By Andrew Bansal
London-based traditional heavy metal quintet Amulet formed in 2010, and have been forging their way through the UK and European metal underground. After the 2011 release of their debut EP ‘Cut The Crap’, they devoted much time and effort into the creation of material for their first full-length album, simply titled ‘The First’, got signed to Century Media Records for a worldwide deal, and following the European release on September 22nd of this year, Amulet sit on their North American launch pad as ‘The First’ is set to be unveiled digitally on October 21st.
While it’s great for the sake of true heavy metal making a comeback that there’s a plethora of new, young bands pursuing the classic heavy metal style nowadays, on the same token it warrants a degree of caution from the exploratory listener’s perspective, in the process of landing on a select few that stand out from the rest. Fortunately, Amulet ace this test to a large extent with what ‘The First’ offers in all aspects musical, thematic and visual.
The album starts off all guns blazing with a series of scorching riffs and solos to go with clean, catchy vocal melodies in the fast-paced ‘Evil Cathedral’ and lets these five musicians breathe their talents into the music even more on the next track, a mid-paced and heavily riff-oriented composition ‘Glint Of The Knife’. Meanwhile, ‘The Gauntlet’ has an instantly recognizable Maiden-esque gallop to it. The 41-minute effort goes on to treat listeners with a diverse range of traditional heavy metal tunes that certainly don’t sound alike and showcase influence from a variety of metal gods such as Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Pentagram, Angel Witch and even Coven (Amulet’s cover of ‘Coven’s Wicked Woman’ featured as bonus track on the CD version of The First) but importantly with a scent of youthful exuberance reminiscent of a long-gone era that witnessed the birth of these very bands.
Making no attempt whatsoever to hide their love and worship of the good ol’ vinyl format, Amulet have mapped this album into two sides, the instrumental tracks ‘The Flight’ and ‘Talisman’ clearly placed as outro to Side A and intro to Side B respectively. These two creations really serve as the apt centerpiece of this album, the sonically epic ‘Talisman’ signifying the change in vibe from Side A to B as the latter half of The First comes across as discernibly more doom-laden, glistening with the Pentagram, Sabbath and Coven inspirations on tunes like ‘The Sacrifice’, ‘Wicked n Cruel’ and ‘Nightmare’, but is by no means monotonous as faster tracks ‘Mark Of Evil’ and ‘Trip Forever’ keep the variation intact.
The vocal melodies, guitar solos and bass lines are exemplary in classic heavy metal terms, the drumming is competent and highlights the changes in tempo excellently, and if any shortcoming or amendment could be pointed out, it has to be the rhythm guitar parts which aren’t quite as crystal clear as one would expect and the tonality of it should have been more prominent in the mix, but perhaps the way it sounds is exactly what the band was going for and that’s how it’s meant to be listened to.
While most of the new wave of traditional heavy metal groups seem to have risen from Scandinavia and North America in recent years, Amulet is the answer from the original birthplace of the genre. ‘The First’ succeeds as an introduction to Amulet, and fans of the genre would hope it’s not their last.
Rating: 8.5/10
Record Label: Century Media
Release Dates:
October 21st 2014 (USA)
September 22nd 2014 (Europe)
Track Listing:
01. Evil Cathedral
02. Glint Of The Knife
03. The Gauntlet
04. Bloody Night
05. Heathen Castle
06. The Flight
07. Talisman
08. The Sacrifice
09. Mark Of Evil
10. Wicked ‘n Cruel
11. Black Candle
12. Trip Forever
13. Nightmare
Amulet links: facebook | twitter | bandcamp