Fer De Lance – Fires on the Mountainside Review

By Steel Druhm

Back in 2020, we were introduced to the epic and trve heavy metal assault of Chicago’s Fer De Lance. They attempted to harness the martial sounds of classic heavy metal and doom and blend it with the might of Viking era Bathorycore for an alchemic concoction sure to warhammer the eggshell skulls of the untrve. The Hyperborean was an album that foretold of greatness, but the sometimes awkward songwriting kept it from crossing the Rainbow Bridge and ascending to Valhalla. Now they’re back to fight their way back to the top of the epic metal food chain with sophomore opus Fires on the Mountainside, and things sound a lot different this time. The battle plans remain unchanged, but now the warriors bring a more seasoned and deadly level of skill to the struggle. With influences ranging from Crypt Sermon, Candlemass, Manowar, Bathory, and SIG:AR:TYR to use in their crusade of conquest, can Fer De Lance drive their enemies before them and hear the lamentations of their women? Can they paint the snow red as they plant the flag of domination over all pretenders and would-be usurpers? Stay tuned!

Opening an album with a nearly 13 minute song takes a certain amount of ballsy bravado, and the title track Fer De Lance drop on us demonstrates why they feel so cocksure. It’s a massive, sweeping overdose of epic metal that visits all corners of the genre and defiles the tombs of their forefathers. It comes into being with stirring but restrained, flamenco-inspired guitar work that sets the table for a grand adventure even the craftiest Dungeon Master would struggle to conceive. From there, things escalate rapidly into bold traditional metal led forcefully by MP Papai (ex-Professor Emeritus), who brings an enormous vocal range to the campaign, soaring boldly over spirit-embiggening riffs that climb to the Godz on high. There’s a strong Crypt Sermon vibe at first, but around the 4th minute, things take a hard turn toward Hammerheart-era Bathory and Ereb Altor with MP lapsing into blackened barks. It all comes together seamlessly with beautiful and striking guitars paving the way up the mountain of doom. It’s a massive song that takes you to breathtaking places to meet fascinating people (and kill them), and your chest size will grow by several inches by the time this workout ends. “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos)” is no smaller in epicness, though it’s considerably shorter. It channels Bathorycore at first before folksy and power metal elements surge forward. MP adopts a very Hansi-heavy vocal style as things veer into Blind Guardian over-the-toppness, and the adroit mix of styles really impresses and somehow hangs together to deliver a world-sized ass whooping.

Later track “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” is another showstopper with a darker, more ominous sound and stunning guitar play, and then out of left field, you get sucker punched by a massive Lost Horizon influence with MP moving from blackened croaks to Daniel Heiman ear-shattering highs and power metal saturation bombing. But wait, there’s more! “The Feast of Echoes” is an absolute winner with a major Dio-era Black Sabbath / Rainbow vibe and 70s organ work swelling to generate layers of classic metal extravagance. But that Viking edge is never far removed, and things regularly drop to more extreme depths to add gristle and sinew to the composition. It all just freaking works! Are there weak points in the armor? Sadly, yes. “Fire and Goldf” is a good mood piece with amazing guitar heroics, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Closer “Tempest Stele”(why isn’t this “Tempest STEEL”??) is good with lots of interesting elements rising and falling, but it doesn’t equal the album’s high points. Just shy of 49 minutes, Fires on the Mountainside is a pleasure to experience, and even the presence of several long-form cuts doesn’t make it feel too dense of impenetrable. The production/mastering by Arthur Rizk is deft and allows you to hear what is going on, even when things get very busy. My one criticism is that there are moments when you get a “wall of sound” effect when everything runs at 11. It’s still vastly better than the mix on the debut, though.

There are too many accolades to distribute here to do everyone justice. MP Papai puts on an absolute clinic on metal vocals, ranging far and wide across genres and styles, doing everything humanly possible to put the weighty material over the top. I’m shocked at how diverse and adventurous he is from track to track, and some of those high notes are un-fucking-believable. MP also kills it on guitar along with J. Geist, serving up heaping helpings of elegant, fanciful noodles alongside an avalanche of muscular, macho riffs and doomy harmonies. They leave no stone unturned in their quest to imbue the compositions with a mammoth atmosphere, and at multiple point,s you’ll be stupefied by the beauty of their playing. The kit manhandling by Scud also must be credited. He brings a Scott Columbus (Manowar) work ethic to the raiding party, pounding the drums with furious anger to summon the War Godz of olde.

Back in 2022, I predicted Fer De Lance could be a dangerous competitor in the epic metal arena if they smoothed out their songcrafting. It’s very smooth now, and those who oppose them should extinguish their campfires and flee to the hills. Fires on the Mountainside is the album I wanted from Fer De Lance last time. It’s a wild, free-spirited, and refreshingly over-the-top offensive, and it will roll over your feeble defenses like waves over sea rocks. Welcome your new epic overlords.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Cruz del Sur
Websites: ferdelancemetal.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ferdelancemetal | instagram.com/ferdelancechicago
Releases Worldwide: June 27th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AmericanMetal #AtlanteanKodex #Bathory #CruzDelSurMusic #EpicHeavyMetal #ErebAltor #HeavyMetal #Review #Reviews #SIGARTYR #TheHyperborean

Es ist wieder Zeit für richtig guten Pagan/Viking/Oldschool #blackmetal

#nowplaying #SIGARTYR

https://song.link/y/3KVaS-u6F_k

Steel Druhm’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Steel Druhm

Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t have all that much to report regarding the past year. Life has been pretty consistent and mostly good, and for that, I’m grateful. Madam X keeps me sane and out of trouble, and most importantly, talks me out of slaughtering the AMG staff when they do any number of idiotic things to challenge my calm and nurturing management style. Entering 2024 I feared the added burden of becoming the new AMG Promo Sump Pool Boy1 would seriously impact my reviewing time. I’m glad to report that it did not, and my output was pretty close to past years. This year also saw me continuing to experience a shift in taste toward the brutish death end of the spectrum and I pray this isn’t the sign of a gradual de-evolution back to my apeish ancestors. If increasingly thick back hair is anything to go by, soon my reviews will consist solely of grunts and angry poo hurling.2

In site news, this year saw the unearthing of several long frozen and forgotten n00bs, a few of which clawed their way from the freezer into AMG staff glory, with a few more still working their way through the thaw. We also ran a casting call from which we intend to cull the best and brightest for this remorseless blog meatgrinder. MOAR blood for the Blood Godz will be the rallying cry for 2025!

I would like to thank the staff for their hard work and continued efforts to make this the best place in the metal interwebz. Your continued commitment to top-notch metal reviewing makes this a phenomenal workplace and I love most of you twice as little as you deserve. A special thanks to AMG Himself for continuing to stoke the flames of the site he founded way back in 2009. Though he isn’t as present as we all might wish, this place lives on in his frowning image.

Here’s to a brand new year and all the possibilities, opportunities, challenges, and wonders it holds for us. May it be a great one for all the writers and readers and may AMG live on in infamy and glory…forever.

(ish) The Eternal // Skinwalker – Australian Gothic doom act The Eternal know exactly how to pluck at the heartstrings of Steel, crafting long, winding odes to sadboi pathos that resonate even on the brightest summer day. Skinwalker is the second release in a row to impress and depress, with a sound merging My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and Lacrimas Profundere to form a trough of despair that runs a mile deep. There are major earworms here and some of the best writing of 2024. If it wasn’t for their constant battle with song lengths, this would have moved up the list considerably. Play this on a cold, gray day and marinate deeply in the sadz.

#10. Satan // Songs in Crimson – Satan has been the most dependable metal act around since 2013’s Life Sentence. Taking the same NWoBHM sound they helped pioneer and making it ever so slightly modern, they’ve churned out album after album of killer material, and Songs in Crimson doesn’t tweak the winning formula. It’s classic hard rock meets metal with guitar heroics in high supply and vocal hooks courtesy of metal legend Brian Ross lurking around every corner. This is a rowdy, raucous homage to all things metal with some of the year’s best guitar pyrokinetics and the fact it comes from a band so long in the tooth amazes me. Dark deals with the Devil were definitely made. Hail Satan.

#9. Nestor // Teenage Rebel – Sweden’s olde boy 80s retro rock act Nestor dropped an album so insidiously infectious and addictive, even Yours Steely was helpless in its sticky clutches. It’s so slick, so disgustingly sugar-coated and loaded with Survivor and Journey worship, but so so fun. Teenage Rebel takes me back to my own teenage idiot phase 3000 years ago when committing acts of antisocial hooliganism and making out with the Prom Queen under the school bleachers were the only pursuits worth pursuing. This thing has so many hooks, so much goddamn cheese, and almost too much 80s energy. Those were the best days, and this is a great album. Nestor is The Way.

#8. Laceration // I Erode – Pounding, punishing OSDM of the first order, Laceration flashes the blade of virtuosity as well, melding influences from various eras of Death, Morbid Angel, and Morgoth into a brutish meat stew of high-level compositional showmanship. The adroit marriage of caveman ugliness and refined guitar heroics is similar to James Murphy’s Disincarnate project and 2020s excellent Portraits of Mind by Plague and that makes for a compelling listen. I’ve returned to this many, many times in 2024 and it keeps its animal appeal every time. It’s also one of the few albums I wish was 10 minutes longer. I underrated I Erode when I reviewed it, so here is my heartfelt contrition and apology to them and you, the filthy, disgusting masses. Do not sleep on Laceration, folks. These cats are onto something special.

#7. Föhn // Condescending – I’ve never been a huge funeral doom fan, and it needs to check a bunch of boxes to click for me fully. Along came Condescending by Föhn and tossed my wussy checklist in the poser pyre. This Greek act have a knack for making their crushing compositions compelling and memorable, incorporating frenzied saxophone blasts at times to create a tense, unhinged vibe. Ambient droning segments and harrowing soundbites add flavors and texture to the massive soundscapes and the writing is consistently strong across the album. Condescending was one of the albums that came out of left field and slapped me silly in 2024. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

#6. Blazing Eternity // A Certain End of Everything – Along with Counting Hours, Blazing Eternity filled the sadboi Gothic doom compartment in my metal heart this year admirably. With a sound wrenched from the playbooks of Rapture and Katatonia and finding just the right melancholic mood, the songs on A Certain End of Everything cut deep and bring out the feelz. High-level writing and a commitment to deep despair make this a great companion piece to the Counting Hours opus with enough of a different approach to give it a unique identity. Blazing til the end.

#5. Stenched // Purulence Gushing from the Coffin – I enjoyed of deep death metal in 2024, but it was late-year entry Stenched that really throttled my crypt noodle. Created by one mysterious gent from Mexico, Purulence Gushing from the Coffin is like a romp through a septic tank without the benefit of waders or hazmat gear. It’s sticky, stinky, gross, and lurid, and you will learn to savor the flavor. With sub-basement, indecipherable croakals and slithering riffs, Stenched oozes with the same vicious viscousness as Cerebral Rot and Disma. It’s not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, and it packs a massive scuzz wallop. Just play “Suppurating Cranial Cavity” and you’ll know if you can stand the smell. Stenchmas is the real holiday!

4. Warlord // Free Spirit Soar – I loved Warlord since I was a young pup. Formed in the early 80s by Mark Zonder (later of Fates Warning) and guitar wizard Bill Tsamis, they delivered classy traditional metal with big hooks. Despite the massive talent involved, they missed their chance to realize their full potential. That all changed when the band released Free Spirit Soar following the death of Bill Tsamis. It’s everything Warlord did well but enhanced, enlarged, and made twice as epic. This is classic 80s trad metal that’s endlessly catchy, engaging, and polished to a gleaming chrome. Songs like “Conquerors,” “Worms of the Earth,” and the title track have shadowed my steps all year and I love this thing bigly. Long live the Warlord and R.I.P. Bill Tsamis.

#3. Endonomos // Endonomos – In a year with a few very bright moments for doom metal, Endonomos came out of nowhere and planted me in the cold, dark earth. Blending traditional doom with depressive post-metal, bits of sludge, and weepy sadboi melo-doom, Endonomos hit all the best parts of classic and modern doom, reminding of Ghost Brigade one moment and Fvneral Fvkk or Khemmis the next. The proprietary blend of styles is remarkable and the album simmers and crackles as it explores all the sounds of misery and woe. Songs like “Bereft” and “Resolve” are 2024 high points and the high-level compositions impress and stand up to endless spins, with little details emerging with every listen. So much feelz!

#2. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – This was the classic doom album that stole the Heart of Steel in 2024. Rebounding from a so-so sophomore outing, Crypt Sermon went back to the basics and reaffirmed their commitment to Candlemassive doom epics while smartly incorporating a ton of classic/trad metal ideas. The Stygian Rose finds them sitting directly in their sweet spot. Some of the best doom songs of 2024 reside here, and the writing is free of the glitches that plagued the prior release. Cuts like “Glimmers in the Underworld” and the massive “The Scying Orb” are pure doom magic with every bell and whistle included, and even the longest tracks flow effortlessly and sizzle all the way. The best pure doom release of 2024 hands down.

#1. Counting Hours // The Wishing Tomb – Readers of the site know I dearly loved the cold, melancholic sound of Finnish melodic doom-death act Rapture. They just had a special something and I always wish they had released more material. My prayers were answered when the guitarists from Rapture formed Counting Hours and dropped The Will debut in 2020. It was close enough in style to the Rapture days to satisfy without being a mere copy and the writing was top-notch. 2024s follow-up The Wishing Tomb took their sound, smoothed it out, polished it, and made it even more captivating. Bleak, somber doomscapes are woven, marrying heaviness with beauty, and touching on influences like early Katatonia, Dawn of Solace, and other equally downtrodden acts. The Wishing Tomb is such a success because the songs are filled with so much emotion and force the listener to feel things. It’s all beautifully grim and gorgeously dark and I keep returning time after time. Don’t let these Hours pass you by.

Honorable Mentions:

• Grand Magus // Sunraven – The lords of the sword return with their best album in years and you will feel embiggened
• Blitzkrieg // Blitzkrieg – Brian Ross does it AGAIN, keeping NWoBHM alive for another year single-handedly
• Cardiac Arrest // The Stench of Eternity – The world slept on this two-ton slab of OSDM and you’re all dumber for missing it
• Hands of Goro // Hands of Goro – Mortal Kombat-themed NWoBHM-inspired tomfoolery should not work, but by Kano’s red eye, work it does!
• Castle // Evil Remains – Gritty Sabbathian occult metal with dark edges and captivating vocals straight from the crypt coven
• Amethyst // Throw Down the Gauntlet– Old timey early 80s-style metal with hooks and a big dose of Blue Öyster Cult
  
• Tim Montana // Savage – A country rocker explores his metal/grunge/alt side and it ends up way more entertaining than it should
• SIG:AR:TYR // Citadel of Stars – The Canadian one-man epic Viking metal guru does it once more and sends you to the heavens via Valhalla
• Mother of Graves // The Periapt of Absence – Melancholic doom-death borrowing from all the best oldies and making it sound new and refreshing
• Cemetery Skyline // Nordic Gothic – When an all-star line of melodeath masters come out with a goth rock album, you fookin’ listen!

Song o’ the Year:

Crypt Sermon – ”Scrying Orb” – Classic doom perfection

Review Defense o’ the Year:

Look here, I love Judas Priest more than you and have for way longer too (because I’m olde). Invincible Shield is still a 3.0 though. Those saying otherwise are just babbling fools and they’ve built a temple to madness.

Steel Addendum: And now, as an extra special bonus feature, here’s Mark Z‘s goat vomit-filled Top Ten(ish) of 2024 in all its gruesome entirety!

#ish. Hellbutcher // Hellbutcher
#10. Antichrist Siege Machine // Vengeance of Eternal Fire
#9. 200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures
#8. Vomitrot // Emetic Imprecations
#7. Bewitcher // Spell Shock
#6. Nails // Every Bridge Burning
#5. Diocletian // Inexorable Nexus
#4. Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere
#3. Invocation // The Archaic Sanctuary (Ritual Body Postures)
#2. Mayhemic // Toba
#1. Coffins // Sinister Oath – Since their 1996 formation, these Japanese doom-death behemoths have been delivering riffs heavy enough to break the Richter scale. Yet with Sinister Oath, they may have just released their most accomplished album yet. More than almost any of their other works, this record deftly balances the band’s monolithic grooves and more atmospheric sensibilities, resulting in a diverse set of songs that gets better as it goes. While you still get the traditional Coffins fare in tracks like “Spontaneous Rot,” you also get chuggy onslaughts (“Sinister Oath”), stoner-doom forays (“Everlasting Spiral”), punky pummelings (“Chain”), and a final three-song run that might just be the best fifteen minutes of music in the band’s career. It’s all a rib-crushing good time that could please fans of everything from Cianide to beatdown hardcore, and—even in an already stacked year—it got more listens from me than almost anything else.

Honorable Mentions:

• Ripped to Shreds // Sanshi
• Adorior // Bleed on My Teeth
• Sabbat // Sabbaticult
• Destruktor // Indomitable
• Chapter // We No Longer Serve a Purpose

Song o’ the Year:

• Chapter – “A Decade of False Hope”

#2024 #BlazingEternity #Blitzkrieg #CardiacArrest #Castle #CemeterySkyline #CountingHours #CryptSermon #Endonomos #Föhn #GrandMagus #HandsOfGoro #JudasPriest #Laceration #MotherOfGraves #Nestor #Satan #SIGARTYR #Stenched #TheEternal #TimMontana #Warlord

A little something for @HailsandAles' #BlackMetalMonday, Citadel of Stars by SIG:AR:TYR ✨

The album on bandcamp is here:
https://sigartyr.bandcamp.com/album/citadel-of-stars

#Music #Metal #FolkMetal #BlackMetal #SigArTyr

SIG:AR:TYR – Citadel of Stars Review

By Steel Druhm

Though I’m far from a black metal enthusiast, I grew up with the mighty sounds of Bathory ringing throughout my teen years. We didn’t call them black metal back then as Venom had co-opted that term for their rowdy, faux-Satan cock rock metal, but I loved what Bathory was doing regardless of genre label. Albums like The Return, Under the Sign of the Black Mark, and Blood Fire Death were so savage and massive, they set us up for what black metal would become in the 90s. It was always the epic edge of Bathory’s sound that truly seized my metal heart. The sounds of Blood Fire Death and especially Hammerheart spoke to the indomitable warrior within us all. When SIG:AR:TYR came along many years later, they clicked for me immediately in a way few black metal acts ever did because they were flying the same foundational battle standards as Bathory before them. Albums like Beyond the North Winds, Godsaga and Norther are dearly loved, and the latter was my Record o’ the Year for 2016. It’s been seven long years since Norther and for a time it seemed there would never be another SIG:AR:TYR release, but 2024 finally delivers Citadel of Stars. Will this be another grand voyage into high adventure for the faithful? Gird thy loins and let’s set sail.

I’ll say this: I don’t believe SIG:AR:TYR is capable of a bad album. Solo musician and brain trust Daemonskald is simply too talented and too capable to deliver something unworthy. On Citadel of Stars, he cobbles all the key SIG:AR:TYR elements together once again and hammers out an epic, powerful saga that feels majestic and glorious. The Bathory and Immortal influences are ever-present but the music is no mere homage. 10-plus minute opener “Awaiting the Last Dawn” is a sweeping mission statement rife with the classic sound functioning exactly as it should. It’s atmo-black Pagan/Viking metal pulsating with an epic vibe that feels vast and incalculably massive. The riffs are thoughtful and deliberate, forceful and mighty. The plodding pace feels like a military march through mud and snow as a mighty host heaves its way toward a final conflagration, and you’ll want to carry a banner alongside your brothers. Daemonskald’s blackened rasp is as effective as ever and the minutes roll by almost unnoticed as you stride with the bold. Few bands can capture this level of hypnotic atmosphere, dragging you into another realm so completely. It’s a long song that feels fleeting. “Beyond the Stars Unknown” continues the steep climb to the heavens with a hard-charging battle gallop and relentlessly churning riffs. This is the stuff to make you hunger for glory on the battlefield in a way Amon Amarth only hints at. Daemonskald’s guitar work is amazing, spinning from burly riffage to Yngwie-like neo-classical shredding and back in a way that feels just right. This is a masterwork of a true artist and Song o’ the Year material. The show stopper for me comes with “I Sail on, Eternal,” which is just a monstrously badass piece that condensces everything good in black metal into one massive missive that will add 2 inches to your biceps and several lengths to your back pelt. The spirit of Hammerheart era Bathory lives large in the music and Quorthon gazes down upon it approvingly. It’s plodding, inexorable, and inevitable, and I want it to be 40 minutes long. I’ve had this on repeat for gym sessions and it instills a quivering Norse rage in my loin biceps.

“From the Land of the North” is another ginmorous epic with pulsating energy and an Immortal-esque gravitas I can’t get enough of. Album closer “Where the Sun Never Sets” is another 10-plus minute monolith and it too conjures the spirits of great heroes and warriors through the ages. There’s so much magic in these pieces that it’s a tragic shame there are a few lesser moments that drag the album back down to Midgard. “The Blood That Came Before You” is good but less dynamic and stirring, and “Ascending the Stellar Throne” is better but also ends up feeling a bit spare compared to the masterful moments around it. The album includes 2 long-form instrumentals and though this is a SIG:AR:TYR staple, here they don’t feel as integrated and essential, fracturing the album’s momentum and lingering too long. At an hour long, the album has 12 or so minutes that feel less essential, although nothing ranks as filler.

I’ve praised Daemonskald in several reviews now, and I continue to be in awe of his abilities as a musician. His guitar playing can be stunningly beautiful then turn on a dime to become deadly. He’s a master at crafting folk-filled moments in otherwise grindingly heavy battle anthems and his delicate playing is a thing of wonder. His sense of composition is stellar and he can create truly grandiose, sweeping pieces of music blending raw force with melancholic musings. There are 5 such pieces here that I will cherish forevermore. The album has a few inconsistencies that result in lesser moments, but even these are vastly better than what most black metal acts could ever dream of conjuring.

Citadel of Stars is another winning SIG:AR:TYR album. It’s not as consistent as past triumphs and suffers some flat spots, but damn the highs are stratospheric! No one can do what SIG:AR:TYR does nearly as well, and there are songs here that will be among the best metal moments you’ll experience this year. Even if you don’t love black metal, you should give this and the whole SIG:AR:TYR catalog a deep listen. You will not be disappointed. Glory to the brave, glory to Daemonskald. Hails into eternity.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Hammerheart
Websites: sigartyr.com | sigartyr.bandcamp.com/music | facebook.com/sigartyr
Releases Worldwide: May 31st, 2024

#2024 #35 #Bathory #BlackMetal #CanadianMetal #CitadelOfStars #FolkMetal #Hammerheart #HammerheartRecords #Immortal #May24 #Norther #Review #Reviews #SIGARTYR