ANGEL MARTYR hail from Piombino-Cecina in Italy. A three piece, Tiziano "Hammerhead" Sbaragli covers vocals, lead and rhythm guitars well with Dario and Francesco providing a solid backing section. The band combine modern Speed Metal with Traditional Metal and NWOBHM influences. "On The Divine Battlefield" is the only brand-new track on this debut album with the balance of the songs garnered from the 2015 "Black Tides- Prelude" EP and earlier demos.

"Black Book Chapter One" kicks off with an intro piece called "Obsequies" followed by "They....Among Us" which is a fast-riffing Traditional Metal style song. In parts, the vocals are like Biff Byford and the song has a SAXON feel. "Victims" is another solid Metal track this time reminiscent of "Piece of Mind" era IRON MAIDEN with the vocals more Bruce Dickinson and higher pitched. "Eric The Conquerer" follows and this is a longer more epic song at about eight minutes in length. This is the best song on the album. It starts with a bass driven riff with clean vocals and then drops to a deeper, rougher vocal. There is a nice mid-section where the song slows down with quiet guitars before breaking into fluid guitar solos. The last minute of the song is a good outro section with sound effects and gentle guitars. This song reminded me of GRAND MAGUS.

"Pirate Song" is more of a NWOBHM sounding track. The riff sounds like classic era TYGERS OF PAN TANG and the solo could be straight out of 1981 in classic NWOBHM style. "On The Devine Battlefield" is the bands most recent composition. It also sounds the most modern song on this album. The main riff is reminiscent of METALLICA. There is also a good doomy breakdown in the song. The album finishes with the track "Angel Martyr". This is a track the band wrote when they were called WRAITH'SING. After a break in activity they started back up as ANGEL MARTYR. This song finishes the album well with another speedy song like "They....Among Us".

I enjoyed this album. It has all the hallmarks of classic Traditional Metal with memorable songs and good melodies. The vocals are well delivered and the guitars work well. The standout track is "Eric The Conqueror" and I've already got that on my playlist. I look forward to 'Black Book Chapter Two'.