(Here’s DGR‘s review of the latest album by the melodic death metal band Nightrage, which was released a bit earlier this month by Despotz Records.)
It’s been a weird review batch given that February has granted a small collection of classically inclined melodeath acts.
Nightrage have had a surprisingly long-running career. They can count themselves as among a small handful who have had a surprising number of lineup changes throughout many years, yet through force of sheer stubbornness have somehow managed to continue not only to exist but also to put out quality melodeath releases.
Yes, nowadays they’re on the lighter side of the metal scale but Marios Iliopoulos has been a hallmark of consistency throughout his musical career and also criminally good at writing earworm guitar leads. Nightrage have been an ever-present underdog, even after having some famed vocalists and guitarists pass through their lineup. They’re a sleeker band now but one that hasn’t really seen too much movement in recent years in terms of people coming and going – save for the drummer position – meaning that the Nightrage you see now has become a pretty solid musical landmark, and one that since 2015’s The Puritan and 2017’s The Venomous have been terrifyingly good at the surgical strike of a melodeath song.
Abyss Rising makes no moves to change that. Continue reading »