, so will Rogue Angels smite the wimps and posers with trve fucking metal? Let’s measure the heavenly mass.

Reduced to a power trio this time out, Starlight Ritual bring the heavy metal thunder on grandiose opener “Lost Among the Fold.” It opens like epic doom with thundering drums and mammoth, mourning doom riffs lurching before it explodes into a gloriously 80s metal gallop that splits the difference between NWoBHM and the meaner American sounds of 82-84. Frontman Damien Ritual’s booming baritone bellows are perfect for these tales of war and heroism, and he sounds like the love child of Grim Reaper’s sadly departed Steve Grimmett, Paul Di’Anno, and Visigoth’s Jake Rogers. The guitar work by Dan Toupin is so perfectly 80s it causes a time rupture that allowed me to heist several cases of Night Train and Tango from the past (for scientific purposes only). This is the kind of retro metal gem that makes my back hair long and luxurious. And they keep this high quality going with the big, bold title track, which is so goddamn trve that it makes even me feel false by comparison. There’s even a bit of Crypt Sermon in here, but with things sped up for more aggression and urgency. “Crusaders” is another stiff blow to the neck and nutal regions with a raucous, headlong charge into the enemy that’s so damn metal it leaves an unpleasant iron taste in your mouth. If this doesn’t go on your gym playlist, you must be doing pool noodle pilates with the assisted living set.

With such a completely crushing triarch opening the album up, you want the goods to keep coming hot and heavy. There are some bumps as the album unfolds, however, but none of them derail the march on Valhalla. “Far Beyond the Storm” is a meaty metal tidbit but less inspired than its predecessors, and “Omenkillers” is the longest, most aggressive track, but it’s a notch or 2 below the better stuff. Slow burn grinder “Exodus” is moody as fuck and reminds me of the Dio-era Sabbath chesnuts, but it never quite attains that next level. Things are redeemed by killer back-half high notes like “The Law” (which I cannot stop replaying) and “On the Run” (which I also cannot stop replaying), and the overall package is more hunter-killer than filler. The production screams 1982, with the guitar tone perfectly aged and moldy. It sounds and feels olde and elder me values that muchly.

I love Damien Ritual’s vocals. He isn’t blessed with a vast range but makes the most of his raw, rough bellows/rasps, and he can actually sing when he opts to do so. He sounds like a wild barbarian bastard much of the time, and on the faster moments, he channels Paul Di’Anno to the point of creepiness. As or even more essential to the Starlight Ritual sound is the heavily dated guitar phrasing from Dan Toupin. The man knows exactly how to recreate the sounds of the golden age of metal, from the riffs to the harmonies and the way little accents were used as hooks. His playing is the crystal key that unlocks all the nostalgia, and that’s the band’s secret weapon.

Starlight Ritual have their targeted sound and style down cold, and while Rogue Angels isn’t a huge progression from their debut, it shows growth in the writing department. That said, it’s definitely front-loaded, and a few cuts just can’t tow the line with the best moments. This is one of those albums where the good stuff is so good, it carries the weaker bits to end up enjoyable as a whole (see The Number of the Beast for comparison, and yes, you know it’s true). If you hanker for a hunka, a sliver, slab, or chunka 80s metal, Rogue Angels brings the Flaming Sword of Smoting. Get smitten.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: High Roller
Websites: facebook.com/starlightritual | instagram.com/starlightritual
Releases Worldwide: October 31st, 2025

#2025 #35 #CanadianMetal #GrimReaper #HeavyMetal #HighRollerRecords #Manowar #Oct25 #Rainbow #Review #Reviews #RogueAngels #SealedInStarlight #StarlightRitual #TrueMetal #Visigoth

This album fuses aggression, melody, and philosophy into one unforgettable sonic journey. Metalheads worldwide – the wait is over🇮🇳

#EternalReturns #LetThereBeSin #TrueMetal #BrutalRecords #MetalFromIndia #MelodicDeathMetal #Metal #NewAlbum

#NowPlaying #TheMetalDogIsNowPlaying
#Manowar
Kings of Metal
Kings of Metal

YouTube Search:
https://youtube.com/results?search_query=Manowar+Kings+of+Metal+Kings+of+Metal

Songwhip:
https://songwhip.com/Manowar/Kings-of-Metal

LastFM:
https://www.last.fm/music/Manowar/_/Kings+of+Metal

Lyrics:
https://genius.com/Manowar-kings-of-metal-lyrics

#heavymetal #Powermetal #metal #makesposersexplode #truemetal

#NowPlaying #TheMetalDogIsNowPlaying
#Manowar
Kings of Metal
Hail and Kill

YouTube Search:
https://youtube.com/results?search_query=Manowar+Kings+of+Metal+Hail+and+Kill

Songwhip:
https://songwhip.com/Manowar/Hail-and-Kill

LastFM:
https://www.last.fm/music/Manowar/_/Hail+and+Kill

Lyrics:
https://genius.com/Manowar-hail-and-kill-lyrics

#Manowar #JoeyDeMaio #EricSanctuary #KarlLogan #DonnieSteele #PowerMetal #HeavyMetal #TrueMetal #SteelMeetsSteel #MetalWarrior #EpicMetal #USMetal #Metal80s

Professor Emeritus – A Land Long Gone Review

By Steel Druhm

There are some pretty disastrous band names out there, and Professor Emeritus is up near the tippy-top. Why anyone would name themselves after a retired college instructor is beyond me, but their 2017 Take Me to the Gallows debut was an entertaining dose of epic/trve/doom metal with enough muscle and magic to win me over despite some rough spots and vocal missteps. Nearly eight years later, we get the follow-up, A Land Long Gone, and the lineup has undergone a massive overhaul, with only guitarist Lee Smith (ex-Satan’s Hallow) remaining. In comes vocalist Esteban Julian Pena of Acerus, along with several former members of Black Sites, and the result is an entirely different beast. The epic/trve/doom template is still in place, but the sometimes amateurish, goofy moments of the debut are replaced with serious, somber, and memorable songcraft and musicianship. Throughout A Land Long Gone, you’ll hear influences ranging from Candlemass, Crypt Sermon, Manilla Road, Argus, Tad Morose, and Doomsword, and that’s good company to be in. It’s also the most potent of Steel chum, and since it brought me to the yard, I will stay until I slake my mighty thirst with the blood of my enemies (I’ll settle for Pabst in a pinch). On with the retirement party!

You don’t need a fancy college degree to know you want to open your album with a slobberknocker of a tune, and Professor Emeritus does this with “A Corpse’s Dream.” Coming out of the gate with burly, beefy riffs that alternate between doomy and trve, you feel the difference from the debut right away. This is musclebound trve doom that wants to smack you in the face with a warhammer. It hits hard while remaining surprisingly polished and, dare I say it, tasteful. It reminds me of a heavier Memory Garden mated with the chest-pounding bravado of Argus, and that’s a winning chili recipe! Pena kills it with a great vocal performance, and you’ll be impressed. “Zosimos” adopts Iron Maiden-isms to lay the groundwork for an epic tale, then the big trve riffs hit the beach and the raid is on! The melancholy vocal harmonies are memorable and well-executed, and the sadboi guitar work is regal but downtrodden. It works like an iron charm. “Passage” sounds like something off the early Omen albums mixed with Helstar, so that means it rocks to fucking Hell and back as meaty riffs gallop and Pena adopts darker, meaner tones. Armies are raised with shit like this.

Another high point arrives with “Defeater,” which is all Manowar loincloth sweat and Doomsword blade fetishizing. It’s such a macho, triumphant stanza that there’s no way to hear it and not seize a sizeable portion of your neighbor’s lawn as war booty.1 When Pena roars, “Do NOT be defeated again!” I guarantee you’ll gain between 3-5 inches on your pec-scrotal tie-in. Elsewhere, a strong Manilla Road vibe emanates from the folksy, atmospheric badassery of “Hubris,” where the careful listener may also divine traces of Darkest Era. The guitar work here is especially regal and captivating, and the piece at 4:36, where Pena comes in after a stupendous guitar solo will give you chills. In a show of diversity of approach, the album wraps with the 9-minute “Kalopsia Caves,” which reads like an effort to marry Warning and early Candlemass. It has the oversized bombast of the latter and the sullen, stripped-back minimalism of the former and it fucking works. It’s a beautiful doom voyage with delightful side quests into folk, Something Wicked This Way Comes era Iced Earth, and Bruce Dickinson’s Chemical Wedding opus. That should NOT work, but it totally does!

This is one of those albums where you want to lay the plaudits at every member’s feet. Pena does a great job vocally, solving all the issues from the debut and elevating the material to lofty heights. I admire the way he shifts vocal styles often, slipping from majestic crooning into harsher intonations effortlessly. He brings a ton of charisma and gravitas to the songs and makes you pay attention. Lee Smith and new axe Tyler Antram shine brightly as they shower the listener in muscular trve metal riffs, crushing doom leads, and sadboi trilling as needed. The whole band is excellent, and the writing is vastly superior to what the debut offered.

I was somewhat surprised to see a new Professor Emeritus promo pop up at all, and I certainly didn’t expect an album THIS good. This thing is now riding high on my Best Of 2025 list, and I can’t stop spinning it. It’s a great companion piece to the recent Beholder album, but it’s much better. Judge them not on the awful name. Hear A Land Long Gone and let the metal do the talking. Hail the Professor!

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: No Remorse
Websites: professoremeritus.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/professoremerituslives
Releases Worldwide: June 13th, 2025

#2025 #40 #ALandLongGone #AmericanMetal #DoomMetal #EpicHeavyMetal #HeavyMetal #Jun25 #NoRemorseRecords #ProfessorEmeritus #Review #Reviews #TrueMetal

#NowPlaying #TheMetalDogIsNowPlaying
#Venom
At War With Satan
7 Gates Of Hell

YouTube Search:
https://youtube.com/results?search_query=Venom+At+War+With+Satan+7+Gates+Of+Hell

Songwhip:
https://songwhip.com/Venom/7-Gates-Of-Hell

Lyrics:
https://genius.com/Venom-7-gates-of-hell-lyrics

LastFM:
https://www.last.fm/music/Venom/_/7+Gates+Of+Hell

#heavymetal #metal #truemetal #OldSchoolMetal #trueblackmetal

Packing for a little trip👇
#thrashmetal #truemetal #noplaybackfestival

Serpent Rider – The Ichor Of Chimaera Review

By Steel Druhm

Steel never gets his fill of old-timey, sword-swinging trve metal. It’s one of the few genres that pulls me away from the rot pit these days, and a break from the reek of putrefaction is always nice. Enter The Ichor Of Chimaera, the debut from Los Angeles-based trvesters Serpent Rider, featuring Brandon Corsair of Houkago Grind Time and Draghkar. Their goal is a convincingly throwback sound and an epic vibe, taking pages from Manilla Road, Brocas Helm, DoomSword, and newer acts like Smoulder. With ample musical chops and solid appreciation for the sounds of past glories, can Serpent Rider tame the snakes of inexperience and triumph over the other trve hordes stalking the wastelands?

Things open in a deceptively low-key way on “Steel is the Answer.” The title would lead one to expect pounding war drums, martial marching, and much chest-thumping bravado, but instead, you’re met by the smooth and decidedly mellow vocals of R. Villar, who operates in a sedate, hypnotic space despite spinning tales of steel conquest and retribution. The supporting music is fully retro, with 80s-centric proto-metal riffs and flashes of glory-seeking harmonies. This creates a bit of a disconnect, but it isn’t bad at all. The war hammers rattle more forcefully on “Radiant,” where the might of trve metal reveals itself, even if the vocals never rise to match the fervor. The album grows stronger as it goes along, with the victorious, valorous (and somewhat liturgical) “Matri Deorum” charging into that sweet spot between Cirith Ungol, Manowar, and DoomSword, and I want to hoist a banner in its honor. This is the stuff that brings Steel to the fightspace.

Other moments of entertaining throwback barbarian fury include “Tyrant’s March,” which is what I expected more of based on the genre and promo language. This is more like all thunderous war galloping and ravaging, and I’m here for it. Closer “In Spring” changes things up with bouncy NWoBHM riffs that eventually merge into blackened terms and frantic blastbeats. This is an ingredient they should have mixed throughout the entire Manocake for added thrills and kills. There are a few stumbles on the way to Helm’s Deep, however. The title track is a decent enough 5-minute song stretched on the Rack of Elongation to an unwieldy 7-plus minutes, and it gets tiresome before it retreats. “The Hero’s Spirit” suffers a different fate, opting for a quasi-Goth doom sound that recalls Within Temptation, but doesn’t quite come together. At a crisp 36:11 minutes, most of The Ichor of Chimaera goes down pretty easily like ice-cold Night Train. The production is warm and appropriately retro, with a certain Cirith Ungol-esque clang and clomp I appreciate.

Though a vocalist can often be the guiding force for a trve metal act, in the case of Serpent Rider, it’s the fretboard acumen of Paul Gelbach and Brandon Corsair that fills the sails and cracks the whips. They run through a variety of old time influences along the way, like Cirith Ungol, Helstar, and Manilla Road, and they know exactly the sound and vibe they want to invoke. They’re adept at creating 80s-centric soundscapes and bring a goodly amount of heat to the forge. R Villar is an interesting frontwoman. Her smooth, laconic delivery is pleasant but feels out of place on songs that sound like they were made for battle and heroics, and the music cries out for more passion and invective. Her laid back approach works better on the slower, doomy cuts like the title track, but I still want MOAR oomph from her. She seems unwilling to take things into a more forceful gear, even on the aggressive cuts like “Radiant” and “In Spring.” This makes me long for Tower’s Sarabeth Linden to show up and roar against the dying of the light.

Serpent Rider exist inside the trve wheelhouse of Steel, and I enjoy what they do on The Ichor Of Chimaera. I just wish they brought more swords to the slaughter and fewer Gothic sleepytime lullabies. There’s plenty to like here, and a few keepers to honor in the Playlists of Titans. They just need to dial the trveness up a few more notches if you hope to curry favor with the Lords of Metal on Mount Crom. Hoard the damn swords, people. HOARD THEM!

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: No Remorse
Websites: serpentrider.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/serpentriderband | instagram.com/serpentriderofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #CirithUngol #DoomMetal #HeavyMetal #HoukagoGrindTime #ManillaRoad #Mar25 #NoRemorseRecords #Review #Reviews #SerpentRider #Smoulder #TheIchorOfChimaera #TrueMetal