Heavy Metal Reviews
Heavy metal in all its varieties, and from all eras, is the bread and butter of Kevy Metal, if the name of the site had not given this away yet. All Album of the Week reviews about heavy metal albums published on Kevy Metal can be found right here.
Since I didn’t start properly tagging my reviews until a couple of years in, these aren’t all the heavy metal reviews I have done over the years. If you are looking for something specific, you can always search by band name or release title using the search bar at the bottom of the page.
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Album of the Week 23-2018: Onmyo-za – Hado Myoo
Heavy, dark, but without forsaking their trademark streamlined melodicism. How they do it is a mystery to me, but Onmyo-za manages to upgrade the formula of their already impressive latter day sound on ‘Hado Myoo’ without the help of a potentially alienating stylistic shift. Despite its fairly heavy use of…
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Album of the Week 20-2018: OverKill – Horrorscope
While OverKill had line-up changes before guitarist Bobby Gustafson left in 1990, but Gustafson contributed heavily to the songwriting. Therefore, there must have been some sense of anticipation leading up to the release of 1991’s ‘Horrorscope’. It was the first OverKill record with two guitarist – always a plus –…
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Album of the Week 18-2018: Fumihiko Kitsutaka’s Euphoria – Euphoria
When neoclassically inspired guitarists start a solo project, the records are often filled with flagrant displays of virtuosity. Fumihiko Kitsutaka however, presumably through his career as the guitarist for eighties hardrockers Arouge and crazy eclectics Kinniku Shojo Tai, learned a lesson or two about songwriting. Sure, his impressive dexterity is…
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Album of the Week 17-2018: Primordial – Exile Amongst The Ruins
In recent years, many reliable metal bands have let me down, while bands that sort of slipped under my radar for years manage to thoroughly impress me. Last year, it was Septicflesh. Now it is Primordial that has released one of the better albums I have heard this year. Truth…
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Album of the Week 16-2018: Stryper – God Damn Evil
With an album title like ‘God Damn Evil’, it is obvious that all semblance of subtlety has gone out the window. Then again, Stryper never was about subtle intricacies. You just know you’re going to get simple, effective hardrock songs with huge choruses, strong melodies and a fairly obvious christian…
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Album of the Week 14-2018: Skyclad – A Burnt Offering For The Bone Idol
Before folk metal became synonymous with heavy drinking songs – that being either heavy songs for drinking or songs for heavy drinking – Skyclad managed to blend folk and heavy metal in an intelligent and reasonably complex manner. For the British band, the folk influences were there to enhance the…
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Album of the Week 12-2018: Bittencourt Project – Brainworms I
With Angra’s music being as varied as it is, what more could guitarist and chief songwriter Rafael Bittencourt want to express? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Debut album ‘Brainworms I’ of his own Bittencourt Project is full of music that, while not completely sounding out of place amongst…
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Album of the Week 10-2018: Seikima-II – The End Of The Century
Classic heavy metal with a distinct theatrical edge, heavy kabuki-styled make-up on the band members, a downright hideous album cover… We must be dealing with an excellent Seikima-II album. Back in the mid-eighties, when original guitarist Damian Hamada had already left the band, but was still writing most of the…
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Album of the Week 08-2018: Rhapsody – Symphony Of Enchanted Lands
For everyone involved in the making of the album, ‘Symphony Of Enchanted Lands’ is the pinnacle of their abilities. It was not just a compositional triumph for all the musicians involved, it also established Sascha Paeth and Miro as the go-to producers for symphonic metal. Rhapsody did not invent the…
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