Battalions – King of a Dead World
Release Date: 21st October 2022
Label: APF Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Sludge, Hardcore.
FFO: Raging Speedhorn, Orange Goblin, Clutch.
Review By: Jason James
UK sludge pedallers Battalions are set to release their new album, King of a Dead World, on the 21st of October. After a global pandemic and an internal personnel change, they ready themselves once again to step into the breach to unleash their hypnotic brand of heavy riffage on metal fans everywhere.
With song titles like Bones to Dust, No Safe Place and the lead single Diagnosis F**ked, coupled with the title track, there can be little doubt as to the subject matter and mood of this album. Drummer Simon Harrison enters the Battalions fold to join Phil Wilkinson (Vocals), Pete Cross (Guitar) and Matt Dennett on Bass to chronicle mankind’s seemingly intentional slide into oblivion.
Each track is a lamentation on apocalypse, a mourning outcry of doom and despair. The 8 songs hit like a tsunami, leaving behind nothing but devastation and destruction. Pete Cross and Matt Dennett’s guitars are a clarion call that compliment Phil Wilkinson’s tirade on the end of times, backed up by Simon Harrison’s driving drums. The result is a gut punch of an album, a damning indictment on the state of humanity and its almost deliberate drift into extinction.
My favourite track on the album is the last track on the album, the title track, King of a Dead World. A mournful bass riff gives way to a sorrowful wail from the lead guitar before the vocal and drums kick in to usher in a disconsolate dirge, raging against the death of community, the death of innocence, the death of brotherhood.
I thoroughly enjoyed this album. I have seen this band live previously, and they impressed me then, and this album is set up to further raise their profile. It’s a triumphant addition to their catalogue and a great listen for any fan of this subgenre.
(4.5 / 5)
