Now this is how you do a modern metal album! Ever since current singer Honza Toužimský joined Arakain, the band has slowly been moving into a slightly more melodic direction. And with an increasing degree of variation in the tempos, something already hinted at on ‘Adrenalinum’ (2014) and ‘Arakadabra’ (2016), the Czech metal masters seem to have reached the second peak of their career. That is no small feat for a band that has been around since the early eighties. ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ is located on the border triangle of groove metal, thrash metal and modern power metal, with the three sub-genres in near perfect balance.

Arakain was one of Czechoslovakia’s earliest heavy metal bands. On their first two albums, the band’s obvious thrash-metal-days-Metallica influences blended perfectly with them leaning towards slightly more traditional heavy metal at times. As the nineties progressed, the Pantera and Machine Head-isms that many former thrash bands succumbed to took a hold of Arakain as well. Not always with dull results, as the likes of ‘Apage Satanas’ (1998) and ‘Farao’ (1999) still possessed enough variation to be interesting. While groove metal is still present on ‘Jekyll & Hyde’, the album isn’t constantly in midtempo mode and sounds notably more melodic than most of Arakain’s non-ballads.

One thing ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ succeeds at is having an opener that makes you feel excited about the album. ‘Dnes Ještě Ne’ is a nice, driven uptempo song with a fantastic chorus that refuses to leave your head. Toužimský is very effective in letting his remarkably melodic sandpaper vocal cords harmonize with themselves and the thick, heavy, yet uncomplicated riffs of Jiří Urban and Mirek Mach are a rock solid foundation. This heavy, upper mid-tempo riffing with memorable melodic touches formula is repeated, though with different atmospheres, in excellent tracks like ‘To Co Chceš Mít’, ‘Signály’ and ‘Znal Bych Rád’, the latter of which features a brief, but delightful tribute to Kiss’ ‘Detroit Rock City’.

Variation is where ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ succeeds better than most of the albums fronted by Aleš Brichta and Petr Kolář. Often, songs on those earlier albums tended to blend together, whereas ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ has a couple of tracks breaking up the flow quite nicely. The incredibly heavy title track that closes the album, for instance. A slow monster of a track is always a nice contrast to a mostly mid-tempo album and bassist Zdeněk Kub is an expert at writing those. Another great surprise is ‘Sny Dávaji Křídla’, which starts out driven by a riff that would not sound out of place on a Tad Morose album, but suddenly shifts to a slower, atmospheric chorus in 3/4 that greatly enhances the attention span. Still craving something faster? Then give the multi-faceted ‘Hřích’ a shot!

While ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ is not perfect – ‘Jen Vaše Ruce’ is not exactly the most inspired duet they recorded with Czech pop diva Lucie Bílá – it is easily the best Arakain album since the late nineties, possibly their best thus far. I admit that I have a weak spot for veteran bands releasing something so inspired and energetic so late in their careers, but by any measure, ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ is simply a very good contemporary metal album. Only the strict old schoolers who gave up on the band after they started slowing down may find some issues here, but I’d argue that even those will find there are plenty of parallels with 1991’s ‘Schizofrenie’. Highly recommend to fans of the latter day works of Sanctuary and Testament.

Recommended tracks: ‘Dnes Ještě Ne’, ‘To Co Chceš Mít’, ‘Jekyll & Hyde’, ‘Sny Dávaji Křídla’