Written By Kevin McSweeney
Welcome to Seven Deadly Songs, Metal Lair’s weekly feature in which we offer you seven musical delights to make your week less of a fright. This week’s list is a distinctly European affair, with only Australia representing the rest of the world. The Aussies are allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, so they can be included on that admittedly spurious basis! (Also, there’s nothing from the UK. Blame Brexit!) I digress. This wasn’t a conscious decision, and subsequent weeks will be full of selections from all across the globe, but for now, please enjoy the best new releases Europe has to offer.
Fabula Rasa – At Full Moon
I love a bit of lycanthropy in a metal song! This follows in the footsteps – or should that be paw prints? – of such classics as Type O Negative’s Wolf Moon and Metallica’s Of Wolf and Man in depicting the beastly antics of fearsome lupine figures when the moon is full. They also released a single in 2023 called Brotherhood of the Wolf, so it’s not their first rampage through the woods at night either. At Full Moon is the opening track of German folk metallers Fabula Rasa’s second album, Tome II: The Beyond, due to be released independently on June 13th. It sounds like a cross between Iron Maiden and English Celtic rock band the Levellers, which probably shouldn’t work but absolutely does! The voice of frontmanAchim Hopf bears a striking resemblance to that of Bruce Dickinson in terms of range and timbre. To be honest, I’d have included them for the band’s name alone. I can’t resist a good pun!
Fairyland– Karma
If our first inclusion wasn’t outlandish enough, we now turn to the French city of Nice for some symphonic power metal, in the form of the phantasmagorical soundscapes of the fabulous Fairyland, whose forthcoming album is to be released via Frontiers Records on June 13th. The Story Remains is their fifth full-length album, and, poignantly, their first since the passing of the band’s keyboardist and main composer, Philippe Giordana. The album is sure to be a fitting tribute to Philippe, judging by this epic piece of music. It’s fast, flamboyant and fantastically OTT, full to the brim of majestic synths and lavish vocal harmonies. It sounds like it ought to have been the theme music to some grandiose cartoon or adventure series from the 1980s, reminisced about fondly by nostalgic Gen Xers the internet over. As a nostalgic Gen Xer myself, I assure you this is no bad thing!
Insania – The Trinity
Now for another fantastic release courtesy of Frontiers Records! The terms “power metal” and “from Sweden” are usually enough in isolation to pique my interest. In conjunction, they virtually guarantee music of immense quality. That is certainly the case with Insania, whom, I’m relieved to announce, have absolutely nothing to do with Peter Andre. The Stockholmers have returned with their sixth full-length album, The Great Apocalypse, on June 13th, and, quite frankly, this is epic to a theatrical extent. It boasts melodies and harmonies worthy of Broadway, or Londons’s West End, and an ending that, quite honestly, gives me goosebumps. It’s like a rousing number from a modern iteration of Les Misérables – one which Les Amis de l’ABC protest against the horrors of nuclear war (the title refers to the first successful test of an atomic weapon), rather than the social injustices of 19th Century France. Stirring stuff indeed!
Iron Mind – Test of the Iron Mind
This is shouty, mid-paced gang chorus hardcore at the more metallic end of the spectrum – think Biohazard’s Urban Discipline, Agnostic Front’s Cause for Alarm or Madball’s Set it Off. It’s NYHC exactly as I like it, though they hail not from New York City, but from Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Iron Mind have been around for the best part of two decades, but Test of the Iron Mind is only their third full-length album. It is available from June 13th, courtesy of Last Ride Records. The title track is just over two minutes of pummeling hardcore punk that has me wishing their releases were more frequent.
Motorjesus – New Messiah of Steel
This is a case of another German band enticing me with an excellent name! And yes, I was hoping they’d sound a bit like Motörhead, and on New Messiah of Steel at least, they certainly do. Billed as heavy/stoner metal/hard rock, it sounds like good, old-fashioned upbeat rock ‘n’ roll the way the British legends used to make it, and Chris Birx delivers a gravelly vocal performance that is not a million miles away from Lemmy. This song is the second single from the Mönchengladbach band’s seventh album, Streets of Fire, due to be released on June 13th via Reaper Entertainment. We suggest you rev up your record collection with a copy.
https://youtu.be/Hz9UF0stTwA?si=wyWOsJCUqIjniCpL
The Risen Dread – The Day I Died
It is a very rare pleasure indeed for me to be able to introduce you to new material from an Irish metal band, so I’m delighted to announce that Dublin-based groove metal/metalcore merchants The Risen Dread are due to release their second full-length album, Death From Above, via Time to Kill Records on June 13th. The Day I Died is the second single from the album, and they’re not messing on this track. Clean vocals are forsaken completely, and blast beats and black metal riffing are very much the order of the day, with occasional bursts of discordant lead being the only nod to metalcore. It’s savage stuff altogether, and the forthcoming album is sure to be more of the same. As they say in Ireland: maith sibh, a chairde!
Phantomy – Wild Jungle Woman
Let’s finish this list with some Finnish hair metal! Tis far from Sunset Strip these gentlemen were reared, and it’s considerably less extreme than the sort of metal you might ordinarily expect from that particular Nordic nation, but this is great music all the same, and it’s a lot of fun. Those quavers on the kick drums inevitably bring Mötley Crüe’s Kickstart my Heart to mind, and this is very much the same sort of upbeat, high octane hard rock for which Vince, Mick, Nikki and Tommy were rightly renowned. Actually, High Octane is the title of one of the other songs on Phantomy’s debut album, From the Wild, which is due to be released on June 13th via Inverse Records. I’m not a huge fan of the album artwork, if I’m perfectly honest, but the music more than makes up for it.