As the saying goes, "Good things come to those who wait", and by all the metal gods, ain't THAT the truth with the full-length debut from AKILLA. Back in 2019, the melodic death metal quartet teased with a taster of two singles from "The Gods Have Spoken", leaving metalheads eagerly awaiting the mellisonant treasure of one of the UK underground's hidden gems. With a Norse inspired thematic, swathes of delicate and dramatic black metal-infused atmospherics plunged into bruising, melodic riffs, and heaving unhallowed gutturals, "The Gods Have Spoken" is a release that'll satiate many a metal appetite.

With the whirring blizzard of "Winds of Winter" to commence, AKILLA shows its ineffable ability to accomplish musical sensibility, drawing on swirling black metal-styled atmospheres and cascading death metal instrumentation that transport you to the epicentre of a gargantuan sonic storm. "Serpent and the Son" coils its groove-leaning riffs around you, snaking its temporal shifts with conviction and sinks its venom into you with bolshy, gut-punching gutturals. It's this fearless contrast of nuances that defines the strength of "The Gods Have Spoken", the unshakable form AKILLA has to effortlessly cast its heady breath in such a hypnotic fashion through channelled exploration of sound, and not wholly focused on the usual melodic death formula.

The boundaries are pushed further in "Queen of Heaven", which is an imposing composition filled with the substantial bombast and grandiosity of an undulating power metal flare, all whilst delivering the strength of Boudicca through brawny fills and crisp solos in a heavy-hitting fashion. Fistfuls of majesty are replaced with a hook-filled, testosterone-fuelled slab of muscular melodic death in "Song of the Seafarers" which progresses from a bruising and tempestuous track through to carving a fragile silhouette, splintered with an intoxicating blend of grooves, black metal soundscapes and teeming with melody. Edging into something a little more progressive, "Blood and Bone" fuses fractured time signatures with soaring riffs and crushing vocals to produce a visceral track, something emulated perfectly in "Cosmica" with an altogether more celestial feel through its immense instrumentals.

With the last couple of tracks on "The Gods Have Spoken" to lap up, it's a certainty that the listener will have already struck an intense love affair with the album. The beguiling medley of metal makes AKILLA's debut an entirely immersive experience, and a record that reaches right into the depths of your soul. The brutality of the penultimate track perfectly projects the divine powers of the band, dominating with a blistering blend of powerfully strapping drums, hulking vocals, and richly executed riffs. Where the band has previously explored the subtleties of gentler moments, "Echo" leads the way with a syrupy progressive touch in a sprawling track of melodious death metal paralleled with softer elements of heavy metal.

AKILLA has crafted a behemoth of well-balanced cuts through an irresistible melange of mellifluous soundscapes marrying the brutal with the beautiful perfectly. Sincerely, "The Gods Have Spoken" is an album you'll fall hard for and will savour for an eternity.