The self-professed masters of Epic Death Metal are back after a 3 year absence with ''The Elder's Realm''. Clocking at more than one hour, it's one of those albums that you love or hate unfortunately. There isn't really an opinion that would be in the middle. Some will absolutely love it and some people will be pretty much turned off.

There a mix of Traditional European Power Metal (think the heyday of Power Metal in Europe, bands like HAMMERFALL, STRATOVARIUS, RHAPSODY, etc.) mixed with the Melodic Death Metal stylings of a band like CHILDREN OF BODOM.

As for the vocals, most of the time it's pretty harsh vocals but at least you can discern what his mumbling about! I would have preferred some clean vocals, well at least a bigger percentage nonetheless. The production is really top notch and I was really impressed but the time and effort they put on this one. It's far superior to their last album in my honest opinion.

The riffs are a bit more repetitive and sometimes they kind of fall into some sort of spiral. It's great stuff but sometimes I feel the effort is not 100% there. They tend to get their influences here and there and seem to patch songs with ideas from the aforementioned bands I spoke about earlier in this review!

I mean structurally it's pretty good but it's really not something that is mindblowing or really innovative. I really don't mind bands having diverse influences. I mean most of the heavy Metal bands back in the day had to have some influences in other genres and it's not easy to incorporate many styles of music in one song, or one album. Some songs fall flat but the energy is what gives you the added motivation to listen to this album over and over again. I felt the energy of the band was really infectious and they really were a nice surprise in a pretty good year for Metal in general.