Band:	Black Sites
Album:	The Promised Land?
Style:	Heavy metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	September 2024
A review by:	AndyMetalFreak

01. Descent
02. Dread Tomorrow
03. Gideon
04. World On Fire
05. Chasing Eternity
06. Promised Land
07. Many Turn To None

What Black Sites do we expect to find lurking within The Promised Land?

Although Black Sites perhaps aren't among the best known US heavy/progressive metal bands on the radar, they've built a fairly impressive discography since their formation back in 2015, where they've delved into various styles and influences, including progressive, heavy, and thrash metal, as well as gothic rock, making it awkward to pinpoint their style down to a specific genre. This began back in 2017 with their full-length debut In Monochrome, which was followed by Exile (2019) and Untrue (2021), leading us to the band's fourth full-length release to date, The Promised Land?. Here we see two new arrivals join founding members Mark Sugar (vocals/guitars) and Ryan Bruchert (guitars) in the form of bassist Greg Bruchert and drummer Brandon White, who replaced Garry Naples in 2023.

"Descent" starts the album off, introduced by a short gentle acoustic passage before heavy instrumentation is suddenly unleashed just seconds in. The remainder of the song is certainly progressive in structure; the rhythm section provides endless twists and turns, from complex-to-stylistic drumming beats to equally complex bass lines. The guitar work mostly consists of interweaving traditional heavy riffs alongside occasional lead breaks, but the clear highlight for me is the vocals. Mark Sugar is in my eyes an exceptionally talented vocalist, and his classic heavy vocal style complements the instrumentation exceptionally well here, and throughout the album to follow.

"Dread Tomorrow" follows, and is once again geared towards traditional heavy metal; it's far less progressive-oriented than the opener and clearly has a more rapid upbeat tempo. The rhythm section here is easier on the ears, driven by striking gallops, which are accompanied by catchy heavy melodic riffs, and a classic sing-along arena chorus, with an impressive solo thrown in for good measure. This is a fun, fast, energetic song that truly brings back that ultimate 80s heavy metal nostalgic feeling. "Gideon", however, offers yet another different approach in style; driven by a powerful vocal performance, mostly lighter rock instrumentation, and short powerful build-ups with tremendous lead breaks, this is basically a hard rock ballad sound.

The album then continues with another fine classic heavy metal anthem in "World On Fire", where the melodic riffs, clean catchy verses, and highly memorable chorus bring a touch of the legendary Dio. The latter stages then get more complex and progressive, before ending with an excellent solo. The progressive route continues on the following track "Chasing Eternity". where the tempo and ferocity is even borderline thrash, close to the style of Voivod. A bit of everything has been featured so far; it's your guess as to what genre you can categorize this album under, but not helping the situation is the title track "Promised Land", which at just under 12 minutes in length is a clear shot at a progressive epic. The guitar work is mostly traditional heavy metal-based, but there are occasions where it goes into power metal mode, where you can hear touches of Iced Earth (it helps that Mark Sugar sounds very much like Matt Barlow). The lead guitar breaks are definite highlights from this track, but there's a part after the midway mark where the tempo comes to a halt, then builds its way back up to trick you into thinking it's leading to an epic grand finale; in actuality, the final track, "Many Turn To None", serves as a no-nonsense, Dio-style, catchy, classic metal closer.

By taking inspiration from legends of US heavy metal such as Queensrÿche and Dio, while introducing progressive touches from Fates Warning, Voivod, and even Rush, Black Sites have crafted together something quite remarkable here. With heavy metal still at the band's core, it's a tall order to come up with something you can call original, especially when you've managed to stay fresh and relatively original with each of your previous 3 efforts, but Black Sites are no strangers to crafting something different, and have yet again given it a real good shot at this, and in many ways succeeded. By introducing a variety of styles, all helped by a meaty modern tone and quality production, The Promised Land? is one of the most original and intriguing progressive heavy metal albums you'll likely hear this year, and for that, you have to wonder why Black Sites have remained under the radar for this last decade.