Straight out of the mean streets of Helsinki come the five-piece of Finnish ear-manglers known as Baron. It turns out that this is their first album, after a smattering of Eps, a single and a demo since 2016. Their PR biography makes a whole lot of different band comparisons – including the likes of Deicide, Morbid Angel and early Amorphis, as well as Rottrevore and Convulse. That’s quite the mix of influences – so what are Baron about?

Well, first things first, this guitar tone is immense. Think a much beefier version of the HM-2 metal-pedal school of death metal, but with all the dials turned up to 12. This thing feels absolutely muscular. If most death metal is the sonic equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger, then this album is the classic juiced-up era of the WWF.

In fact, this is a great album for anyone who really enjoys the mid-paced old school of Scandinavian death metal, but through modern sensibilities. It’s nowhere near as punk influenced, nor as deliberately heads-down straight ahead headbanging s its forebears, but it’s just as infectious. There’s a really superb knack of introducing some almost hardcore slower sections, that just manage to keep the metal side of the fence. Huge shouts out to the rhythm section here – because although there are riffs for days, the impressive drumming chops with cheeky double bass grooves that give way to slow, menacing stomps really notch this up another level. Album highlight “Infernal Atonement” is proof pudding of this formula. Yes – it has some straight ahead death metal, including some mad Slayer-on-crack soloing, but it also has this completely irresistible bass and drum powered chug that powers the whole thing.

There are some other neat surprises too. The fairly straight forward death metal is absolutely top notch, but there are some curveballs thrown into the mix. “Bound to the Funeral Pyres” is an example of this: it’s a tortured, warped and doomy affair, not unlike throwing the occult weirdness of a band like Runemagick into a blender with the cosmic psychedelia of Tucker-era Morbid Angel. It’s an astonishing creation – and to be frank a lot of other bands would have been content to make an entire album’s content just with the amount of ideas present in this one song. It’s thick, obscure but also manages to create the hooks to reel you in.

Production? Massive. It’s just a smothering, all-encompassing wall of heaviness. There’s an excellent set of vocal performances here too, which range from the deranged screams, to the hoarse bellow approach, and even some spoken word here and there too, all managing to co-exist with the monolithic tones of the guitars and bass. Fantastic.

I think this is genuinely a really exciting, innovative and fresh approach to death metal that somehow manages to blend death metal with doom, a dash of hardcore and a multi-coloured progressive flourish.

(9/10 Chris Davison)

https://www.facebook.com/baronhki

https://barondm.bandcamp.com/album/beneath-the-blazing-abyss