Label: Psychomanteum Records
Genre: Power Metal
Release Date: May 23rd, 2025
Links: https://lycanthrometal.com/
Tracklist:
Iris
Far Beyond the Walls
Remnants of Rapture
Cry Silver
Prison Eyes
In Demon Light
The Great Masquerade
Night of the Parasite
Lost Jerusalem (Instrumental)
Solaris (Memories in Time)
With a subtle guitar-led intro, Iris opens Ottawa, Canada’s Lycanthro’s second album, belying what follows as the band delivers a screaming “Ooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!” before launching properly into the song with all amps flicked rapidly to 10. Lads, you nearly had me wondering where we were going, but it’s OK – I can get behind this (settles down to listen with a cracked-open beer – it’s mid-day somewhere even if here it’s 10am on a Sunday morning).
Mixing the crystal-clear complexity of power metal on guitar and keys work with a soupçon of traditional metal to keep the bearded ones happy, Lycanthro brings the energy of a thrash band. As the name suggests, Lycanthro focuses much of their music on mythology, particularly lycanthropy. Their follow-up is a direct continuation of their first album, Mark of the Wolf, which explores such themes, with everything from the style to the artwork ensuring they continue drawing in and growing their fanbase by giving them something to enjoy, get involved in, and focus on.
Shining through with shades of Accept and early Judas Priest before continuing to carve their own place in metal history, the title track perfectly sums up the album. For me, the win is that the vocal work is at a level and range giving us mere mortals hope we can sing along at a gig rather than just watching in awe as the vocalist launches a vocal break somewhere past Saturn’s rings.
This is music to arm yourself with silver bullets, raise your fist in the air, and sing along to. It sounds like the ideal gig for either Alabama or perhaps Eastern Europe. This has a great international feel to it, and hopefully the Canadians will tour with it in 2025/26 – fair play to them.
Score 8/10
Reviewed by Adrian Hextall
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