Anton Kabanen left the band, the last album failed to move me at all, and I thought I had grown tired of Battle Beast. When I learned that they were playing seven of these ten songs on tour, I knew that something had to be up. Turns out they had every reason to be that confident in Bringer Of Pain, which is in my eyes the most consistent and natural-sounding album Battle Beast has ever released.

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ScreamingSteelUS

Look, I can't explain this album, and neither can you. It has djent, it has DragonForce, and it has nonstandard time signatures. At this point, I'm not ruling out a collaboration with Cattle Decapitation and Wardruna on a Bathory cover for the inevitable Babymetal III - The Kawaii-ening. You might question the nature of reality and what it really means to be a fan of music ('cause I sure did), but it's good. Just... just listen. Shut up and listen.

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ScreamingSteelUS wrathchild, Apothecary

Garden-fresh, clean as a whistle, immoderately melodic, and soaked to the very strings with the uncomplicated happiness of a halfling who's just found himself in the possession of a wagon full of mince pies. This album is the perfect mash-up of power and folk metal - bright, dramatic, loud, pure, energetic, life-affirming, and boasting especially incredible performances on the parts of the vocalist and folk instrumentalist. Every song is a celebration in itself, and there are a lot of songs.

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ScreamingSteelUS Fat & Sassy!

Nobody regurgitates slimy, unsettling grindy-death like Cattle Decapitation. The Anthropocene Extinction is on the one hand technical, cold, and rigid, and on the other a great, big, bloody mess of disgusting offal and pulsating remains. Top it all off with one of extreme metal's most remarkable vocal juggernauts, and the gory might of Cattle Decap cannot be contained. Whatever they've been doing these last few years has paid off immeasurably.

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ScreamingSteelUS Deadsoulman, wormdrink414, psykometal

Grab your sweord and scyld, because those pesky Danes are back demanding their Danegeld. How will you ever be Engla Cyning if you keep throwing all your geld at those wave-walking interlopers instead of building burhs? Arm thyself, ye thegn of Wessex, and let Forefather lead you to æsctír.

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ScreamingSteelUS R'Vannith

Sigh: the Pier Gerlofs Donia of extreme underwater basket-weaving, the Brough Superior SS100 of the 1805 Unspunnenfest, the Crank 2 of Tammany Hall, the Swabian Salute of double-corrugated, eight-fold, 14-gauge cardboard boxes. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's a little bit of everything - everything you didn't know you absolutely needed in a metal album.

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ScreamingSteelUS Nefarious, Apothecary, Fat & Sassy!, Mr. Doctor, Introspekrieg, Deadsoulman, Ag Fox, Darkside Momo, Demonic Tutor