Black Royal – Earthbound
Release Date: 21st October 2022
Label: M-Theory Audio
Bandcamp
Genre: Sludge, Heavy Metal.
FFO: Bad Guys, Cancer Bats.
Review By: Jason James
Tampere, Finland’s own Black Royal return 21/10/22 with their third album, Earthbound. They carry on the tradition of their previous efforts, crafting another heavy gloria patri to the Scandinavian metal gods.
Earthbound is an assured piece of work. This album is a product of a band that knows exactly where they are coming from and know exactly where they are going and precisely how to get there. These songs sound like they all came out of the same recording session. They all meld into each other, making this a very cohesive experience. The album begins with the title track, serving as a perfect introduction for first time listeners and a great welcome back for fans of the band.
The album sounds like the band have decided to be the soundtrack to the countdown to the end of the world. Track 2, Ghosts of the Dead, stomps along at a nice pace, changing the tempo from the slower, driving tempo of the first track, Earthbound. This energy is kept up throughout the album, all the way until the last track on the album, a landslide of a song called Rite of Passage. It makes for a heady brew.
If I had to pick a favourite track on the album, which is not an easy task, I would probably pick track 8, Queen of the Underworld. Picking a favourite track is a hard task because every song on the album is of similar high quality. There’s no dips in quality on Earthbound. This is a confident album, the result of a band who have found their sound and hit their stride. They are firing on all cylinders here, setting up a string of concussion grenades and setting them off one by one, leaving the listener with ringing ears and disorientation. And it feels pretty good.
(4 / 5)
